Honolulu, Hawaii: City Asks Public to Stop Feeding Feral Chickens and Leave Traps Alone

Honolulu is asking residents and visitors for help with a problem that crows at dawn, tears up yards and leaves droppings across Oahu: feral chickens. The City and County of Honolulu Department of Customer Services issued a fresh appeal this week, saying public cooperation is essential because interference with trapping work is undoing the city program.

The city has put "Do Not Feed Feral Chicken" signs in public parks and on city buses, deployed specialized traps in problem areas, released an animated public service announcement explaining the problem, and offered discounted trapping and disposal services for private property owners. The city says those combined efforts have reduced official complaints about feral chickens on public property.

The trapping work is where the appeal turns blunt. The city pest control contractor keeps running into people who vandalize or tamper with traps, release captured chickens, and keep feeding feral flocks, the city said. Hawaii News Now reported the same interference in its report on the campaign on Friday.

Why feeding makes it worse

Feeding is the habit the city most wants stopped. Food draws the birds together and keeps them in the places where they cause trouble: excessive crowing, damage to public spaces and yards, unsanitary conditions from droppings, and disturbances involving household pets, the city said.

"While crews are actively trapping feral chickens and putting up educational signage, this is an issue the city simply cannot tackle alone," said Department of Customer Services Director Kim Hashiro, who oversees the city animal control program. "We need every segment of our community, from residents to business owners, to help us by not feeding these birds and letting our pest control teams do their jobs safely."

The city is asking people to do three things: stop feeding feral chickens, leave traps undisturbed, and let authorized pest control crews work. Its feral chicken information page is at honolulu.gov/csd/feral-chickens.

A fight that goes back years

Oahu residents have complained about the birds for years, and the issue reached the state capitol in 2022, when Hawaii lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 2195 to authorize state funding for the problem. The bill failed to advance.

The written testimony from that debate, reported this week by the New York Post, reads much like the city appeal today. Robert Peine of Aiea wrote that chickens were destroying yards and gardens, that their droppings were everywhere, and that drivers in Waimalu, Aiea, at times counted clusters of 12 to 15 chickens in the middle of the road. Maria White of Aiea asked the government to move the birds to the countryside or remove them so neighborhoods could be regained. Bonnie Gollero blamed the illegal cockfighting trade, writing that weak penalties let breeders dump unwanted birds, with fines of no more than 250 dollars. Cockfighting is a misdemeanor in Hawaii, not a felony.

Four years on, the city is not asking the legislature for help this week. It is asking the person with a bag of feed at the park to put it away.