Food supply solution
The story regarding “moving away from eradication” (Tribune-Herald, Feb. 4) about destructive feral livestock touches on an important topic. Namely, the genuinely apocalyptic situation Hawaii will find itself in regarding food during a sustained interruption of barge traffic from the mainland. This is going to happen, whether from weather or social unrest. It is not a matter of “if” but “when.”
Preparations made to date are zip, unless you count “activists” suing out of business the only slaughterhouse on the island because someone tied a rope to a pig to get it out of a truck.
Feral animals make home gardening as an alternate food supply impossible without expensive fencing most people cannot afford to install.
Where I live, there are multiple herds of 300-pound feral hogs numbering 10 to 15 animals, with countless piglets. These are animals that can husk and open a coconut with their teeth, and breed like rabbits with multiple litters of up to 10 piglets a year from each sow.
They go through anything less than steel-staked hog wire fence like tissue paper, are eating the forest down to nubs, and churn extensive tracts of land into moonscapes. The boars are aggressive and genuinely dangerous. You cannot let children outside unsupervised when hogs are about.
Trapping these animals is the obvious solution, but what do you do with a trapped 300-pound feral hog? Some people simply shoot them and dump the carcass by the side of isolated roads where it stinks for weeks, but that is no solution.
The solution is a network of state-licensed animal transport, slaughter and butchering facilities that will pick up trapped animals when called, or that anyone can bring a live or freshly killed hog (or goat, or sheep) to.
There it will be humanely euthanized if alive, inspected, and turned into free, nutritious food for distribution to anyone who needs it. An entire local economy could grow around trapping, transporting and distributing this food. And when the barges stop coming, we already have a system in place to rapidly build on to meet demand.
But we do not get a solution. We get “activists” with lawyers shutting down every enterprise they can, and bureaucrats taking “do nothing” to the next level.
At some point, people here in Hawaii have to look past politics and narratives to real solutions, or famine is going to stalk this land.
It is not a matter of “if” but “when.”
John Powers
Pahoa
The mayor’s friend
At a County Council meeting last month, Mayor Mitch Roth was asked why his administration had not begun the purchase of the path down to Mill Beach in Papaikou. After all, the county government had voted to make the path a public access in 2012 and again in 2020.
There had been a history of public hearings and testimonials. Over 5,500 have signed petitions to make the path public. In the 2020 hearing, the County Council voted unanimously to make the public path to the beach. At that time, over 250 members of the public gave live testimony or wrote letters.
Mayor Roth: It is a clear “go,” so why isn’t it happening?
The answer is that Mayor Roth doesn’t want it to happen. It seems the owner of the property to be condemned for the path is his friend (and this friend has contributed considerably to his political campaign.
Please, mayor, no excuses.
Last month Mayor Roth’s Corporation Counsel testified that the former administration’s lawyers were against the project. Former Corporation Counsel Joe Kamelamela immediately phoned the newspaper — and me — to report that this was not true. Harry Kim’s administration supported the acquisition.
It’s Hawaiian law that the county governments “shall” use eminent domain to purchase public pathways to the beaches. And our mayor should carry out the popular decisions of the County Council.
Access to Papaikou Beach is a hugely popular and important issue. With Kolekole Park and Hakalau beaches temporarily closed along the Hamakua Coast, getting public access to Papaikou is especially important.
Mayor Roth, respond to the County Council’s decisions and the public’s will. Please act in the best interest of all the people of Hawaii. Make a public pathway down to Mill Beach.
Noelie Rodriguez
Ninole