KAILUA-KONA — “We need to do things differently.” ADVERTISING KAILUA-KONA — “We need to do things differently.” That’s the stance of West Hawaii animal rescue groups and some community members, who are continuing a battle to force the Hawaii Island
KAILUA-KONA — “We need to do things differently.”
That’s the stance of West Hawaii animal rescue groups and some community members, who are continuing a battle to force the Hawaii Island Humane Society to lower its euthanasia rates. Spearheaded by Big Island Dog Rescue, the groups have called for a town hall meeting set for Friday, during which they plan to press a case for rewriting HIHS’s animal control contract with Hawaii County.
“My hope is that the humane society, along with the County Council and police department, can get together and start by changing the language,” said Ana Nawahine-Kahoopii, a BIDR board member.
The $1.9 million contract as written is 30 percent animal welfare and 70 percent animal control, and those numbers should be reversed, said Nawahine-Kahoopii of Waimea, who heads up the rescue group E Ola na Ilio o Moku o Keawe.
“When the contract incentivizes the euthanasia of 14,000 animals a year, that’s pretty absurd for the times we live in now,” she said. “We need the humane society and we don’t want it to go away, but we need to do things differently.”
Other topics of the meeting will include a possible community committee to oversee the humane society, alternatives to euthanasia, and more cooperation between HIHS and community groups trying to place animals in homes.
But HIHS does not plan to attend.
On Tuesday, HIHS Board President Adam Atwood said it was misleading to cloak Friday’s meeting under the guise of the County Council.
“HIHS already presented an overview to the County Council in November and will not be participating in BIDR’s meeting,” Atwood said in an email. “BIDR and its supporters have attempted to block donor support for our new Animal Community Center, a project our community has endeavored to build for nearly a decade, and we will not comment further on BIDR tactics.”
The rescue groups and HIHS have been at loggerheads for years over euthanasia rates, and that tension came to a head last year as Big Island Dog Rescue kicked into high gear on a campaign to ship dogs to no-kill mainland shelters. Last July, HIHS temporarily suspended its adoption of animals to BIDR and other rescue organizations while it worked on creating a contract that spelled out legal responsibilities, best practices for flying the dogs off island, reporting on animals after they arrived on the mainland and other provisions the society said were necessary to ensure the animals received the best care.
The rescue groups cried foul, questioning the timing of the moratorium and saying HIHS was deliberately obstructing their efforts. The groups picketed the Kona shelter last summer, calling for reform. Some supporters of the rescue organizations went “underground” and adopted animals from the society to turn over to the rescues for shipment.
The humane society and its board maintained that it is everyone’s goal to reduce kill rates, and that the contract was necessary to make sure the animals were being properly treated at their new mainland destinations. Additionally, responsible pet ownership is everyone’s kuleana on an island with a rampant feral animal problem, the society asserts.
The 14,000 euthanasia figure constitutes a significant number of wild and feral animals, the society contends. The shelter took in 6,363 dogs and euthanized 3,189 of those in the fiscal year ending last June.
HIHS partners closely with many rescue organizations, but BIDR is not one of them, because the group refused to sign the new oversight contracts drafted last July, Atwood said.
“HIHS believes oversight is imperative, particularly when shipping animals off island in order to protect the animals from substandard outcomes such as hoarding, research, etc.,” Atwood said.
Ginger Towle, president of the West Hawaii Humane Society, chafes at what she sees as unfair and unrelenting criticism of the humane society. The root cause of the HIHS euthanasia rates is people not spaying and neutering their animals and not caring properly for them, she said.
“It’s so frustrating,” Towle said. “If they weren’t doing their job I’d be the first to speak up. They’re working really hard, and you’re not going to please everyone.”
But Debbie Cravatta, owner of the Kohala Animal Relocation and Education Service, said that the humane society and animal control should not be under the same management.
“No one does in the 20th century,” Cravatta said. “The incentive is to kill. There are blueprints for how to be no-kill. San Francisco went no kill. Don’t tell me the island can’t embrace the no-kill concept.”
Cravatta said a good start to addressing the over-abundance of unwanted animals would be county spay and neuter coupons that more fully cover the actual cost of the operation rather than just a part of it.
“We’ve got to change the way they think,” she said.
The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. on Friday in Building G of the West Hawaii Civic Center in Kailua-Kona.
