Question: I live in the Diamond Head/Monsarrat Avenue area behind Waikiki Elementary School. There are feral roosters and chickens multiplying in the schoolyard and also in Paki Park. They crow all day long and start at 3:30 in the morning. We have called the school, but the principal says they are not responsible for removing them because they are not their roosters and chickens. The Humane Society said they are not responsible, and I called the office of Councilman Trevor Ozawa and was given a number for me to call to have them removed at my expense! So I guess my question is, Who is responsible for removing these birds?

Answer: Your complaint is among several Kokua Line has received in the past few weeks from people whose sleep is disrupted by feral roosters crowing well before dawn in Waikiki, Kaimuki, Hawaii Kai, near Punchbowl and other Oahu neighborhoods.

In general, the city government is responsible for removing the birds from municipal property (it has a contract with Sandwich Isle Pest Solutions to do so). It appears that the roosters ruining your sleep live mainly in Kapiolani Park, which is city property. The city’s vendor will expand control efforts there, an official said.

Anyone else vexed by feral fowl on city property may report the location by calling the Department of Customer Services’ Public Information Center at 768-4381 or by supplying that information via the city’s online “report a concern” form at 808ne.ws/26mxZF5.

The city does not remove feral chickens and roosters from private property; landowners are advised to hire an exterminator on their own.

The Hawaiian Humane Society has a few traps it will loan out for a week with a $200 deposit, a spokeswoman said.

As to your specific complaint, neither Waikiki Elementary School nor your City Council representative is ignoring the problem, according to the information we received.

Department of Education facilities staff recently trapped about 10 chickens on the Waikiki campus, but a rooster evaded capture, said Donalyn Dela Cruz, a DOE spokeswoman, who added that the birds don’t belong to the school — they apparently migrate from Kapiolani Park in the evenings. “The schools do the best they can, but this is a problem all over, not just at schools and not just at Waikiki Elementary,” she said.

Ozawa, who represents your district, was out of town and unable to comment when we called. But his senior adviser, Francis Choe, said the office receives many complaints about the proliferation of feral chickens and roosters and takes each of them seriously. Complaints involving city property are forwarded for action by the city vendor, and constituents also are advised that “under the contract they can only trap chickens on city property,” Choe said.

Sandwich Isle Pest Solutions checks city-owned properties throughout Oahu with a reported presence of feral chickens, such as golf courses, parks, maintenance yards, bus facilities and Board of Water Supply locations, said Randy Leong, deputy director of the Department of Customer Services.

“Moreover, as a result of reports from the public, the program is also scheduled to include the Park-and-Ride facility in Hawaii Kai and Kapiolani Park,” he said.

Although you could specify the location, other readers were not exactly sure where the crowing originated, which is not surprising given that they were hearing it in the middle of the night, having been awakened from a sound sleep. Those readers should alert the Department of Customer Services and their City Council representatives of the general location so that government officials can gauge the scope of the problem.

It’s worth mentioning that Hawaii ranks worst in the nation for chronic sleep deprivation, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. A recent survey found that only 56 percent of Hawaii adults get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night. The report did not delve into why that was so; feral roosters can’t be wholly to blame, but they don’t help.

Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.