News from the Kauai Community Cat Program

Welcome to the latest news from Kauai Community Cat Project!
Want to know about updates from recent kitties? Go to our Kitty Updates page!

1-1 Match Update, October and Beyond!

Aloha!

First I want to thank everyone who contributed in the 1-1 match at the end of October. We were able to max out the matching pledge and I was able to shop so we have essential supplies to get us through the rest of the year and start out 2025.

October was a busy month and we are starting November off with a bang with the bus running the 2nd and the 3rd, so sorry for the delay in sending this but bus days are busy ones.

Some October news tidbits:

Spay/Neuter:

Our bus was open 3 days and we did a total of 138 surgeries and another 10 at the big event at KHS. This brings our yearly totals to 2,118. Huge number!

Thanks to Dr Maya and her team, the outside volunteers, the trappers and the community that is stepping forward to get kitties fixed. A big shout out to Bisell Pet Foundation’s FixThe Future for their continued support.

A little known fact is after a busy spay neuter day we set some time aside (ok that is a figure of speech) and we do Health Certificates for kitties flying to the mainland in the next 10 days. We need to make sure there are no health issues and all kitty parts are working properly!

A special thanks to two of our trappers for supporting the KHS event and taking in cats!

Transfers:

Big Month! We had a total of 52 positive outcomes as the phrase goes. Of those 42 went to our partners at Seattle Humane and The Noah Center. We also sent 2 little orange fur balls to a private party in Oregon, 1 local adoption and 7 that we returned to their owners. Very productive month. Our focus on transfers is getting friendly cats that are dumped in our at risk colonies to a safe environment. It’s a hard task but something that is very necessary.

We did learn of a troubling thing – Not really a new thing but still troubling. Apparently the county has signed a new contract with a vendor to remove cats and pigs from county parks. This is the bill that went into effect several years ago. This will be their 3rd vendor to do this.

We understand the big push at Lydgate is when they close the campground mid month for cleaning.

Everyone wants to help. If you are on island and can – why not adopt a kitty. There are some friendly ones. We send kitties from Lydgate to the mainland for adoption on a regular basis as well. If you are on the mainland and are interested in adopting send me an email and I can go over the process with you.

Of course this is just not at Lydgate but all the county parks – they just seem to always focus a little harder on Lydgate.

You can also express concerns by emailing the county council and/or mayors office.

What’s happening the rest of the year? November should be a normal month with 4 bus dates and several transfers and we plan to close the year with what I call our ‘Mega Bus’ in December where we should have 2 vets each day and at this point we even have 4 transfers planned. Of course all is subject to change but you got to have a plan and we do! As I always say….

….none of this is possible without our supporters! We thank you from the bottom of our heart!

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!

11-4-24

An Epic September!!!!

Aloha!

Well Whew! That’s about all I can say. September ended with a big bang and the first week of October has been non stop. But this is our September focus email so will leave October updates for another time.

September saw us doing what I am calling 4 mega-buses. We had 3 vets which allowed us to double the fun! And fun it was….well…there were hiccups and arguments and some frustration as we perfected our mega process but we did it. We fixed 325 cats in 4 days and the 4 days were done within a weeks time period. Whew!

None of this would have been possible without the Bissell Pet Foundation and their FixTheFuture program. They have been very supportive and so easy to work with. We received grants help us fund some of our bus expenses. Thank you so much much Kim and Sam from Bissell Pet Foundation for making this all happen.

Big thanks to Dr. Maya for pushing us and getting this all set up and showing that we can do this mega clinic. Above is a picture from I believe day 4. I wish i had one from each day because what you would see are some of the same people but then additional people that helped for a day or two but were not there day 4.

Acknowledging our spay neuter fabulous bus team:
Dr Maya Bewig
Dr Lauren Abrahamsen
Dr Jessica Jackson
Alex Taogoshi
Carol Dunmeyer
Christine Burns
Cory Jackson
Courtney Haight
Deb Mackowski
Kim Reale
Liz Chang
Scott Hubert

Also I want to thank the front line volunteers. They have a very difficult job to make sure everything outside the bus works smoothly. We always need more outside help and constantly are asking but I think most people think it’s not their thing. So if anyone reading can give me at least 4 hours or better yet 8 hours one or 2 days a month let me know!

The Outside Warriors:
Susan Reeves
Pam Swift
Teri Kaye
Michelle Wester
Gigi Chandler
Helen Savage
Jessica Rappold
Eric Sparks
Mary

I am sure I missed a couple and I apologize but trying to keep things moving in the right direction was challenging.

As if that was not enough we sent 2 transfers to the mainland with several return to owners and even some unusual local adoptions for a total of with a total 25 kitties in their homes.

Going forward we have the bus in October along with multiple transfers and a lot of good news stories.

Then we come into November and December where you never know if transfers will happen due to weather restrictions and lots of people try to focus on holidays.

As I always say, none of this is possible without our supporters! We thank you from the bottom of our heart!

All donations are tax deductible! Every dollar donated is used on our kitties. 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!

10-6-24

Believe it or not – August is in the History Books!!!!

Aloha!

We are in the final long stretch of the year which means it’s almost Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. What? Where has the time gone?

A review of our major stats.

August was a planned slow month for us. The SPCA wrapped up their mega clinics in July and we thought it was a good time to let everyone take a well deserved break. Well not everyone but our bus group.

The Kauai Humane Society was good enough to schedule us some time and we were able to get 38 cats TNR’d! This brings our yearly total between us, SPCA and KHS to 1631.

On the transfer side of our world we were able to send 24 to the mainland for a year to date of 211. This is in spite of what has been described to me as one of the worst kitten seasons they have seen on the mainland!

In one of the groups that flew last month we are pleased to tell you that Kili went to Seattle Humane. She the the beautiful white kitty that needed a dental and an eye removal before she could fly, everyone was wonderful and we were able to collect enough extra to make that happen. Not sure if I mentioned this last month but we were also able to send Pete who was the orange guy that had an amputation due to a badly healed broken leg. He went the end of July. Additionally there were about 6 adults – all of whom were dumped/abandoned in colony’s and the feeders took them home, fattened them up and they have flown. Yes – we do check all cats for owners. Unfortunately, people move, leave the island and sometimes no longer want the poor dumped kitties.

Kauai Charity Walk – We attended the results breakfast at the beginning of August where we were awarded our yearly check. This check covered the monies that were donated in our name to the Charity Walk which totaled about $21,000, in addition to a bonus of about $6,000! That was very welcomed check! Thank you to everyone that donated!

Health Update. Minnie that had the hernia diaphragmatic surgery is doing well. Gaining weight (3.6 pounds) and acting like a little kitten should. The total bill ended up being double the estimate but due to our donors concerns for Minnie we were able to cover the costs. Minnie still has some recovery and I have an idea that she will probably end up living on Kauai with one of our volunteers since she is a special needs kitten.

What’s up in September? Back to our sort of normal model. The bus will be running 4 days this month but due to our August break we are doing 4 mega clinics and a vet from the mainland will be joining us. We are currently totally booked for our September dates and will be scheduling October soon.

In September we have 3 transfers scheduled and they will hopefully not be delayed due to issues on the mainland1

In other words September is a huge busy month for us all,

I would be remiss if I did not say thank you for those that contacted us on hearing of Margo’s passing (Liz’s mom). Liz received so many kind words and they definitely were a comfort to her.

As I always say, none of this is possible without our supporters! We thank you from the bottom of our heart!

All donations are tax deductible! Every dollar donated is used on our kitties. 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!

9-3-24

Happy July 4th!!!!

Aloha!

It’s the 4th of July!! While everyone is celebrating I thought I would provide some data:

June!
TNR:
KCCP – 109
SPCA – 192
Total for month of June – 301 and year to date, 1406!

These are fantastic numbers!! For July, SPCA and Dr Maya will do 2 more what I call “mega bus” dates in Anahola. For those that have asked – they are spay/neutering dogs on a separate day and appointments can be made via the SPCA web page. In August we are going to give Dr Maya and the bus a break and then we will be back with our normal 4 days a month through the end of the year.

Transfers:
29 for the month with a total of 160 for the year!

We are going to keep trying to do our transfers at our current pace since we have so many that we have on our wait list. Kitten season has been bad everywhere. The Humane Society is struggling with the overwhelming number of intakes for both cats and dogs so a larger number that we expected have ended up with us.

Future:
What does it look like through the end of the year? Everything costs more. I know I don’t need to tell you this. This is what we all say to each other every day and it’s no different with transfers or trying to run our business. Cost of doing business is up.

We are really struggling to come up with a good plan to allow us to keep going at our normal pace through the end of the year. Unexpected equipment maintenance fees just hit hard, lots of unexpected vet bills for cats we are trying to send to the mainland have hit us the end of June – it seems to go on and on. We have been applying for grants to augment our normal donations and you saw toward the end of May my panicked eBlast asking for help. Everyone was awesome and really came through for us and allowed us to catch up on our bills. We have been reaching out to previous donors and as I said submitting for grants and generally groveling.

One of our approved grants should be coming through in another month and based on our current situation it will just about catch our credits cards back up and hopefully other grants we have applied to may bring us a little extra.

Our goal is to keep doing what we do. Fixing cats is our primary goal, and then sending dumped cats and kittens to our partners in the mainland. Year to date our partners Seattle Humane and The Noah Center have both been great. Even though they are super full they are always willing to say yes and help up! We so appreciate them.

To just give you a peek at things in the first 6 months of the year, our expenses were just at $200,000. That is a huge amount of money for our little non profit. Our total donations are about half of that amount. I am sure you are saying – what is wrong with you guys. Last year at this time we had expended about $140,000 which was more normal for us. As I said everything is more expensive. More cats have high dollar medical needs, airlines cost more, cat food and litter is more.

Bottom line. We appreciate all of our supporters, who in spite of the raising costs, have continued to donate and help each time the call goes out. Please continue and if my rant above gets us one or two more full times supporters or I have reached that person that says – now is a good time to make a donation then I have accomplished a tremendous amount.

As always, donations are tax deductible! Every dollar donated is used on our kitties. 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!

7-7-24

A Kili and Pete Update Plus What Happened In May!!

Aloha!

This is crazy – it’s the beginning of June. Almost Christmas time (whoops – why did I say that, now I keep seeing Santa on a surfboard in my head).

First thing I want to say is thank you to everyone to answered my cry for help. It really is wonderful the number of people that made that extra donation. Several actually brought tears to my eyes with their kind thoughts and also to those that donated in memory of a kitty that we had been involved with. Thank you all again.

I know everyone has been waiting to hear more about Kili and Pete:

Kili (pictured below) had her dental and eye removal last week. She did extremely well and is recovering nicely. She has a follow-up in a couple of weeks which we anticipate no issues and she should be able to fly in July to the mainland for adoption.

Pete has his amputation last week as well. As you can see Pete (in the picture at top of email) is already up and playing and having lots of fun. We are fortunate that he is being cared for by one of our longtime friends who use to be a vet tech! Pete is in good hands and continues to heal and will be ready to fly soon we hope.

The kittens with the eye issues are currently on the bus schedule and hopefully will be big enough and strong enough this month to have their surgery.

What happened in May? Kauai SPCA continues to hit it out of the ballpark with spay neuters in their mega clinics. We appreciate their efforts and between SPCA and KCCP we fixed almost 200 cats in May bringing the yearly total to a little over 1,100. A big shout out to Dr Maya. She has been working extremely hard to make sure all these bus days run as smooth as possible and best practices are shared between SPCA and KCCP. This may seem easy but also keep in mind there are out of state vets that are here and each person bring their unique perspective to the process.

Our transfers were pretty exciting in May as well. We had a total of 23 kitties fly to Seattle Humane and The Noah Center! We also helped reunite a kitty to her original family who are now in New Jersey. We were so happy to have been able to coordinate that.

What’s coming up? With all your donations we were able to cover everyone’s surgery and are looking forward to our mega bus (using 2 vets) in June. We are also supporting as we can the SPCA mega bus days so we are actually looking at 3 days back to back in addition to a 4th day that is dedicated to dogs! Dr. Maya and team will be extremely busy for sure.

We are also preparing to send a bunch of kittens during our 2 transfers in June. This time of year we have to watch the type of kitty we send. Since there are so many kittens in the mainland shelters now it is more difficult if you are an adult kitty that is maybe a little shy.

KCCP Spotlight – By no means are things always glum. We have lots of happy things like…

Brooklyn who is the kitty I mentioned previously was a pretty comfortable girl when she got out of her crate in New Jersey. Wait – She is big boned like me…..

Another Spotlight – We love love love this type of update. Callie was a long time resident in one of our colonies and her caregiver said I feel so bad I did not pull her out when she was a lot younger. Well…let’s do it now. Here is Callie at Seattle Humane and the best thing about this picture – upper left hand of the picture – it says ADOPTED! So thrilled.

Kittens, Kittens, Kittens. Here are a trio that will be flying real soon. They are resting up with their foster sister. She has been a good influence on them so we know they will be the best babies ever.

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!

6-5-24

I Rarely Say It This Way – HELP!!

Take a Moment – Read About Kili, Pete and Others!!

Aloha!

It’s not the normal time of the month for updates but I just need to say HELP!

Why you say? Well I was sitting here contemplating stuff. What do I mean contemplating? The Cambridge Dictionary describes what I am doing as “spend time considering a possible future action, or to consider one particular thing for a long time in a serious and quiet way: [ + -ing verb ] I’m contemplating going abroad for a vacation”.

So what am I contemplating? Money! I know the Charity Walk some money will be here in August – doesn’t help me now. Well, being the KCCP Treasurer I have to watch the money and make sure we can do what we need to do – when we need to do it. If we can’t then my job is to send up a red flag!

Red Flag!
The end of April we had two kitties that needed dental in order to be able to fly to the mainland (one has flown to the mainland and one adopted local). That was $1,800 each – total, $3,600. Thank goodness we get a discount. This coming week we have an eye removal combo with a dental – I will guess $2,500 and also an amputation with an estimate of $1,800 – and it appears another amputation may soon follow so another $1,500 – now up to $9,400. This is all to allow the cats to fly to mainland for adoption.

The Kitty in our opening logo is Kili. Tough story. She was in a colony and was fixed several years ago. She was trapped at one of the many places on the island that have hired exterminators to collect cats. Fortunately she ended up at the Humane Society because of her ear tip and we went to get her. Pam said this cat is friendly, so we held onto her. After a vet assessment it was determined a dental was needed and possibly eye removal. I asked both of our regular transfer partners would they take her as is and the answer was no – we needed to do the dental and also an eye removal. So she will go this next week and have her dental and surgery and will be able to soon fly.

Also take a look at Pete – he was dumped in one of our colonies. His leg was somehow broken and healed at an odd angle. Friendly guy but is not adoptable and we just could not leave him in the colony to suffer. Pete had his initial vet visit the other day and goes back this coming week for an amputation plus his big boy surgery. Once healed he will be welcomed at our transfer partners on the mainland.

This is Carmine. He will need his eye removed once he is old enough for surgery. We just got him a couple of days ago. Trapped with 17 others for the spay/neuter bus Half of those trapped were sick and needed other medical help. Carmine and his sister and possible 2 others will need removals. I have not counted these guys in the cost since their surgeries are way in the distance. IMG

This is all in addition to our 3 regular transfers in May – $1,400 each and 2 more at $500 each which totals $5,200. June thankfully we have 2 transfers at another $1,400 or $2,800 for both. The transfers are just airline fares and does not include crates, health certs and shots and any other foster/medical costs which can run another several hundred per kitty. Of course all in addition to our regular expenses. Yikes.

My head hurts. I believe what I just described is about $17,400+ over our normal TNR expenses.

In a normal month our donations are about half of that. We have been saying NO to a lot of people that don’t understand why we can’t take another 8 kittens or send 3 adults to the mainland.

We try to help as many as we can help. We are overwhelmed like most places are with cats/kittens this time of the year and it gets in the way of our charter which is TNR – yes some don’t agree with me but that happens to be our original charter. Reduce homeless cat population by TNR.

My Ask – if you can help, please do. If you help us every month – we thank you since we would be able to do any of this without you. These are the typically untold stories of dentals (on a large portion of adults that fly, amputations and eye removals. We always talk TNR and just the basic happy video at the airport – but this is the real thing.

Please – if you can, help us help Pete, Carmine, Kili and all those that come after them.

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!

5-25-24

March is Here!! Meet Kai!!

Aloha!

February is already history. How could this be? Time is really flying by.

In February we started a partnership with SPCA for Spay/Neuter at Anahola. They have received a grant, and it’s really helped us reduce our backlog and get more kitties fixed by adding a second vet.

In the first 2 days, we fixed 142 cats in addition to 119 fixed in Kekaha or on our KCCP sponsored KHS days, which have really helped a lot. So for February, our monthly total is 261 with year to date 417.

On our mainland transfers, we actually saw a pretty good February with one kitty that had been wounded by a dog flying to our partner Seattle Area Feline, and 22 others going to our friends at The Noah Center. The thing that made us especially happy is February saw some long term kitties being able to fly and get their chance.

Future? Keep doing what we are doing. Bus is going full speed ahead and we are lining up our next groups going to the Mainland.

In closing I want to share another success story. I want to introduce you to Kai. Kai was originally known as Pumpkin. I am sure you all remember Mr Grumpy I introduced you to several months ago. To me they could be twins and they may be! From the same area, Kai attracted his new mom’s attention. She was concerned that he was sort of skinny and may not be well. You know how I am, shortly he was on his way to his new home near Portland and as you can see no skinny kitty now. He seems to have gotten totally use to being waited on hand and foot? Thank you Grace for giving him a chance. What a lucky kitty!

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!

3-5-24

January Business and The New Challenge…

Aloha!

Wanted to touch base on our results for January and also an update on our 1-1 Match!

We were able to spay/neuter 156 cats at our bus or through special days that the Humane Society was able to schedule for us. Someone asked didn’t that cost a lot more? No – not really. It actually works out to about the same charge per cat whether we do it or KHS! Thanks to KHS for being a great partner and stepping up when asked for help!

Also in January we were able to adopt/send to mainland for adoption 30 kitties. In January we were able to do our first transfer to The Noah Center in Stanwood Washington. They were great to work with and kept us up to date with what was going on with our kids. We also did 2 transfers to our great partner Seattle Humane. This was in spite of all the issues that Alaska Airlines was having which forced us to rebook all those flights and get new health certificates on one transfer. In spite of the frustrating we got it done. The Alaska Cargo Reservations were great to work with and did everything they could to make these transfers happen. I will also give a shout out to Aloha Cargo (they actually handle the cargo for Alaska Airlines). I know a couple times they just wanted to tell us no – come get these cats, but Glen and his coworkers got it done. Thanks to all!

The 1-1 Match update – at the end of day on January 31 we were a little short of our goal (Ok maybe more than a little). We were about half way there. So – I figured why not. Will you still match the other 10,000 if I do a Valentines 1-1 Match? Of course I was told (thank you, thank you). So the race is on again. Any donation this month will be matched up to the remaining $10,000!

So as I was sitting trying to come up with a plan I got a text message and guess what, Baby decided I needed a new Valentine picture. I don’t need to introduce her again since she has been highlighted before. What a special kitty and special parents. That’s all I can say.

Our 1-1 MATCH is sponsored by a generous donor. Thank you for making the suggestion and always being very supportive!

We need help to keep providing the important spay/neuter services to our community and to send friendly colony cats to the mainland and here is a chance to double your dollars.

Another Update – We have been working for what seems almost a year to become a Bissell Pet Foundation Partner which will allow us to apply for Bissell grants. Thank you Martha for continuing to work on this even when it seemed to be going no where. We will be displaying their logo on our web page in the next several days to announce our partnership (yes – I know the logo is dogs and we are cats but….). Hopefully this will allow us to get some TNR and/or transfer grants and help us continue our important work.

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!

2-3-24