Terminated
I’ve waited nearly four years to say this:.
“Trump: You’re fired!”
James Lehner
Keaau
Broken program?
My wife went to Honolulu last week for medical tests. The hospital required a negative COVID-19 test prior to admission. She took the test on the prior Friday and was unable to get the test results until Monday morning after arriving in Honolulu because they don’t work the weekends.
She took the Army-administered COVID-19 test at the Waikiki Shell prior to returning. The testing was completed by HealthQuest in Irving, Calif., using nucleic acid (DNA or RNA), a RT-PCR test.
The test was negative, yet Civil Defense, County of Hawaii, refused to accept the test results saying it was not a “trusted partner.”
Why is the Army even doing the tests if the results won’t allow a Hawaii resident to travel without quarantine? Are the Army tests at Hilo airport any different than those in Honolulu?
Bottom line: My wife, after two negative COVID-19 tests in less than a week, is still in a 14-day quarantine.
Mayor Harry Kim, your program is not working. Fix it, or shut it down.
Tom Adams
Hakalau
Feral cats solution
Kittens … who doesn’t love kittens? But that cute little kitty, claimed by nobody and living on the street, can produce up to five litters in a year, and each litter can have from five to more than 10 kittens. That means, in a year, that cat could produce a minimum of 25 more kittens, and perhaps as many as 60. And don’t forget, every one of those cats can give birth to just as many litters, leading to exponential growth.
Hawaii used to be a paradise for tropical native birds; however, the simple act of introducing cats to the environment has led to the rapid death of many creatures endemic to our island.
In practical terms, this means that feral cats are seemingly everywhere, across all the Hawaiian Islands. To give you an idea of the consequence of feline overpopulation: Several years ago, my family and I went to Oahu for a competition. While there, we came across a small, secluded park by the shore. As we stepped out of the car, what seemed to be hordes of stray cats came out of the shadows, desperately meowing for food, and in varying states of health.
One of the friendlier felines was an older black cat with large patches of fur missing, and with its spine and ribs visible through the lack of any body fat. I was taken aback by the sheer number of cats, which were clearly unable to find sufficient resources to care for themselves. I can only imagine how sparse the native bird population had become in that location.
Fortunately, there is a solution, and it’s a simple one. We can step up and take responsibility for our small part of the world. For example, a stray kitten wandered into our garage recently and took up residence there. Loudly. When it became apparent that he intended to stay, we took him to a low-cost spay/neuter clinic and paid for him to be neutered. He is now well-cared for, and will never contribute to the overbreeding of feral cats.
The local university has a “trap-neuter-release” program, where feral cats around the university are captured, sterilized, and released. If everyone on this island helped to sterilize just two cats a year, we could prevent, annually, 400,000 cats from breeding.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I find it pretty revolting that humans are willing to bring animals into this very precarious ecosystem, and then dump them to fend for themselves, rather than simply ensure that they are spayed or neutered. When people ignore their responsibilities, it leads to the exponential spread of creatures that kill native populations and contract diseases, constantly reproducing, putting stress on the bodies of the queens (unspayed female cats) as they do so, and dooming them to short, brutal and desperate lives.
Raney Wilson
Hilo High School student
