{"id":617636,"date":"2026-05-01T17:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/617636\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T17:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:20:17","slug":"absolute-carnage-feral-cats-kill-168-native-seabirds-on-kauai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/617636\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Absolute Carnage’: Feral Cats Kill 168 Native Seabirds On Kaua\u2018i"},"content":{"rendered":"

The island\u2019s latest massacre of endemic shearwaters brings the state\u2019s feline problem to the forefront.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Raine arrived at the grisly scene about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday: Scores of dead wedge-tailed shearwaters, or \u02bbua\u02bbu kani, were scattered across 1,000 yards of sand around the bend from Shipwreck Beach on Kaua\u2018i\u2019s South Shore.<\/p>\n

Someone had tipped off his wildlife management group, Archipelago Research and Conservation, that they\u2019d seen a couple of dead seabirds near there. By the time Raine and two staff members finished documenting the whole area, they\u2019d counted 168 shearwater carcasses.<\/p>\n

Some of the native birds had been dead several weeks; others had fresh blood. Many had been dragged from their burrows. Snow drifts of feathers and wings, as Raine described it, alongside heads and body parts. The messy way they\u2019d been killed, he added, clearly pointed to cats as the predators.<\/p>\n

\"AndreAndre Raine, left, of Archipelago Research and Conservation, and Madison Woodward counted dozens of dead wedge-tailed shearwaters Wednesday on the South Shore of Kaua\u2018i. (Courtesy: Andre Raine\/2026)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was absolute carnage,\u201d Raine said Thursday. \u201cThis is not a one-off in that area.\u201d <\/p>\n

Local scientists and staff have encountered several mass slaughters at that same area in the past 15 years, he said, where dozens of \u02bbua\u02bbu kani were killed by free-roaming cats.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s discovery has spurred renewed calls by local conservation groups and their allies for state leaders to better guard Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s native seabirds, endangered monk seals, dolphins and other wildlife from the impacts of as many as 1 million feral cats estimated to populate the islands.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0How Cat Poop Is Killing Endangered Seals<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge issue,\u201d said Keith Swindle, executive director of the Hawai\u02bbi Audubon Society. He said cats are probably the second greatest threat to Hawai\u2018i\u2019s native birds after mosquito-borne diseases, such as avian malaria. The cats are \u201cliterally from the beaches to the mountaintops on every island now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, Hawai\u02bbi lawmakers considered \u2013 but opted not to pass \u2013 a proposal that conservationists and animal welfare groups agreed could have been a good first step.\u00a0<\/p>\n

House Bill 1736<\/a> would have funded programs to expand the spaying and neutering of feral cats. It also would have required pet cats older than 5 months be sterilized, with some exceptions for breeders.<\/p>\n

\"AA 1-week-old wedge-tailed shearwater chick, or \u2018ua\u2018u kani. (Courtesy: Hob Osterlund\/2016)<\/p>\n

Owners who ship their pet cats to the islands would have to show they\u2019re sterilized or pay a $100 fee. Originally, the bill specified that none of the funds could go toward programs that re-release the feral cats into the wild after they\u2019re trapped and neutered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That detail was key. Local conservation groups and state land managers are at odds with animal welfare groups such as the Hawaiian Humane Society over whether programs that trap, neuter and release the cats should be used in Hawai\u02bbi. Studies show those programs aren\u2019t effective<\/a>,\u00a0<\/p>\n

For both camps to come together, trap-neuter-release programs were excluded from the funding. But the bill didn\u2019t prohibit such programs from continuing in Hawai\u02bbi, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That delicate compromise was disrupted, however, during a March 26 Senate Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee hearing. Chair Glenn Wakai changed the bill<\/a> to allow it to cover trap-neuter-release programs, he said, after conferring with his colleague, Agriculture and Environment Chair Mike Gabbard.<\/p>\n

Two other senators, Lynn DeCoite and Tim Richards, promptly said they wouldn\u2019t support the bill with that change to allow the release programs.<\/p>\n

Uniquely Vulnerable<\/p>\n

The core problem, conservationists say, is that Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s unique seabird populations never evolved to contend with cats and other mammal predators introduced to the islands in the past 200 years or so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole reason that seabirds nest in the tropical Pacific is because these islands lacked mammals,\u201d Swindle said. \u201cThey just can\u2019t deal with mammals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u02bbua\u02bbu kani mate for life, Raine said. \u201cThey\u2019ll just keep coming back to the same burrow, and they lay their single egg every year,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what they do. So they\u2019re not going to move from that spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 168 dead \u02bbua\u02bbu kani near Shipwreck Beach came from a South Shore colony of around 1,500 birds, said Bret Mossman, forest bird recovery coordinator for the state Forestry and Wildlife Division. They had recently returned from the ocean to start their annual breeding season.<\/p>\n

More than 100 additional birds from that colony, Mossman added, were killed by cats this past fall.<\/p>\n

The shearwater species is not listed as endangered, Mossman said, because it has robust numbers in the Papah\u0101naumoku\u0101kea Marine National Monument. However, in the Main Hawaiian Islands, the species is steadily declining.<\/p>\n

\"AA pair of wedge-tailed shearwaters, or \u2018ua\u2018u kani, on Kaua\u2018i. (Courtesy: Hob Osterlund)<\/p>\n

\u201cOur birds just cannot deal with these kinds of apex predators,\u201d Mossman said, referring to the cats, \u201cand so re-releasing these animals is just not an option if we want to keep these birds on the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were potentially tens of millions of \u02bbua\u02bbu kani before cats, mongoose and rats were introduced to the Hawaiian Islands, Mossman said. Now, there\u2019s an estimated 60,000 individuals in the main islands and some 230,000 in Papah\u0101naumoku\u0101kea. Kaua\u2018i hosts more native seabirds because there are no mongoose.<\/p>\n

Even if the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands currently serve as a refuge<\/a> for those and other seabirds from non-native predators, Mossman said, climate change threatens to erode those low-lying habitats through sea level rise and heavy storms. <\/p>\n

Efforts to monitor the cats and other predators, plus install predator-proof fencing, can make a huge difference, he added. At Ka\u02bbena Point, on O\u02bbahu, \u02bbua\u02bbu kani nesting pairs surged to 15,000 from 300, Mossman said, after such a fence was built there.<\/p>\n

\"FeralFeral cats are suspected of killing 168 wedge-tailed shearwaters, an endemic seabird called \u2018ua\u2018u kani in Hawaiian, in recent weeks on the South Shore of Kaua\u2018i. (Courtesy: Andre Raine\/2026)<\/p>\n

A more than 2-mile-long predator fence protects native, endangered seabirds at K\u012blauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua\u02bbi\u2019s North Shore. Such fencing projects remain expensive and state land managers, Mossman said, already contend with insufficient budgets and limited resources.<\/p>\n

Raine, who\u2019s the science director for Archipelago Research and Conservation, said his group monitors yearround against cats and other predators in the mountains to protect the endangered seabirds that previously had been decimated there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got cameras all over the place to see when the predators are arriving, (and) birds are doing well,\u201d Raine said, \u201cwhereas on the coast, these colonies are not managed.\u201d Any trappings of cats and predators is sporadic, he said, \u201cand so then you get these mass-kill events.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"InIn the Kaua\u2018i jungle, invasive feral cats have a history of gorging on critically endangered seabirds as this one caught on a predator camera. Although predators like rats and barn owls also contribute to seabird deaths, cats have the capacity to kill numerous adult birds, as well as chicks and unhatched eggs, in a single strike. (Courtesy: DLNR\/2016)<\/p>\n

The language in HB 1736 was taken from a cat-sterilization policy passed into law in Rhode Island, said Grant Sizemore, director of the invasive species program for the American Bird Conservancy. Other states on the mainland, he added, are similarly weighing legislation to get a better handle on their feral cat populations\u2019 impacts on wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s different in Hawai\u2018i, as opposed to many of these other states, is that Hawai\u2018i is already the bird extinction capital of the world \u2014 it is overrun with stray and feral cats on the landscape,\u201d Sizemore said. \u201cThey are, as we have seen recently with the wedge-tailed shearwaters, massacring Hawai\u2018i\u2019s native wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Raine left the beach Wednesday morning, he noticed that one of the burrows still had a pair of live birds in it. \u201cThey were just sitting there, super wide-eyed, surrounded by body parts,\u201d Raine said. But there weren\u2019t any predator controls and the cats had been returning to the site for weeks. \u201cI was just thinking, they\u2019re probably going to get killed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil Beat\u2019s coverage of climate change and the environment is supported by The Healy Foundation, the Marisla Fund of the Hawai\u2018i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.<\/p>\n

Civil Beat\u2019s reporting on Kaua\u02bbi is supported in part by a grant from the G. N. Wilcox Trust.<\/p>\n

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\n Thanks! We’ll send you a confirmation e-mail shortly.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The island\u2019s latest massacre of endemic shearwaters brings the state\u2019s feline problem to the forefront. Andr\u00e9 Raine arrived…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-617636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}