 Welcome to Eyes on Hawaii on the ThinkTag live streaming network series broadcasting from our downtown studio at Pine New Plaza at the core of downtown Honolulu. I'm your host Carol Cox. Joining me in the studios is Kathy Gogell. Today we're going to talk about Ms. Gogell's role as an advocate for animals. Remember that our talk shows are streamed live on the internet from 12 noon to 5 p.m. every weekday and earlier shows are streamed all night long. All our shows are streamed on livestream.com. If you want the links to our live streams or previous broadcasts which are available on youtube.com or if you want to subscribe to our programs or get on our mailing list and get our program advisors go to thinktechhawaii.com. If you want to pose a question or comment during one of our shows, please tweet us at thinktechhi, thinktechhi. Okay so welcome aboard Kathy Gogell. Thanks so much for having me Carol. Yes ma'am I really appreciate you are the president of and founder one of the founders. I was I'm one of the founders of animal rights Hawaii. We were founded in 1977 and we are one of the oldest animal rights organizations in the world and we are also and have always been all volunteers. And you're statewide are you or you do things are also internationally. We work on international issues we work on national issues and of course local issues. And when were you founded? 1977 so we've been around quite a long time before PETA even. Before PETA that's right they're really young compared to coming on the scene. So now I can think back many issues that were worldwide and drew international attention and that was Canadian seal killing and I'm sure and I recall you having some role in that in participating. What happened with that and how are you involved? That was one of our earliest protests. We had a parade in Waikiki. It was actually a seal funeral and we were protesting the killing of the harp seal pups for their fur in a very very cruel manner in the spring and actually it's still going on and it's going on right now as the ice breaks up the ships can bring the sealers in close to where the pups are and they kill them with what's called a hacka-pick. It's a very hard long sharp nasty hook and the animals are left to just bleed out on the on the ice and their skins are taken. So now they're just taken kill for their fur and for fur coats and lining of seats and cars and vehicles and what is that correct? That's correct even though the European Union does not allow the import of fur from these animals anymore. The US doesn't allow the import. It's just in anachronism and we have been fighting against it as I said for many years. Now coming back local here you you have done many things on dolphin, cetacean captivity, you've protested many things and if you could just share with my viewers what it is that you've done and to what degree have you had an impact can you a measurable impact? I believe that we have. One of the things that we worked on very very hard was livestock transport. Hawaii raises cattle and they are shipped to the mainland for slaughter but even worse live pigs are brought in used to be from Canada now it's from the middle of the United States Nebraska the Tacotas those states they are shipped all the way by truck until they get to the West Coast and then on mats and ships to Hawaii just to provide what's called hot pork, unrefrigerated flesh of a slaughtered pig for certain markets. We worked on this for many years we worked with some international organizations and we were happy to have time supermarket and food line supermarket commit to no longer using or selling pork from animals who have undergone that long horrible journey so that that's one of one of our what we're really proud of. Now talking about shipment of animals and live animals and livestock what are some of the concerns is there are hardships associated with this shipping and you you've mentioned a bit of it but what are these animals experiencing and so that people don't draw the conclusion that well we are sensitive for the wrong reasons can you share with us? Well absolutely they are not coming on a cruise ship they are in what are called livestock containers double-decker so that all of the urine and excrement from the pigs above lands on the pigs below. Pigs get seasick a lot of pigs die on route we have been getting the livestock import permits from the state of Hawaii for the past 15 years every month we check how many pigs are coming in and how many died they died they die from heat exhaustion they die from starvation sometimes because they run out of food on the trip it is absolutely unnecessary if people need to eat pork it can come from animals raised and slaughtered on the mainland. So you're looking more so the humane treatment of all of these animals were they are destined for the dinner table or you also on many occasions have raised issues and had an influence on show animals of bears and donkeys to jump diving mules and what I recall years back having conversation with you about the diving mules can you tell us a little bit about that. Well we have we have protested animals at the 50th State Fair the animal acts for many many years the Diving Mule Act was run by a man named Tim Rivers and we actually tried to get a TRO against him unfortunately the judge didn't rule in in our favor and Mr. Rivers went ahead that had his mules climb up this long long long ramp up to the top and very often he would have a monkey tied to the mule and then dive into a pool of water in a boat like an above-the-ground swimming pool. Mr. Rivers was convicted in a federal sting a few years later along with several of his companions for shooting endangered species in their cages and selling their fur so he spent some time in federal prison not for the Diving Mule Act but I I'm happy to know that he is out of business right now. So the central theme is is animal welfare animal cruelty and and when we just for entertainment for example it's rather costly for the animal and that most people are sensitive to that and you don't have to be an animal rights activist or as some people say they whether they call them a Peter whatever it is but it's a negative connotation but animals do have the right to be protected and cared for and not abused for our entertainment if we're going to legitimately consume them if that's the accepted practice but all of the side issues of them standing in the urine soar feet moving and contain trailers as we know for example where they come in from out island for example cows and then their place on the tarmac there at Sand Island waiting to be picked up or put back on a boat or wherever they're going in their destination how do they feed them in between if they shipped them from the big island and they subsequently a destined for the mainland and other places is that the practice well if they're they're brought in and then they're placed on this blasted heat blasted piece of property at Sand Island the there is usually a caretaker and some food is thrown into them and a water hose is provided but those metal boxes retain the heat terribly and we would like to see an end to livestock transport we have petitioned Matt since several times they don't even respond to our letters but with regard to entertainment animals I'm sure everybody remembers Tike the elephant who was gunned down with 87 bullets in 1994 she had escaped from the circus at Blaisdell she killed her handler and at that point we decided that we were going to this was going to be a major major issue for us and we have been working trying to get legislation passed both at the city council level and at the state level for many years and finally we have upcoming in May just in a few days public hearings on changes in the administrative rules for the Department of Agriculture the state Department of Agriculture that would prohibit the import of dangerous wild animals for display or shows and this does not include the zoo so zoos are excluded from from this rule they're going to be public hearings on all of the islands and we hope that animal lovers on all the islands will come out and speak and if they can't come out they can send in testimony and they can visit our Facebook page which is animal rights Hawaii and find out how to send in their testimony and it's unfortunate if we look back these animals that tyke and the citations or the killer whale false killer whales or the killer whales they have a common thing or common thread people have the advocacy groups have always tried to encourage or discourage housing these animals and containing them because they are wild animals number one but a bigger problem is and I think what it's unfortunate but it happened this way is that in each occasion someone died for example the person that was handling the citation of the killer whale was drowned or killed and then there's tyke and there's other instances where animals have been found to injure people while they were originally to be entertaining so it's unfortunate that it has resulted in the death of human beings but that seems to elevate it then it's as if someone gets the point well hopefully somebody gets the point it should take that you know I mean it really shouldn't people should should realize that elephants in the wild travel many many miles during a day and elephants in circuses are chained up 23 hours a day fortunately Ringling Brothers is closing down and we hope that some of the other circuses that still use elephants will stop using them and also other other dangerous animals lions tigers bears they all have particular needs in order to live a decent life and traveling shows does not provide anything good for them and and so often this vivid picture of this tiger or this bear or this wild animal walking back and force pacing that imagine being housed in a small cage and there are many people coming and animals don't like to look at one another in the eye I mean it's showing down and here's hundreds of eyes per day staring at thousands of eyes we don't quite understand the psychology of animals but we do know that many of them on many occasions do in fact start to act abnormally as a fourth they when I say abnormal they've been trained to do but most of that is forced and to get an animal to do tricks what do you say about the the actions taken to to get an animal to an elephant to stand on his head what does that involve it involves usually taking a very young elephant chaining them down and beating them beating them with clubs and with what's called a bull hook it's also called an oncus it has a very sharp hook on it and elephants there are places on their bodies particularly under their under their legs where the skin is not so thick that is very painful for them so that that's how they're trained that not only for shows but for elephant rides and elephant polo and and all this stupid stupid tricks even on roller skates elephants on roller skates it's just it's just crazy depressing in one sense and so okay we're going to take a short break and I'm Carol Cox this is the eyes on Hawaii think tech live streaming network series we're talking with miss Kathy gogale about animals and their welfare we'll be back in a minute so stay tuned for more of the story thank you for watching think tech I'm Grace Chang the new host for global connections you can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m. we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs so please tune in and aloha and thanks for watching hello I'm Dean Nelson host the planet of the courageous from a Tibetan point of view we chose to be on this planet because we enrolled in a sort of graduate school for courage just that we may have chosen this adventure is a leap of logic the question is how do we spend and make sense of this precious human life we are as a species extraordinarily successful dominating the planet and now with planetary science problems that our existence itself has created it takes courage to face not only in the uncertainty of life but also the challenge of sustaining the gift of life for future generation join us every other Monday at 3 p.m. on think tech Hawaii aloha we're back we're live I'm Carol Cox and this is eyes on Hawaii on the think tech live streaming network series talking about animal rights and their welfare so Kathy go Gail I really appreciate you taking the time I've always wanted to corner you and say it come in let's sit and talk about this and share because you know the slightest overt act where a person might suggest that maybe we should review how we treat animals or maybe you become labeled as a a person who's an extremist so you there's this great dangers where if you say to them well we really shouldn't put things in captivity we shouldn't to take a chimpanzee and train it how many young chimpanzees or how many adult chimpanzees lose their lives just to get this to happen well we don't know how many but it's it's quite obvious that the wildlife in Africa particularly are suffering greatly from habitat loss but also from the bush meat trade and from from people wanting to take them and sell them as pets so we we are totally totally opposed opposed to that so now we have citations in captivity and and the ultimate message that you you and others want to get out there is that even in the consumption of animals is that right you're vegan or vegetarian and you advocate for that then what's the benefit to that and why would you educate and to tell people what they that they shouldn't eat animals or meat meat products well we advocate a plant-based diet and since we're so close to Earth Day I think it's really appropriate that we discuss this issue when forests are cleared such as in South America where the Amazon forest is is is disappearing it's being cleared for cattle for cattle to graze the amount of time the amount of energy that goes into producing a pound of meat the amount of water that goes into producing a pound of meat is horribly horribly high it was so much better to raise food directly to feed people we talk about sustainability here in Hawaii the livestock industry here has been living off the taxpayers for many many years I've been monitoring the legislature and and we have bought them lots of stuff they the livestock industry here has no future without great infusions of taxpayer money it would be far better if we are truly dedicated to being sustainable that we raise our own food to feed to people not to cattle and that's two more shows down the road but you know in regards to South America and more specifically just recently in the news they have stated that Brazil has outgrown America in this production agricultural wise and the reason given is that a lot of the land has been cleared for soybean hint soy milk soy products so so there's a great danger if there's the there's a balance that need to be stricken struck here in while advocating for that what what do you say about that as to do we want to focus solely on soy milk and create these things or as a diet to vary it and make it a variety of foods to consume and how do we avoid contributing to such a situation in Brazil wanting that the need to produce soy milk well mark everything is market-driven and quite frankly I don't like soy milk I prefer almond milk coconut milk cashew milk is really delicious but each time a new product like that comes up then of course there's going to be someone who wants to grow those things yeah palm oil in Indonesia is destroying the forest because people want to use palm oil orangutan habitat is disappearing I really don't have an answer right the dilemma that we find ourselves in because we know we need to do something but how do with all these mechanisms in place how do we gauge it and how we regulate it and the need because just one of them send a spike up and demand the resources attributed to that but coming back here to Hawaii for example the question or even about dairies and the production of dairies and one would have to ask the environmental impacts are they worth it for a gallon of milk we just casually say a gallon clearly it's more than a gallon of milk involved yes one or one company say that they they produce in a year's time four million gallons or the equivalent of five days of milk flowing over the flowing over the rainbow falls in in Hilo five days my response to that would be yes you were producing many million gallons of milk but you're also producing many million gallons of cow poop manure that goes into what they call euphemistically lagoons which produce methane and can overflow during our rainy season and can trickle down into our water supply and the same thing happens with pig farms as well but we have and we do have some intensive capos confined animal feeding operations here in Hawaii for pigs and for dairy so my my feeling is that again livestock agriculture in Hawaii becomes corporate welfare and we're our state we have a hard time providing for our children in schools we have a hard time providing for the homeless we have health care to worry about I think that if an industry is to survive it should be able to do so on its own and I'd like to see the legislature stop hemorrhaging money into the livestock industry well interesting you talk about hemorrhaging and subsidizing just recently and I won't name the company but there's a dairy and to buy a half a gallon of this milk is locally produced this dairy produces a milk and they sell it in the stores many of the big chain stores for at on sale 548 a half a gallon or 549 some places 599 a half a gallon now that's what would a whole gallon cost you add it up when you can get the same or not or milk product from some of the box chain stores like you know around for $5 or 450 a gallon not that I'm advocating for drinking milk but clearly how does one justify our legislators justify subsidizing that kind and claiming local sustained sustainable and it's going to fuel the economy but that's really extreme cost or high cost to pay and to say that it's a sustainable is it really sustainable no it's not sustainable at all and I've been at the legislature and Sally and saying that over and over again but there are lobbyists for this industry why I did a little segue into that just say that could you tell us about your legislative lobbying and what you do what do you go through and what some of the bills that you just trying to bring it back home if you could what are some of the bills that you've actually been supporting and advocating for over the years and do we recognize any of those now that are in place and what are some of the new ones well one of some of the recent ones we supported the ivory ban and we we're very very happy that Hawaii has has banned the import and sale of ivory that's very important I also have participated in many many legislative hearings on invasive species as well as protection for invasive for our endangered species well it's clearly you've done a lot of work and a lot of work ahead of you so I would say the elephant ban is a really good thing because to get it ivory you are killing an elephant they don't just cut them off and whether it's rhino horns or rhinoceros horns and what have you to make colorful statues or stamps and whatever it's just unreasonable and just really a sad situation but I really appreciate you taking the time and joining me is there anything real quick how does one reach you real quickly well through our Facebook page would be the best way and that is animal rights Hawaii and and check us out we have a Twitter account and also Instagram and is there is it open to public joining or do you membership or we don't really have members we have supporters we have a website but it was hacked by someone in Malaysia a couple of years ago so we haven't put it up again okay well I really appreciate you joining us and we're gonna say that basically this is a come to the end and it's just so much to talk about and okay and I appreciate it and we're out of time and well we'll have to wrap it up I'm Carol Cox eyes of this is eyes on Hawaii on the think tech live streaming network series we've been talking with Ms. Kathy Gogell about advocating for welfare of animals thanks to you miss Kathy Gogell for being here with me thanks to our broadcast engineer Robert McClain our floor manager and to Jay Fidel our executive producer who puts this all together and thanks to you and our viewers and listeners if you want to get our email and social media program advisors click the link on think tech Hawaii.com if you'd like to be a guest an underwriter or a volunteer or if you want to join us in our downtown studio in Pioneer Plaza contact Jay at think tech Hawaii.com if you want the links to our live streams on our previous broadcasts on you stream TV or YouTube.com just go to thinktech Hawaii.com go there to our Facebook and page and tell them you like us we'd love you to like us and of course I'll see you next week Tuesday at 12 noon for more on eyes on Hawaii on think tech I'm Carol Cox and Aloha everyone