 Aloha and welcome to Eyes on Hawaii. I'm your host, Carol Cox. Today my guest is Ms. Jennifer Kishimora, president of Cat Friends, a non-profit organization based in Honolulu, Hawaii. The topic today is Trap Nudah Release or Return of Feral Cats. Cat Friends' goal is to control the population of feral cats in a humane manner by trapping, spaying, and neutering. And first of all I want to again welcome Ms. Jennifer Kishimora who is the president of Cat Friends. And thank you Jennifer for joining me and can you introduce yourself and to my viewers out there and what what is it that Cat Friends and all of those good things that you do? Well we started in 1999 and we became a non-profit in 2002. We decided to form an organization solely to spay and neuter because we didn't want to open another sanctuary to fill it up within a day or two. So we thought if we can reduce the population humanely by trapping and spaying and neutering that would help substantially because our climate here is conducive to breeding and we don't have natural predators. So our goal is to manage colonies so if there's a feeder they need to be actively trapping and monitoring the colonies so there's no breeding. Now my background is as an environmentalist I'm always concerned about the ecosystems and native species and their demise and but I have to I want to publicly thank you for doing something that others dare not to. There's a lot of discussion out there and a lot of you know pointing the finger and disruption and those people that are trying to do something. So thank you and it's a task I know and I also know that it's something that not many people can appreciate it. They treat this whole effort trapping to release as being a problem rather than a portion or solution. It's not the only solution but putting it with marrying with other things it helps. So why did you get started again? What prompted you? Well we're sensitive to the environmental issues so our purpose is to reduce the population of the cats being out there. So it reduces the impact it has on the environment. So it's definitely a positive. There's no way to just trap all the cats and remove them because it creates a vacuum effect where more cats will come in. So this is the humane way to do it. People trap and euthanize that cost more for one thing. Our services we are all volunteers and we always need more volunteers too. We loan out traps to people if they have a colony that they're feeding. They can borrow a trap from us trap the cat bring it into our clinic. We have usually about three clinics every month and we're over 2400 cats we fixed already this year and we're going to be beyond 4,000 by the time this year it's over and every year we do this. Now there are people there sitting pause what you did you hear that number that she just quoted or cited how weird how bad that is that number of cats but the reality is these are cats that you and your volunteers who we will talk about go out trap on their own time right at their own expense and bring them then and put them out there. No these cats were there they were either abandoned or they were bred born there most of the cats were dumped at some point or they strayed from their owners so they're actually called community cats as opposed to feral cats because some of them are semi-friendly but they may not be deemed adoptable meaning they can't sit on your lap so they pretty much have no place to go but where they are. Now for the viewers out there who's watching this and if they're sitting on the fence well I don't believe it like myself we need to do something even myself as reluctant as I am to get involved to the fullest extent I don't see anything else happening anything aggressive and humane that I would be part of other than your program and not just your program but the TNR program and as many people frown on it I myself used to frown on it and make funny jokes about it but then it came to realization that what's left euthanization and what I've also observed now because I took it up on myself to get involved and observe what was happening you find colonies there's a problem there are sometimes the the UI you are URI the infections which causes their eyes to pop out or fall out and do we as human beings want to be responsible for knowing the people introducing them to the wild and then you have these diseases and I'm caring so well share the upper respiratory infection is not contagious to people it's just with the cat so when we do see cats that are sick in these colonies we do pull them and get veterinarian care when we're when it's possible there's a bunch of people talking about toxoplasmosis these days and the monk seals that have perished they are saying it's because of the toxoplasmosis from the cats but there is no proof of that whatsoever they're doing all these studies right now to just prove that that claim well I have a few comments not unkind comments about that but and I won't go into them in detail but I would say the cats in the wild are being used by people that can't get a job or make a job and so they create a fear in saying these are the things that have happened federal agencies that do that yes cats eat birds and cats do go to the restroom but also these agencies should be turning their sites on and training the sites on people and law that go and abandon these animals exactly and and not view you or your efforts as a problem right there's a colony that we have a managed colony at one of the parks and we have a contract with the property manager there and they installed cameras so we had the first person charged with abandonment last year and he was fine just a you know small token but at least he was a he he didn't understand that it was illegal to abandon animals so I think more publicity needs to be out there so people know that is not the right thing to do if you want to if you want to get rid of your pet find a home for yourself or take it to the humane society their open door admission they'll take any animal that is brought to them but don't dump it into a colony thinking oh someone's feeding it will be fine because most of the time they don't survive you know people can be as cruel as your imagination can allow you to run and that is it recently we recovered a mother and three kittens that someone placed in a bag and tied the bag and left the mother and the kittens on the hot pavement there at Sand Island at the bridge there unfortunately that's a common occurrence all over the island different stories like that and yet that situation does not rise to the level and get the attention of the scorn of the people sitting at home or the environmentalists are sitting at home or in their groups being critical of the caretakers right or the people that are feeding something should give there I mean and and do you get a down reach from government entities as state or environmental groups we do not our main purpose we we don't want to encourage people feeding without managing the colony meaning they're trapping actively keeping the population at so it doesn't increase at all or decreases over time through natural attrition but we don't have any government support we have all our donations are from individuals private donations and we do things like food lands give aloha and projects like that to raise funds so all of our funds we are all volunteers with with the exception of the vet and vet staff and we charge people five dollars the vets charge us thirty dollars so cat friends makes up twenty five dollars per cat to be fixed so it adds up very quickly when you're fixing see this is the good deed this is the good side and it gets overshadowed by the naysayers or the people who critical because they the right thing is to protect environment but again you're saying that you get donations and and a lot of the donations of personal money that people are pumping in it you know myself included in all the other people that volunteer we put a lot of funds directly into infusing money your own personal money and some donations and you take that money and you hold it and you charge the individual who brings a cat in five dollars right and in turn the vet will charge us thirty dollars which is a discounted rate for that right because we're doing at our clinic but it's still it adds up when you're paying twenty five dollars per cat and we're fixing for that's a well-kept secret because see most people know you as being those people who are being irrational and not you know just cat crazy but it's far removed from that well we want to decrease the population of the community cats we don't want to be increasing we don't want cats to have kittens we have enough out there we don't want to encourage people breeding cats or letting their pets have kittens it just that's against what we believe in what are your recommendations to viewers that are watching this to say to prevent increase in population what measures can they take getting taken the animal having an adopted if they're going to be moving or their parents die and they got the cat and they don't want to keep it what are you suggesting they can list on craigslist and screen the people they can post notices at most vets offices some pet stores will allow notices to be posted but the main thing is we want to encourage all of those pets to be fixed before being adopted out because unfortunately the people that adopt sometimes are lazy they don't get it done and oops there's a cat got pregnant and so forth so we want to encourage all people's pets to be fixed well even if they're indoor only it's a healthier thing that they are much healthier when they're sterilized and we we're in a tropical setting to him and so as you pointed out they are likely to be able to mate three times a year yes on the mainland in a cold climate how many times once that usually once a year so we kind of have kitten season year-round unfortunately right now is peak kittens just so so we're going to come back after this break that we take but we'll talk about it what can people look for you know when people see cats out in a while and say oh there's another cat they don't know that it's neutered so there's a way of telling me that they've been neutered and you can share that with us in some of the pitches who would demonstrate that but again volunteers could you give you an address and contact information so that volunteers are people that want to donate to you we have a website it's hi cat friends org and our phone number is 2264561 so the best way to contact us is through our website hi cat friends org and then you can go on to email there or it has our phone number as well our clinic is located on school street north school street and our address and all the details are on the website well we're going to take a break shortly here and my guess is Jennifer Kishy Moore she's the president of cat friends Hawaii and cat friends and we're talking about trap neuter release I'm your host Carol Cox this is eyes on Hawaii we'll be right back shortly aloha and welcome back to eyes on Hawaii I'm your host Carol Cox today my guest is miss Jennifer Kishy Moore of cat friends an organization concerned with the population control of cats through trap neuter release and in a humane manner so we were talking about cat friends and the phenomenal work that you're doing out there because I want to say clearly that you're not collecting cats on one side of the island and move transported them on unlike what people want to believe you're actually fixing them in a specific area and returning them to the exact to that site right and and if people go out to a park for instance if they see a cat with an ear notch it will mean the cat has already been sterilized so it cannot breed so any cat that we see in these colonies that does not have a notch we will trap and take into our clinic to be fixed several times we've found the pets that have been lost which has been great because people will trap them thinking it's a just a feral cat or community cat and it's a missing pet a lot of times it's unfortunately abandoned pets that people find and they don't want them back but that's the way to tell if the cats been fixed or not the right ear is a female cat and left ear is a male cat on the screen you have a female cat there the notch the notches on their on the right for the female cat right in L male leftist male yes so if people don't understand it just ask the cats which is your left or right side either way they're fixed so they're gender neutral now right well one of the sad things that we we've learned you you hit on it a bit is that people neighbors will steal neighbors cats and dump them and dump them we'll take them and transport them across the island and dump them I mean that is a label for one but it happens and we find on occasion as you've found where you each cat also when you neuter them we microchip them it has a microchip so we can trace that microchip back to the owner so one instance we had we had a cat and it had been lost for three years and we found the owner because of the microchip so it's a good thing to have all your pets microchip dog or cat so these are things that people don't know which is a benefit I mean we are not a cruel nation of people we are sensitive it's just sometimes we act emotionally it's just without thinking but what I have observed and what is so painful is to when you walk into a colony and or you see cats and one has blind in them just float and they need medical care but you don't see an army of people you don't see an army of ecologists you don't see an army of anyone other than the the cat friends volunteers or people that volunteer private citizen that out there addressing those points because what I've learned government is not going to pay per diem to overnight or holidays or and you got to be out there 24-7 because people are constantly introducing and and animals do wonder and so today you have a colony that has nine cats so let's say that's been neutered everything's flowing well you come back there's a dump the kitchen so what we try and do is pull those kittens if we can socialize them and find homes for them we do that through different organizations finding homes we used to do adoptions ourselves through petco but now Hawaii cat Foundation Joey's feeling friends Hawaiian Humane Society they do most of our adoptions so if you were to assess this and give us a gauge of how do you think you're doing on the overall population though or is it do you think you're winning ground not just on the population of cats but winning ground with the other entities that are concerned are they welcoming you or reaching out to you we've said earlier you said not very many of them but do you see any glimmer of hope in them changing their posture some of them do because they realize without us doing anything the population is getting worse I was banned from a harbor from trapping and neutering and unfortunately the population has gone up tremendously in one year because of that and they're trying to ban feeding so there's a lot of issues there but the best thing we can do is just keep trapping neutering and someone responsibly feeding not just throwing food around but have certain areas that are designated for feeding yeah and and and I know the the the harbor you're talking about K he I've gotten about six complaints and the management there seemed to be using the cat feeding in that cat TNR program as part of a retaliate a tool a weapon they weaponize the actual feeding and so now the population has increased because they ordered the person to stop feeding and I am not allowed to trap on property right and and so they get that point across but then we see an explosion of cats in that population so again it's it's disheartening to see how it operates it's very short sighted they're not seeing the big picture if you keep we need a very strict policy of where to feed how to feed when to feed how much to feed so the colony there's no really colony caretaker there anymore there's a feeder but I don't you know they are not part of an active program and be actively there's a large fallacy here something that's not being said in that many people are hiring agencies are quietly hiring exterminators to go in and trap and kill them correct what is it involved just I don't want to shock my viewers but what does it involve the euthanasia how is it done when they trap them could you walk me through that depends on the organization that's doing the trapping to euthanize so they are supposed to be taking them to the Humane Society to be injected and euthanize that way DLNR has different rules military bases they you know bellows they used to shoot them in traps take a 22 rifle right there it could be a it someone's pet they don't know they just shoot them in the trap they don't scan them first unfortunately that we've tried to work with the military and they haven't been very open to trap new to return and they're the ones that seem to have more of the cat problems than anywhere else because they're just trapping removing and there's plenty of food sources on bases yeah I that's a sore spot with me because many of these people that sit in auger that the caregivers or the cat trappers and the TNR people are evil but I don't see them speaking out and being as verbal and objecting to new buildings being built of parking lots being good you know they say well don't don't feed the cats because they'll kill the birds and take Walmart for example there was a massive colony attempt to control that and and they were frowning on it and says you stop feeding them all the people to stop feeding even threatened with the rest and then because they want to protect birds and I too want to protect birds but but months later it becomes a super block and no birds could find its way around can't find a pebble a kernel of corn so yeah so something doesn't why it just don't match up you see I love for it we we are scientific about it but the reality of what we really do I don't really think we care about managing resources I think we've gotten caught up in that they're evil and we are not we're the managers of the environment but their words don't match their actions so again I applaud you and and so with this how does one go and volunteer with your organization I want to emphasize that and the best thing to do is go online at hi cat friends org and there's a sign up sheet for registration for our spay neuter clinics and then we also have a trap loan availability so people can come they put down a deposit on the trap of $100 they usually rate a check and then as soon as they return the trap they get the check back so we don't cash the check it's just if they don't return the trap so we make them accessible to everybody that and if we have people that are in blitz are not able to drive we do have volunteers that offer to transport mm-hmm so there's a lot of people out there but we need more volunteers all the time just to keep the clinics running yeah well here's a downside one of the negative things about tnr mm-hmm that is if you are a cat feeder you're likely to end up with a houseful of cats because they all win your heart they warm their way into your heart and you just you can't let them leave about that I can't leave this guy here I have to confess I have four of them that I just couldn't leave in fact you feed them and you you're making sure they get the medicine and not breeding and the next thing you know they're in your car and not wanting to get out so what that brings me to I'm trying to get to is that many of them have already been acclimated to human beings and circumstance found them out in the wild either for whatever reason and I think that is one of the cruelest things to acclimate an animal or condition an animal to be part of a family part and humanize them and then in turn just abandon them agreed that that's to me and forget all of the science and all of that it's still a cruelty yeah and so like me many of you out there I invite you to join in go to cat friends and you too will have a house full of cats if you're just a trapper you will spay neuter and return but you gotta have good restraint man because well I'm married so that's my restraint there I have five cats so that's pretty good for but you understand what I'm saying it's you you see them and you know this animal has been conditioned to human beings and now he's ripped he don't fit in the wild he doesn't fit in here and it's sort of and now there are some that you the males for example with the huge heads that have not been neutered it's just roaming is quite likely to be responsible for father many of the cats so you only need one male in a well and they'll father the kitten of all the they can impregnate all the females in the colony absolutely and then if there is no one in that colony they'll go on to another colony and unfortunately those cats that haven't been fixed often spray so they're hard to bring in doors as a pet even if they are friendly so again I appreciate it we're coming down at the last minute and and I don't I don't want to end this conversation but is there anything you'd like to say to the views and listeners out there I would just say please get involved we always can use help donations are appreciated go to our website please it's hi cat friends org or you can call us at 226 4561 and the more assistance we get the more cats we can fix yeah and I'd like to say in closing we need to show a little more compassion and and in doing so it makes a better place for all of us contrary I'm not gonna sit here and be Gandhi or anyone I don't pretend to be that but once you're there and if you're fair about it you know that cats controlling their population because they don't have a natural prey here a predator here and they don't belong in the wild but the fact is that they are because human beings in our way of life have put them there place them there no fault of the cat so we need to in combination in concert with all aspects of it work with the science community the biological concerns the humane society concerns and all those military concerns all of those and one thing that really gets me is that when people move here they adopt pets they know they're gonna be leaving there should be a room that say if you're going to adopt an animal you must carry it with you or be prohibited from because those animals find their way dumped in the parks because those we get a lot of unfortunately military dumps and we've met with military personnel higher ups and unfortunately it's a very challenging upward battle trying to get them to agree to that we need to make progress and see a change in that we're not demonizing the military it's just a reality just certain I mean there's wonderful military families of course I had one girlfriend that took 12 cats back to the mainland with her but a lot of the cats that we do find abandoned are from military families unfortunately well Jennifer Kishimura thank you for joining me I appreciate you joining and especially the last minute I'm always the last-minute person so thank you for joining me on Eyes on Hawaii my guests miss Jennifer Kishimura of Cat Friends go to their website and view what they do and if you want to volunteer or donate please do they need your help aloha and thank you this is Carol Cox your host for Eyes on Hawaii and thanks for Jay Fidel the executive director and Bob Lynch and Ray Sangalong and thank all of you for joining in and helping us get this message out.