Hawaii residents sick of early crowing and aggressive pecking could be allowed to kill wild chickens

Hawaii lawmakers are weighing tougher ways to deal with feral chickens, as residents complain about noise, mess, and growing flocks NewsHawaii residents sick of early crowing and aggressive pecking could be allowed to kill wild chickensHawaii lawmakers are weighing tougher ways to deal with feral chickens, as residents complain about noise, mess, and growing flocksJennifer Sinco Kelleher Thursday 19 February 2026 05:04 GMTBookmarkBookmark popoverRemoved from bookmarksClose popoverHawaii residents sick of early crowing and aggressive pecking could be allowed to kill wild chickensShow all 3Your support helps us to tell the storyRead moreSupport NowFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read more The crowing starts well before the sun rises over Mason Aiona's home in Hawaii. But the 3 a.m. rooster alarm isn't what bothers the retiree the most. It's spending most of the day shooing away wild chickens that dig holes in his yard, listening to constant squawking and feather-flapping, and scolding people who feed the feral birds at a park steps from his house.“It's a big problem,” he said of the roosters, hens and chicks waddling around on the narrow road between his Honolulu house and the city park. “And they're multiplying.”Communities across the state have been dealing with pervasive fowl for years. Honolulu has spent thousands of dollars trapping them, to little avail. Now state lawmakers are considering possible solutions — including measures that would let residents kill feral chickens, deem them a “controllable pest” on public land in Honolulu, and fine people for feeding them or releasing them in parks. Chickens' cultural ties But one person's nuisance is another's cultural symbol, a dynamic that has also played out in Miami and some other cities with populations of wild chickens. Kealoha Pisciotta, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner and animal advocate, disagrees with killing feral chickens simply because they’re a nuisance. Some chickens today descended from those brought to the islands by early Polynesian voyagers, she said. “The moa is very significant,” she said, using the Hawaiian word for chicken. “They were on our voyaging, came with us.”The Hawaiian Humane Society opposes letting residents kill the chickens “as a means of population control unless all other strategies have been exhausted.” Aggressive birds Rep. Scot Matayoshi, a Democrat representing the Honolulu suburb of Kaneohe, said he started crafting chicken control legislation after he heard from an elementary school teacher in his district that the birds were harassing the pupils. “The children were afraid of them, and they would kind of more aggressively go after the children for food,” Matayoshi said.Rep. Jackson Sayama said he introduced the chicken-killing bill because there are currently limited ways to get rid of them. The lethal method would be at the resident's discretion. “If you want to go old-school, just break the chicken's neck, that's perfectly fine,” said the Democrat who represents part of Honolulu. “There's many different ways you can do it.” A fowl problem keeps growing Chicken eradication bills have failed over the years, Matayoshi said. Chicken birth control was an idea discussed when he was on a neighborhood board. “I think there are people who are taking it more seriously now,” he said. For more than 30 years, Aiona, 74, has lived in a valley near downtown Honolulu in a house his wife Leona grew up in. Wild chickens didn't show up in their neighborhood until about a decade ago, they said. The birds proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic.He once saw a man take a chicken out of his car, leave it in the park and drive away, he said.When the chickens first appeared outside his home, he caught one with his bare hands and put it in a plastic trash can, then drove it to a park near the airport. “I took off the cover, tipped it over and the chicken ran right out,” he said. “I said ... ‘Don’t come back again.’”But he quickly realized the time-consuming effort was futile.He's personally not interested in killing chickens, preferring for someone to scoop them up and take them to a rural farm. A city trapping program is too expensive, he said.The city contracts with a pest-control company that traps chickens. A weeklong serv