News from the Kauai Community Cat Program

Happy Valentines Day and How About a One-One Match to Celebrate?

Aloha!

Time for our monthly update and then a couple of good meow’s stories!

TNR

In January we did 208 TNR’s which is right at our objective. February looks to be a similar month even though this time a year for some odd reason things do slow down a bit. More good news. The Kauai Humane Society has brought another vet on board and they seem to be adding appointments which definitely helps.

Transfers/Adoption/Return to Owner
In January we did have 2 transfers to Seattle Humane and an individual transfers plus a good number of return to owners which I will talk about in a bit. Our total was 26 which we do feel good about. We would have loved a third transfer but the timing was just not right.

What does February look like?

TNR – as I said earlier February for TNR’s should be pretty normal. We, of course, hope for 200 but it’s hard to tell what will happen.

Speaking of that. Several people have asked me why I say you can never tell how many you will get on any given day. This is an example – for one of the buses in January, I scheduled 77 cats which was well over our absolute have to have number of 40 and well over what we want which is 50. On that day we had 58 show up and of those 2 were already fixed so really should have not come in. So you are saying how can that happen? People are trapping and can’t catch the cats they wanted – the more you fix in an area the harder it is to get the last couple, weather plays a big part – for some reason most cats don’t want to come out when it’s raining or windy, some people do forget in spite of reminders and sometimes instead of 3 you tried to get you only catch 1. I totally understand and that’s why we schedule more than wanted. What happens if they all show up on a given day? That has sort of happened once but everyone powered through and we got all done!

Transfers – this is a hard one to accept. Seattle Humane who has been a transfer partner for years and years has lost their Lifesaver Manager and 2 coordinator’s. Until the positions are filled we are on hold. Our other partner The Noah Center has been swamped over the last couple months but hopefully things are more normal now and we can resume later in the month. Fingers crossed. We did have a regular transfer with the new Hawaiian Cargo group supporting our friends at Alaska Airlines and everything went well. With Alaska Airlines merging with Hawaiian Airlines it has given Alaska the ability to now use their own cargo crews which they have never had before. The had been working with Aloha Cargo and we will miss that group since after years we got them trained to just love us.

So what else you say? Well it’s almost Valentine’s Day. You know how I love to celebrate that day and I want to do something special.

First – I want to celebrate the day by having a 1-1 match (everyone groans) because that makes it more FUN! Yes. For each dollar donated, KCCP gets an extra dollar from our Valentine’s Match Donor (VMD). The VMD has agreed to a $10,000 limit match which I think is wonderful. I have asked everyone for so much over the last 6-7 months I am surprised when I ask more people donate. Surprised but very grateful.

So when you have a match going on what better time than to give some good meow’s stories.

1) Return to Owners
What does that mean you ask. Well cats get separated from their owner and a Good Samaritan either gets them scanned for a microchip or brings then into the bus and sometimes we are able to reunite them with their owner. Just recently a kitty was brought in and it was already chipped. When I set the alert through 24 PetWatch I had not even hung up the phone and the owner, Rachael, was calling. Rachael was in tears because their kitty, Little Girl, had vanished and she suspected her neighbor had done something bad. She could not believe it was the right kitty and I just happened to have a photo and forwarded it. She was yelling at the kids to come and look and everyone just went nuts. Little Girl was reunited with her family.

A second instance was a kitty called Grayson. He showed up at a volunteers home looking a lot worse for wear. She (Yes her name is Susan but not me) took him to the bus and he was scanned. We discovered Grayson was about 11 which just breaks your heart. Susan called the contact number that was 11 years old and Yvette answered and said OMG. Grayson has been gone for 9 years! Grayson was returned to Yvette’s parents and the next weekend Yvette and her kids flew to Kauai from Oahu to pick up Grayson. Everyone was thrilled! The airlines even told everyone Grayson’s story and he was treated like a king! How exciting!

2). Transfers are cool.

We had one event at the end of December – one of those when you least expect it. I was talking to a friend about cats and she had rescued an older cat and eventually found its owner and now she was cat-less. I had just gotten a picture of a cat (are you surprised) from one of our volunteers (no not another Susan this time but Mel) that was friendly cat just showed up. Hummm. Of course I showed this picture to the person who was now cat-less (her name happens to be Susan too so I didn’t want to confuse you). In about a week this kitty named Otis Jr was in the sky on his way to Gearhart Oregon to his new wonderful life. Otis reports things are great and his mom and dad worship him. The dog would love to worship him but Otis says not time yet.

Not to minimize any of the above stories but what I consider epic is this last story. It will bring a tear to your eye. How many of you remember MINNIE? She was the kitten that had been hit by a car and all of her internal organs were rearranged. She had a diaphragmatic hernia and could not eat. She was pretty close to meeting her maker. However, with the help of Lihue Vet, Dr Maya, Alex, Kim and literally a cast of thousands which included all of you Minnie pulled through her surgery (from what I read they actually did CPR). All of you remember my plea for $$$ since the surgery was very very expensive but the people surrounding MINNIE said it was worth it. She was special. So months later it’s time for MINNIE to find a home. It has to be someone who understands how special she is and how close to death she was. Lots of soul searching. I emailed a wonderful person named Marie who had adopted Mr Lucky several years ago and I watched how wonderful she was to this old kitty Last year Mr Lucky unfortunately died and Marie was devastated. Long story short Minnie flew last Thursday/Friday to Indy to her new home. I got a text from Minnie yesterday. It said
“Aloha Susan! I think I can make this place work

And the yard looks really interesting. But Mom says we have to wait to go outside until it gets warmer. It’s too cold for me now. I’m not sure I understand what she’s talking about “

As I always say – we could not do any of this without our supporters – thank you so much.

Please remember our 1-1 Valentines Match good now through end of day February 14. Think of Minnie, Otis, Little Girl and Grayson Show your kitties that you love them by making a donation to help Kauai Cats.

All donations are tax deductible! Every dollar donated is used on our kitties. There are multiple ways you can donate.

You may donate directly to KCCP by one of three methods:
– Via PayPal: PayPal.Me/kauaicats (Kauai Ferals)
– Via our website
– Send a check in the mail, made out to KCCP, and address the envelope to KCCP, PO Box 143, Kekaha, HI 96752

KCCP is a registered non-profit, 501(c)3, and contributions are deductible to the extent permitted by law. Thanks in advance for your continued support of Kauai’s cats!

Thanks in Advance
Susan

Mahalo for your kokua of Kauai’s community cats!

2-7-25

2024 In The Books!

Aloha!

In case anyone missed it – it’s 2025!

Happy New Years!

If you were on Kauai definitely did not miss the excitement. There are more fireworks going off than people can imagine if you have never lived through it. Horrible time for animals and people that are sensitive to the noise. WE SURVIVED!

2024 was pretty crazy. We learned a bunch of stuff. I have always believed that if you don’t learn something from what you are doing there is something wrong with you and if you don’t make corrective action there is something wrong with you as well.

So 2024 was let’s try this or let’s try that. There was some – who’s idea was that, I told you that was stupid and more of well that was not what I thought would happen. All in all, we are stronger each year that we have the bus and we are more dedicated to making this all work and getting to the point the number of homeless/abandoned cats starts to decline.

What was 2024 in a nutshell?

We continued to focus on getting cats fixed! 2024 showed a little over 2300 cats fixed at the bus and another 170 for us at the Kauai Humane Society. KHS has been great at giving us a couple spots each week for emergencies and that is a life saver.

On the transfer and adoption front we were able to send about 270 cats to our partners on the mainland and another 75 that we either adopted out locally or off island. Our partners at Seattle Humane and The Noah Center have been great. It seemed to both of them kitten season went on forever but they continued to take our Kauai kitties on a regular basis and for that we are grateful.

What else? Kauai County once again had increased the heat about cats on county property. To cat lovers we will never understand but it’s a fact of life. Thankfully several long time cat lovers and supporters decided it was time to do something so they are working on a plan to save the Lydgate cats. Not going to give names or go into details since I don’t want to jinx anything but my fingers are crossed! What their hope is that others on island will do the same thing and save other endangered cats on Kauai!

Our plans – full steam ahead! We are going to plan for 4 bus days a month and attempt to send 3 transfers to the mainland each month. Slow and steady wins the race and that is what we want to do!

As I always say – none of this is possible without our volunteers. They keep this machine going. And of course without our supporters none of this is possible.

I will mention that all donations to KCCP are tax deductible. There are multiple ways you can donate.

KCCP is a registered non-profit, 501(c)3, and contributions are deductible to the extent permitted by law. Thanks in advance for your continued support of Kauai’s cats!

Thanks in Advance
Susan

Mahalo for your kokua of Kauai’s community cats!

1-4-25