It is not just untrue, it is tragic to claim that feral cats “help maintain the ecosystem” (“Feral cats help maintain balance in ecosystem,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 1).
There are more than 300,000 feral cats estimated on Oahu alone. They are an invasive species responsible for disease and death in native, endemic and endangered species that exist nowhere else in the world.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists feral cats as one of the most harmful invasive species on the planet, contributing to the extinction of more than 30 species to date. A single cat excretes hundreds of millions of infectious Toxoplasma gondii eggs into the environment through its feces, spreading the lethal parasite that is the major cause of death by disease in the endangered Hawaiian monk seal.
Feral cats kill native Hawaiian wildlife, including the nene geese, palila, Hawaiian petrel, Newell’s shearwater, koloa, Hawaiian moorhen and ae‘o.
The Star-Advertiser did its readers a huge disservice in repeating the falsehood that feral cats “help maintain balance in ecosystem” in the headline for that ill-informed letter.
Luanna Meyer
Kakaako
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