Today's LA Times: Keeping Tabbies.
All of it at the link:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-cats-for-hire-20150627-story.html
Here's an excerpt:
By Jerome Campbell
Like the characters played by the actor who inspired his name, Pacino was no scaredy cat. The brown tabby had prowled the streets of Los Angeles, a drifter scraping for his next meal.
After the cat was turned in at an L.A. County animal services shelter, there was little hope that Pacino would be adopted. He was too distrustful, too fierce, too mean.
Then Melya Kaplan came along, looking for a cat with grit, street smarts and attitude.
Several hours after the customers and merchants have gone home and the lights are dim, the cats start their patrol in the Los Angeles Flower Market June 25, 2015. The Working Cats program is using unsocialized "feral" cats in a program to keep rodents away from the market.
The Working Cats program is using community cats in a program to rid the Los Angeles Flower Market of rodents. The cats dont kill the rodents they manage to repel them by their scent.
The 10-pound, 6-ounce cat would become the nighttime warden at the Original L.A. Flower Market, making sure rodents and other vermin didn't get out of hand. He's part of a group of tough cats recruited by an animal rights nonprofit to find homes in places that could use their hard-scrabble qualities. Along with another cat named DeNiro, Pacino would prowl the Italian side of the flower market. Of course.
"Mother Nature doesn't make mistakes," said Kaplan, executive director of Voice for the Animals. "We probably just haven't found a purpose for it yet."
As part of the Working Cats program, street cats like Pacino are rescued from animal shelters and sent to locations ranging from police stations, like the LAPD's Wilshire and Foothill divisions, to private homes, businesses and schools. Over the years, the program has placed about 500 cats in nearly 50 locations.
~snip~
= new reply since forum marked as read
Mac nuts are not picked from the tree, you see; when ripe, they fall off onto the ground. Humans go around and collect them -- unless the 'iole (rats) get there first. This, of course, is where the popoki come in.
No wonder those nuts are so expensive...hand picked off the ground. 
Popoki? Hawaiian for working cats? Very smart.
poki, an older word for dog (now 'ilio); po, the night or the spirit world. Popoki = "dog of the night", since Hawaiians were familiar with dogs, but not cats.
