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people refer to community cats as feral cats but one of the things that's a key to <br /> understanding is that cats that we're talking about that are free-roaming cats—there's a <br /> span— right—a lot of the cats which are [unclear] that we're going to be discussing <br /> today for the pilot project fall more on the friendly side. They're not necessarily <br /> socialized, and they want to live in a home—they're used to being around people so <br /> they're not truly feral. A lot of them are pets that have simply been dumped because <br /> people don't have the resources to care for them. It's lack of affordable pet-friendly <br /> housing, etcetera. The other thing I want to mention is, I'm probably gonna gloss over a <br /> lot of things— I have shortened this presentation down, if anyone wants access to the <br /> full presentation that goes more into depth, I'm happy to provide it after this <br /> presentation. OK. Really briefly, this is just from thinking on cat population management <br /> but I think a lot of people don't realize, so, animal control is spending about, I think just <br /> about 3.6 million and really most of that money historically has been and most of the <br /> other volunteer resources on this Island are focused on rescue and adoption, sanctuary, <br /> these are the highest costs for intervention and they're not gonna give you the biggest <br /> impact broadly on animal problems in your community. Studies have feted out and <br /> realized that by existing the only cat population first—that's gotta be the lowest cost for <br /> intervention and help keep pets at home— next is gonna be really focusing on trap, <br /> neuter, return. And these are the two things that we're gonna talk about today. Aloha <br /> Animals has been partnering with the County to kind of tackle the bottom level here a <br /> little bit by offering free vaccines, etcetera, to improve health—we're hoping to expand <br /> to spay/neuter, but let's talk about that kind of level of—we have been working with <br /> stakeholders across the Island and Council to create a community cat management plan. <br /> We have a pilot area designated that we would like to try this—so Council Members <br /> came to us a couple of— I think we've been talking to them for about a year but recently <br /> had us take a look at some cats that were down here where they have the canoe huts <br /> and, they were, oh, can you kind of figure out what these cats are doing here and I was <br /> like, well, sure we can trap/neuter and return those cats— but we look at them, there's <br /> five or six maybe— but really what you have is this whole area is problematic, I'm just <br /> gonna refer to it as kind of Banyan Drive—Wailoa River quarter for cats, and these are <br /> problematic areas to have cats. I don't think anyone would argue with that—you've got <br /> a sensitive watershed area, you have Nene, etcetera, it's not the best location to be free <br /> feeding cats, and you're probably thinking oh, we know that T& R doesn't work. Well, I <br /> will tell you twenty years in this industry implementing T& R managed programs in <br /> locations—they do work but you—we have not had a well managed T& R program —we <br /> have a lot of well-meaning people out there feeding cats but they're not necessarily <br /> using best practices which has led to a lot of problems and then what I see is that <br /> everyone ends up fighting and saying, I don't want T& R, I want trap and kill, and the <br /> groups fight and nothing gets done and the problem has just continued to grow <br /> exponentially till where we are today and so we're really working on a plan that—it's a <br /> compromise—across all of these groups, so, probably no one's gonna be 100% happy <br /> with the protocols and the things that we're recommending to be put in place but over <br /> time they should drastically improve the community cat situation. <br /> 12 <br />