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Holly Holowach always had a few cats in her life, but in 2003 she got more than she bargained for when she found 60 feral cats at the Waimanalo transitional housing facility she was hired to manage.

She didn’t see them as a nuisance. Instead, they became part of her life. For 17 years she managed the colony, feeding and sterilizing the cats and occasionally finding homes for kittens.

But when Holowach retired in 2020 she was told everything needed to be removed from the shelter — including the cats. She tried to place them in unofficial local sanctuaries — often private homes caring for dozens of cats — but everywhere she turned was at capacity.

Instead, over the next two years she hustled to get each feline adopted or placed on a farm.

During that time she , a nonprofit that permanently houses feral cats from the countryside and Lanai City, and decided to try to replicate it on Oahu by establishing a nonprofit called Popoki Place.

“Everybody wants a solution,” Holowach said. “Some people just want to kill them all. But we know that hasn’t worked. And there’s a lot of opposition to that.”

Her idea has turned into a three-year search for the right real estate, complicated by land prices and an array of agricultural zoning and land-use regulations.

Popoki Place initially had support from the Department of Land and Natural Resources to buy agricultural land, according to Holowach, and the department told her to provide it with a list of parcels.

She identified 14 lots in what she referred to as the “tourist corridor,” stretching from Waikiki to the North Shore, but none were suitable. In an emailed statement, DLNR’s Communications Director Dan Dennison said that the parcels identified were either not available for lease or under DLNR jurisdiction, but said the department is open to followup enquiries from Popoki Place. “DLNR did not discuss conveying fee ownership of state land to Popoki Place,” Dennison said.

While the department does not support establishing cat colonies on land under it jurisdiction, Dennison said DLNR is open to collaboration with cat welfare advocates “to find solutions to the impacts feral cats have on human health and wildlife.”

Holowach has carried on regardless, and is now focused on finding suitable preservation or lesser-graded agriculture lands also zoned for construction. The trouble is finding properties that are not solely zoned for agricultural use or that would allow the environmental impacts of hosting hundreds of cats.

Curtis Lum, public information officer for Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting, wrote in an email that opening a cat sanctuary is contingent on a variety of conditions being met. That could include an environmental assessment or impact statement, depending on the proposed location and the project’s value.

“A cat sanctuary will likely be considered a commercial kennel and not be allowed in the P-2 Preservation District. It would be a permitted use in the Ag-2 agricultural district, with certain conditions,” Lum wrote.

“Finding the right sweet spot that isn’t a problem for anybody else has been interesting and a challenge,” Holowach said.

Uncontrolled Reproduction

Oahu, like all of Hawaii’s major islands, has too many cats.

As an invasive species with no natural predators, cats prey on birds and insects and are known to carry and incubate toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that can cause deadly infections in monk seals. It is also known to be a severe risk to pregnant women.

Cats’ reproductive periods are usually during warmer months, but in a place like Hawaii, they can reproduce over and over.

“The realities are that Hawaii, from a climate and environment standpoint, is at a disadvantage when it comes to the continental U.S.,” said Brandy Shimabukuro, communications manager for Hawaiian Humane Society. “We don’t have drastic seasons. We don’t have natural predators. So managing that population is ultimately going to come down to the community.”

And no one knows how many cats are on Oahu, let alone the entire state, since there hasn’t been a comprehensive study of Hawaii’s cat population.

The Humane Society supports the cat sanctuary concept, according to Shimabukuro, but until one is established, it continues to promote capturing and sterilizing cats, then returning them to their colonies. Afterward, locals can continue to manage that population with feedings and other care.

“Over time that colony will stagnate or decline in terms of population,” she said.

Critics contend that re-releasing the cats only prolongs the acute problem of their preying on native species, and it doesn’t address the toxoplasmosis problem. A Hawaii Invasive Species Council 2019 resolution on feral and free-roaming cats .

Is Lanai’s Sanctuary A Model For Oahu?

The Lanai Cat Sanctuary opened in 2009 with 100 feral cats, a population that has since climbed to 800. Each year 200 cats are rescued and an equal number are adopted.

Its founder, Kathy Carroll, initially tried the trap-neuter-release model, but conservationists complained that cats still preyed upon the island’s native bird population. That led her to create a sanctuary for captured cats.

The popular tourist attraction near the airport has cat-proof fencing and cares for sterilized cats until they are adopted or die of old age. It leases land from Larry Ellison’s land management company, Pulama Lanai.

It took time for locals to buy into the idea, according to executive director Keoni Vaughn, but the reduction of the free-roaming cat population has solidified support.

“Now if you go to town and Lanai, you hardly ever see a cat roaming around,” he said. “So I think people who love cats appreciate it because the cats have a really wonderful place for the rest of their life. And I think people who dislike cats appreciate it because there’s not cats running around.”

But operation costs run high for the facility. For starters, on average a cat costs $1,000 a year for food and care. Paired with salaries, Vaughn estimated he needs to raise $1.5 million a year to cover expenses.

Donations from tourists largely fund the site, but first the pandemic and more recently wildfires have impacted revenue. In June and July it averaged 100 visitors a day — but recently that dropped to 10, which Vaughn attributed to confusion over what islands are open after the Maui wildfires.

On Oahu, Popoki Place is still in its first phase — finding capital and investors, property for the sanctuary and determining a final design.

Holowach plans to start small, roughly five to 10 acres, with 50 feral cats for the first month. Over time she would slowly build the population. Her website states that the sanctuary would need about 2,000 pounds of food per month for every 500 cats housed.

And while Holowach wants her sanctuary to mimic the one on Lanai, she believes that facility’s arrangement with Puluma Lanai provides a unique advantage.

“The Lanai Cat Sanctuary is a unicorn,” she said. “They’re on private land. They pay a small lease to the landowner. And so we wouldn’t mind doing that if we can find private land where the landowner would participate with us, but so far we haven’t found that.”

This story has been updated with comment from DLNR provided early Wednesday.

This story came out of a Civil Beat pop-up newsroom. The traveling newsroom events are supported by the Hawaii Community Foundation and the League of Women Voters of Honolulu Education Fund.