Short answer: Maui’s chickens are a mix of birds Polynesian voyagers brought centuries ago and farm and backyard chickens that escaped or were let loose. Warm weather, year-round food and handouts from people keep the numbers up.
The first chickens: moa
The chicken was the first bird people brought to Hawaiʻi. Polynesian voyagers carried moa, or red junglefowl, in their canoes, and the bird has been here for close to a thousand years (Hawaiʻi Public Radio). The state’s birding trail guide describes moa as rusty red with long, curved black tail feathers; males can reach about 30 inches long, females about 17 (Hawaiʻi Birding Trails).
Hawaiians raised moa for food. Their feathers decorated kāhili, the feather standards of chiefs, and some families regard the moa as an ʻaumakua, a family guardian (Hemomi).
Then came the farm birds
After Western contact in 1778, domestic chickens arrived and bred with the moa (Modern Farmer). Over generations, birds escaped farms or were released, and their offspring went wild. These are feral chickens: domestic birds living on their own.
Why Maui’s flocks are mostly feral
The mongoose changed everything. It arrived in Hawaiʻi in the 1880s and raids eggs and chicks (DLNR), and it is widespread on Maui (Maui Invasive Species Committee). Bishop Museum records note that red junglefowl were once established on all the main islands but survive in numbers only on Kauaʻi, which largely lacked the mongoose (Images of Old Hawaiʻi, quoting Pyle & Pyle).
So most chickens you meet on Maui are feral or mixed birds. Moa and farm chickens have interbred so much that they can be hard to tell apart, though moa are smaller with a distinctive red, black and green pattern (Hawaiʻi Public Radio).
What keeps the numbers high
- Warm weather all year. Chickens can breed in every season.
- Food from people. Picnic scraps, pet food and deliberate feeding.
- Released birds. Unwanted birds still get let loose; on Hawaiʻi Island, reporters describe new roosters being dumped every week (Civil Beat).
- Little coordinated control. A 2024 state law (Act 185, formerly SB 2401) requires feral chicken control programs, but as of June 2025 no state money had been approved for it (Maui Now).
Are they a problem?
For many residents, yes. Maui County has held public meetings about feral chickens and cats, and the county’s environmental coordinator linked controlling them to protecting endangered native wildlife (Star-Advertiser). In 2013 a feral chicken got into a transformer in the rental car area at Kahului Airport and knocked out power (Star-Advertiser). Visitors can help by not feeding them.