Like every challenge, there is no easy, single solution.

If we opened Popoki Place tomorrow and–defying physics–took in all the cat colonies on the island, their numbers would likely be right back where they started very quickly. That's because there are root issues that must be addressed. We need to start working at the top of the funnel. 

Success requires ongoing, robust efforts on all four of these fronts:

1) Everyone spays and neuters their pets! Fix every cat you feed!

The biggest source of stray cats is our neighborhoods, where people still have unfixed pet cats outdoors. They might find homes for the kittens, but still don’t fix them or their mother. So they multiply. 

Kindly people continue to feed the growing group, but often don’t claim responsibility, dismissing them as “strays”. This is where Trap-Neuter-Return-Manage (TNRM) is desperately needed. Unfixed cats are much noisier and more aggressive than fixed cats, and quickly become a nuisance in neighborhoods. Angry neighbors then resort to trapping and dumping the cats at colonies (or worse). 

There are several reasons why people aren’t fixing the cats they feed.

• They have limited awareness of – or access to – low-cost spay/neuter services. 
• They don’t understand the benefits. Some people thing that fixing a cat is cruel.  Fixed cats suffer less, not more.
• They don’t understand the stakes: the effect cats have on the native ecosystem. 
• They have moral objections. There are some who believe sterilization is unnatural and that we should “let nature take its course”. Of course we don't agree with this, but for some it is a principle.

A robust, strategic public awareness campaign is needed to help people understand the stakes and to connect them with fix resources. 

Of course, even without this, demand already exceeds supply, so we are crushed when we hear wildlife advocates opposing funding for TNRM. 

We hope to open a dialogue with conservation groups and get on the same page so we can move faster to reduce the barriers between residents and low-cost TNRM services, and ultimately reduce the population of stray cats on Oahu.

2) Colony cats are fixed, returned and responsibly managed where they are.

To be clear, we would never suggest that we return a cat to a protected bird sanctuary if that's where it was trapped. The cat has no choice but to hunt, and within protected habitat chances are high that it will prey upon native birds. When we push hard to TNR as a strategy, we do not mean within protected bird habitat. If a critical habitat is not fenced, cats will constantly re-infiltrate without addressing neighborhoods where cats are reproducing.

But most colony cats on O‘ahu do not pose an immediate, direct threat to native wildlife. They are being fed and managed in industrial, commercial, residential and urban settings, where people and development have long since rendered the landscape uninhabitable by native wildlife.

It is in these settings where TNRM is critically important. Valiant efforts are underway, with volunteers trapping, neutering and returning over 15,000 cats in just the past few years. Some of these cats have since passed away and none of these cats have reproduced. 

3) We need to have many, thriving adoption sites.

People abandon their cats because our animal shelters are full. 

Ideally, when someone cannot keep their pet, there is a shelter they can take it to. Some reasons for surrender valid, like losing pet-friendly housing, or the owner passing away. 

Colony caretakers often identify these abandon pets because they show up for the food. When a friendly cat appears at a colony, the caretaker could ideally take it to a shelter to be scanned for a microchip, fixed and put up for adoption.

On Oahu, we're lucky have so many animal shelters where people can find their perfect cat: The Hawaiian Humane Society (and their associated cafe and Petco adoption cabinets) Lucky Paws Animal Foundation (and it's associated cafe Popoki & Tea), Toe Beans & Dreams Cat Cafe. OSPCA. 

But these adoption sites are generally always at or exceeding capacity. There just aren't enough homes to meet the rate at which kittens are being born and other pet cats are being abandoned.

4) The missing piece: a large-scale sanctuary

Popoki Place will provide a pressure-relief valve for shelters. We can take cats that aren't fitting in well in the shelter environment to make room for ones that are. We will take feral (unsocialized) cats from protected bird habitat so they don't have to be killed, and keep them safe, cared for, and contained.