Coping with congestion on Oahu can present a pretty tough challenge, and that’s talking about only the human component. The island is also shared with animals, many of them pets but also a seemingly uncontrollable number of “free-roaming” or feral creatures, which cause nuisances, spread disease and bring other repercussions.

The problem animals range from the hens and chicks skittering across neighborhood streets to families of wild boar that encroach on suburbia.

But it’s free-roaming cats, in particular, that have caught the attention of many residents on Oahu, where some important programs aimed at managing the problem have emerged. And awareness of the issue is increasing statewide: Kauai County has set aside $30,000 for a task force that now is exploring ways of managing the island’s growing cat population.

On Oahu, attention has focused on the city’s limited resources for animal control, and the decision by one contractor, the Hawaiian Humane Society, to stop its service of picking up stray dogs and cats.The society’s own counts show no change yet in the intake of animals from the community.

In September 2012, 1,393 animals came into the Moiliili shelter, compared to 1,345 strays last month.
The city must continue to monitor Oahu’s ongoing animal-control concerns, but the initial signs are good.

The community so far seems to be stepping up and helping to bring in the strays, but it’s time to amplify that level of cooperation and expand it to include feral cat initiatives.

On Oahu these include some cat sterilization clinics, a partnership between the humane society and the nonprofit CatFriends with the goal of delivering 1,000 spay or neuter surgeries by the end of the month. This is a pilot project using funds provided by PetSmart Charities.

Jacque Leblanc, spokeswoman for the humane society, said two free clinics at the CatFriends facility on School Street launched the project in October, with more being planned through the end of the year (information: CatFriends, 226-4561, or the society, 946-2187).

The pilot is focused on the trapping and sterilization of feral cats in the Kalihi area, Leblanc said, and then returning them to their capture site. The humane society’s biggest intake of feral cats is from the 96819 zip code, so it was chosen as a test.

The idea is that reducing the number of fertile cats in a concentrated area, especially females, will lead to a reduction in the population of those colonies, she said; the male cats will travel, but not much farther afield than that.

Such projects are being conducted with some success around the country, said Margaret Slater, senior director of veterinary epidemiology at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In addition to controlling the colonies of free-roaming cats that already exist, Slater said, communities must concentrate on offering education and support to cat owners on the care of their own animals.

Owners struggling with animal behaviors, left to their own devices, often simply abandon the pets in the wild, which simply adds to the population of feral, often suffering, animals. Education will also help those who only feed feral cats to understand they are simply contributing to the untenable population explosion.

It’s clear Hawaii could use such an education. The humane society last year hired Ward Research Inc. to study various animal issues, and among the findings: Cat ownership rates are relatively low, at about 17 percent. However, the same percentage of the population report feeding cats that are not their own.

The study produced an estimate of the feral cat population on Oahu as exceeding 300,000.

If the reality comes close to that figure, it’s not a problem that can be allowed to fester.