To curb Honolulu’s booming feral chicken population, lawmakers are proposing a bill that would eradicate them by deploying a special contraceptive bird feed, KHON 2 reported. While the five-year pilot program was initially intended for Pearl City, a small community of 45,000 on the North Shore of Pearl Harbor, it’s now state-wide since the chickens are considered “a road and health hazard.”
Hawaii has been engaging in a yearslong battle with the wild fowl population: lawmakers have recently enforced strict $500 fines for feeding the feral birds, and the city of Honolulu launched its own special chicken management program in 2016. The city’s Department of Land and Natural Resources also provides specific instructions on how to capture and euthanize the birds if they’re roaming around residents’ homes.
However, State Senator Bennette Misalucha who’s behind the new bill is confident that it will be a non-violent solution to the island’s ongoing issue. “We want to be humane, you know, we were very mindful about that,” she told KHON 2.
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