Over 800 cats sterilized this month

LIHUE — Basil Scott of the Kauai Community Cat Project likes to stay active, but he said trapping 31 cats in four days took some effort.

And once he had them, Scott and his wife had to get the feral cats to All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Kapaa for the Animal Balance cat sterilization clinic in early September.

“We got them from different areas in Lihue and Kapaa,” Scott said. “That first day they also got 34 cats from the Westside and Poipu.”

The nonprofit Animal Balance wrapped up its third high-volume spay and neuter campaign Sept. 14 and sterilized a total of 802 cats during the two weeks they were on-island.

The campaign focused on cats that aren’t owned — known as feral or community cats — but also had a few spaces for owned cats to have surgeries for a low fee.

In 2017 Animal Balance was on Kauai twice. The first time volunteers sterilized more than 600 animals in the campaign including dogs, cats, owned and feral animals.

Volunteers and veterinarians returned to Kauai in March of that year to spay more than 500 more dogs and cats.

The focus has been on cats for Animal Balance’s campaigns, and in about a year the nonprofit and its local partners sterilized more than 2,400 cats.

“Kauai needs and deserves this help, and we thought this last campaign was a success,” Scott said.

Elsa Kohlbus, spokeswoman and coordinator with Animal Balance, said the clinics ran smoothly with local and worldwide volunteers coming together.

“It was our pleasure to work in partnership with the amazing local groups on the island,” Kohlbus said.

The first half of the September campaign was staged in Kapaa at All Saints’ Church and 550 cats were sterilized in those five days. The second half of the campaign was staged at a private residence in Kilauea and sterilized 252 cats.

With some traction gained in the goal to sterilize the feral cat population on Kauai and ultimately reduce the population, Scott and Kohlbus said the next step is to focus on a semi-mobile spay/neuter clinic.

Animal Balance is in the process of confirming a location for the spay pod to operate two days each week, with the capacity to do up to 40 cat sterilizations each day.

The pod is already paid for, purchased by Animal Balance and KCCP.

Kohlbus said the goal with the next MASH Campaign, yet to be scheduled, is to serve three to four areas of the island simultaneously.

“We look forward to continuing our work on Kauai,” Kohlbus said.

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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or at jelse@thegardenisland.com.