Pt 2 cont.How about we teach our keiki to be loving and compassionate towards all living beings? It starts with the most innocent, the ones in our yards.Not to mention those abused animals end up where? You guessed it...rescues.The community who steps in and volunteers to help the suffering out of the kindness of their hearts and the emptiness of their wallets.Who are we to extinguish the lives of the innocent when there are more humane and superior ways?Let's fund what the community REALLY wants and has been working hard on for SO long.If you're a representative reading this, it's time to show that Hawai'i cares, FUND ANIMAL SANCTUARIES AND RESCUE ORGANIZATIONS.You'll see a difference overnight. Not just in the TNR population, but in the compassion of youth who go from thinking torture and murder is normal, to forming bonds and volunteering at permanently funded animal rescue organizations who don't have to compete with fundraising on Instagram in order to pay vet bills or keep the organization running. It's 2025. Education is everything. Time to show up.

Rain89 · 8 months ago

Pt. 1 Thank you so much for representing this issue. The need of funding for rescues and sanctuaries is a MUST. The amount of love and support in the community is there, we just need funding for it. Not enough people are talking about it but rescues and sanctuaries are mostly 100% volunteer run and do a HUGE service to the community, including the native birds. Having to rely on donations from every day people to run rescues is exhausting and unjust. It's time for the state to step up and get on the same page. Cats deserve to live as much as the rest of us. The culling of animals being made "normal" is disturbing and contributes to the MULTITUDE of animal abuse throughout the islands which leads to NO prosecution or safety for the animals who are horrifically and disturbingly abused AND leads to keiki growing up in a world where torture and murder is normalized. What kind of impression are we making on our youth? A lot of cases called in are kids torturing animals and their parents LAUGHING it off or brushing it under the rug. Violence begets violence and it spreads like a disease.

Rain89 · 8 months ago

The only ethical approach is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR), combined with establishing designated cat sanctuaries. Precisely. Unfortunately a look at the comments section following the original article reveals some abhorrent truths about the beliefs, attitudes and understanding of the people of Hawai’i:We are uninformed. We promote murder as a solution yet call it euthanasia (i.e. the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease).We are xenophobes. We dismiss and devalue any person, animal or idea not "from here." We are envious. We rail against the "rich" Priscilla Presley yet have no issues when random "poor" folks choose not to visit Hawai’i.We are entitled. Despite being uninformed, xenophobic and envious we freely state our opinions.A most excellent cartoon to capture not only this issue but life in Hawai’i and why real, meaningful progress is difficult would capture our lack of compassion and world view.

spittintroof · 8 months ago