 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. And welcome to ThinkTechHawaii.com. My show is The Will of the People, and I am your host, Martha Randolph. Today we're going to talk about the humane society and how it advocates for animals here in Honolulu. It's about everything that they do, their advocacy and fundraising. Now my guest today is Stephanie Kendrick. She's the public policy advocate for Hawaiian Humane Society. She was a journalist with the Star Advertiser for 25 years before joining the Humane Society in 2016. Her job, this job, has allowed her not only to pursue the community service and advocacy, but also to support an organization she was always close to. She and her educator husband are dog owners, but they also foster cats and kittens as needed, which I am also proud to say I do. So thank you. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you for coming today. Hello, Martha's audience. It's nice to be here. So let's start by telling people what community advocacy is for you in relationship to the humane society. What is it you actually are doing for the past couple of years? Sure. The Hawaiian Humane Society has been a leader in animal welfare in Hawaii for our entire 135-year history. The organization was founded by a group of concerned community citizens who were passionate about protecting the vulnerable, both people and animals, actually. And while it's evolved over the years and as our community has gotten more complex, we've relinquished our people issues largely to things like child and family services, but we've maintained the animal welfare aspect of our work. And so we've always been about setting the policies in our community to make sure the animals were cared for in a humane fashion from the very beginning. And so we've been active in the creation of Hawaii's animal welfare laws, things like the animal cruelty law, cat licensing laws, dog licensing laws. And we're just continuing that work today. I think before the show started we were talking about some of your greater successes since 2016, and I don't think people realize some of the laws that have been implemented due to your advocacy. So could you please tell us what were your greatest triumphs, what is pending that you could not get through this last legislature, and maybe what some of the barriers are. Are there specific individuals in the legislature standing against you? And if so, why? And what can we do to help? Sure. Well, it's interesting. Advocating for the humane treatment of animals would be a fairly easy thing to do, right? Who isn't in favor of that? But the complexity is that it's really about changing human behavior and getting lawmakers on board for changing human behavior is a little bit more challenging. So we've got a lot of pet lovers in the legislature, a lot of people who care about animals, but it's really about having them take that next step to stand up and say, OK, folks, we need to change this about how we're behaving and what we consider to be acceptable as a society. So we had a wonderful triumph in 2016, which was my first year with the organization, my first session at the legislature, where we improved the animal forfeiture law. So this is a really important tool that allows us in animal cruelty cases to take custody of animals, make sure they're safe and ultimately to find them new homes. And under the previous... Without having to wait for a specific ruling to come down, which I think is key because before that there was this liminal period where nothing could be done. You couldn't help them, but it was still a case that was pending, correct? So we could take custody of the animals, but we couldn't get them into new permanent homes until the criminal case resolved. And the problem is in a huge animal welfare case, like the Y&I Rescue we did, the criminal case can take a very long time. In fact, that case has not resolved to this day. So we were able to get this law passed that said, as long as you can establish that these animals were harmed to the satisfaction of the court, then you can apply for forfeiture of those animals separated from the criminal case. And it really was a godsend to us. And we managed to get, took about six months before we were able to get the authorization to put the Y&I Rescue dogs into permanent homes. But we should not have to go through that again in the future. It should be a much faster process. That's true. And speaking of that, I remember going to the... First of all, I don't know if any of you realize that the Hawaiian Humane Society has a new campus. They have much expanded, which has given them many more opportunities to keep more animals and to take care of rescue animals. But I remember going to the intake area, which is where you go for picking up your adoptees. And there were tents in the parking lot because there were so many animals from that rescue. And in that case, I would say it's the volunteers in the community that really come to your rescue when it comes to feeding and cleaning and walking, especially the dogs. And often in these cases, there seem to be more dogs than cats. Yeah, the Y&I Rescue is more than 300 dogs. 300, my goodness. And the other thing that a lot of people don't realize is we admit an average of 70 animals a day every single day, 365 days a year. So the 300 animals is on top of the animals who are already coming on our doors. And our volunteers are just a godsend. I mean, particularly in a case like Y&I, but also just on a daily basis, both in terms of volunteering to care for the animals on campus. They help us with events. We had a bunch of volunteers show up for our pet walk last weekend, which was a wonderful community event, celebration of our mission. And foster volunteers like you and I, who I just feel like that's the most fun way to volunteer because you get to have this revolving supply of kittens in your house and then you get to see them go out and find new homes and make new families. So our foster volunteers also allow us to make a lot more animals available for adoption because they care for the ones that need special needs, whether they're ill or they're injured or they're too young to be fixed. And so through the foster program, we're able to offer many more animals for adoption. Right. This brings up, there are two topics I want to talk from that. One would be the direction in which the foster programs have gone and how they have helped. But I also want to talk about the legislature. So let's stick with politics for the moment and go back to what is pending, what did or did not get accomplished in this past legislature, which actually was a very proactive legislature in many cases. It seems to me that some of the animal rights issues that you were pushing got dropped. But I'd like to know what is pending and what has been standing in your way and why, if you know. Sure. Well, that's always a tricky thing to figure out. The one that we got so close to last year was the tethering bill. And this is an improvement that we've been working on making to the animal cruelty statute for some time because it concerns a lot of people. People see dogs chained in yards and then sometimes they appear to be suffering and folks are worried about that and they want to see it change. So we helped to create legislation that was very narrowly focused and very enforceable, targeted progress that would have restricted the use of some equipment and techniques that are particularly harmful for dogs. So the Hawaiian Humane Society has never taken the position that you should never tether your animal. You know, our priority is that people should be able to keep their animals safe. Yes. And not everyone can afford to fence their yard, renters, maybe don't have authorization to do fencing. So tethering can be a humane way to house your animal and keep them safe. But you need to use techniques and equipment that aren't going to hurt your animal. And that's what this bill was designed to do. So things like prong collars. You know, you don't want a dog that's out on the yard. You don't tether your dog and provide to the prong collars. So very narrow, very good legislation. And it died in conference committee at literally the last minute. And it was a shame because, you know, this would have given our field services officers a tool to educate people and say, hey, look, you know, the way you have your dog tied up is going to hurt your dog. Let's try a different technique. And they can do that now. But to be able to go up and say, using that collar to tell you your dog is illegal, let's try a different technique. It gives them a lot more authority. Did that conference, did they tell you why? Do you ever know what the objection was? Or even if it was just politics, like, we have to get these many through and we're going to save this for another time. Do you have any idea at all? We did not ever get a factory explanation for what happened. Okay. Do you feel there is an explanation and you're just going to have to try and talk to people over coffee or something to get that answer because it seems to... I've heard about this happening a lot in Hawaiian legislature where one individual has a stand. You don't know why they have taken that stand, but one person in a conference can kill something that everyone else wanted. And I find that highly undemocratic, but it's especially difficult if you don't know who it was and you don't know why because then you can't address whatever their issue or concern was. And this is a measure that had absolutely no public opposition whatsoever. Yeah. The testimony was... You're still going to pursue it for this coming legislature? We're working on that now. We're working on our priorities for the coming session. But if anybody knows the answer to that mystery question of why this failed, please let me know because I would love to find out. But obviously animal cruelty is not something we're going to give up on trying to make improvements to. So we will be back at it, whether it's tethering or another issue. What are the most important issues that you have on your plate for right now? So we actually had an interesting victory at the State Board of Agriculture last month where a measure that has been honestly in the works off and on for decades, but this particular administrative rule began the process in 2014 and basically it asked the Department of Agriculture to remove the permit process for bringing in dangerous wild animals for circuses and fares. Hawaiian Humane Society is always objected to the use of animals purely for entertainment purposes. And so this is something that we've been working on for a long time and it really goes back to the incident with Tike in 1994, which of course was a terrible tragedy for both animals and people. And for those who weren't around in 1994, Tike was an elephant if you want to tell it briefly. Tike was an elephant that had been brought in by a mainland circus and the group that owned Tike had a terrible track record of both abuse of animals and of poor safety for workers and the public. And Tike attacked her trainer on the floor of the Blaisdell in the middle of a show, traumatized families and onlookers and stampeded out into the streets of Cock-Aco, just an absolute brutal event and wound up being shot by police who were also traumatized by the event. This is not what they signed up to do, kill wild animals in the middle of the street. So it was a terrible, terrible event for everyone and really should have been the end of wild animal acts in Hawaii. What animals have to go through to get here to perform is cruel in and of itself. They're tracked across the country, they're put on boats, they have to get across the Pacific Ocean to get to Hawaii. So it just never should have happened and it certainly should have stopped a lot sooner than it has, but we're really grateful that the Board of Agriculture saw that this is an issue that's a matter of public safety and protecting our community and that they've taken this step and now we just have to get the governor to sign it but he has been supportive so we're hoping that's going to happen. So just in case anyone's wondering, no, well, circuses have actually folded in the United States but there have been promotional agents here in Hawaii who have been eager to bring animals from other countries over performing animals and we're not talking about a dog act or a cat act here. We're talking about an animal that would normally be considered wild and those agents were acting against this so in this case there was a reason for having this passed to make sure that Hawaii is not a destination where you bring animals that probably never should have been in an entertainment industry anyway. And as a society I think there's less demand for this sort of thing from the public which is why groups like Ringling Brothers have gotten out of the business. There's certainly a lot of really exciting, interesting things that can be done with entertainment in 2018 without abusing animals to do it. Absolutely. I mean in many cases rescue animals have become ambassadors for their species and they have a certain degree of training. It's just they're not trained to do tricks. They are trained in behaviors which are conducive to their welfare. So that you just got passed. Do you know what you have pending or do you have some ambitions for the upcoming session or is it still just basically in discussion because I'd like you to reintroduce the tethering law. I have seen the results of states that have had that adjusted that it can be very helpful and there are some animal owners here who are very ignorant of the amount of damage that that kind of misjudgment can lead to for their pet. Our main priority for the coming session is actually going to be a little bit lighter and more fun than a lot of the issues that we tend to work with on a regular basis and it's something that you know part of our mission is to create a more pet friendly community. We really believe that our pets should be integrated into our daily lives and while things like off-leash dog parks are lovely and we support the community groups that are trying to create more of them you know really it's about being able to walk through your neighborhood with your dog or take your dog to work or go and sit and have a meal with your dog. You know that that makes them a real part of the family and I think most of us consider our pets family now. So we are planning to introduce a bill in January that would give Hawaii restaurant owners the discretion to adopt pet friendly policies if they choose. It would not force any business to do anything but we have a lot of local restaurant owners who are super excited about being pet friendly typically their pet lovers themselves and they just see this as a growing demand from their customers they want to be able to serve that segment of the market and right now state administrative rules prohibit them from doing that so we'd like to introduce a law that would give them that flexibility. Give them that option and I think we actually have a cat coffee shop finally here which I have yet to visit but that sounds like a great place to book for a fundraiser personally. Yeah that seems to be quite successful. Yeah we're going to take a short break and then we'll be back and I'd like to talk about some of the new policies and also well we'll get there we'll see what we're doing. Ladies and gentlemen we're going to take a short break and we'll be back in about a minute. Look forward to seeing you to talk with Stephanie Kendrick from the Humane Society. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. For more than 100 years American Humane Association has been teaching kids to be kind to animals. Those in our homes on the farms on the silver screen and wildlife conservation caring for the world's vanishing creatures but we can't do it alone. Visit kindness100.org to find ways to teach kids how they can make a more caring, compassionate and humane world for all of us. 皆さんこんにちは Think Tech Hawaiiが日本語でお届けする こんにちはハワイの日本語放送の コスト クニスへゆかりです 各州月曜日の2時からお届けしています 日本語コミュニティー ハワイの日本語コミュニティーに 便利なお助け情報 ニュース などをゲストを招きして お届けする番組です こんにちはハワイ 各州の月曜日 二時からぜひ皆さん見てください コストのクニスへゆかりでした アロハ Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the will of the people I'm talking to Stephanie Kendrick who is the advocacy... Public policy advocate All right, this is obviously one of my 65-year-old plus days but I wanted Stephanie here because I'm a supporter of the humane society and the work they do and we've been talking about legislative actions but there's a great deal more to it people do not realize how many new policies the humane society has how it was able to change certain policies once you had the expanded campus so let's talk to people about that now let's tell them what the current adoption policies are and what they can do if they find a lost animal and bring it in what happens if they find an animal they would like to keep but they don't know if someone already owns it so that they know and let's talk about the euthanasia policy because too many people think that any animal just gets two weeks to live and then it's tossed in and I know for a fact that's not the case well as we were discussing earlier the Hawaiian Humane Society has been an advocacy organization from the beginning and we've been really at the forefront of improving our own animal welfare practices just as we have in terms of advocating for better animal welfare laws for example a number of years ago we changed our policy so that we were no longer adopting out fertile animals every animal that's available for adoption on our campus has been spayed or neutered and that goes back to pet population control pet overpopulation is a terrible cause of animal suffering in our community and the Hawaiian Humane Society is intensely committed to doing everything we can to help address it and part of that is spaying and neutering every animal we offer for adoption we also have offered spay and neuter services for free roaming cats since 1993 and in the 20 plus years since we began doing that we've sterilized more than 61,000 free roaming cats on our campus is this the catch and release type policy where you sterilize them and then they go back into their cat colony so this is trap neuter return managed so we don't trap cats we offer the service for cat colony caregivers they trap the animals bring them to us and then they take them back to the colony and provide them ongoing care and what that looks like is they make sure that the cats are fed so that there's less of a need for predation they keep an eye on the animals health they look out for new animals so that if newly abandoned animals are friendly they can possibly find homes for them if not at least they will be sterilized so we don't participate in TNRM programs but we think that they're absolutely a critical element to curbing pet overpopulation so we do what we can to support them and we actually just opened Tuesday our new high quality high volume spay and neuter clinic which will allow us to do another 8,000 spay and neuter surgeries per year per veterinarian so just to put that in some kind of context Wayne Humane already is the top provider of spay and neuter services on the island in fiscal year 2018 we spay and neutered more than 3,000 free roaming cats and more than 5,000 pet animals and all of those pet animals were animals we offered for adoption so with the new clinic we're basically going to be able to out of the gate double our capacity to perform spay and neuter surgeries and while we expect a lot of that we'll be dedicated to free roaming cats as well because there's so much demand we are for the first time able to spay neuter people's pet animals so they can bring their animals to us for surgery which can I say how much of a value and improvement that is because the certificates were insane and in many cases the veterinary offices that accepted them would find other ways to charge you more so now a person can actually make an appointment with the Humane Society to have their new pet spayed or fixed in some way if it hasn't already been if they're not getting it from the Humane Society or they've adopted a feral which I must say they helped me with in every cat I have had has been spayed or neutered by the Humane Society either because they came from there or because as a feral I was able to bring it in and have it done without having its ear clipped because I was going to adopt it I do want to give a shout out to the 20 or so veterinary clinics around the islands that do participate in neuter now I know that folks have some negative experiences on occasion but I've used that program for my dogs and have had just a wonderful relationship with the vet that I use who participates in it and those folks really are subsidizing those surgeries not so much that the city is they are being reimbursed at a much, much lower rate than they would be if someone just came in off the street and asked for sterilization you know they really are providing an incredible service but this clinic I think because we are only doing spay and neuter we're not providing any other sort of veterinary care that's the reason we can keep our costs so low people absolutely should have a relationship with a regular veterinarian so that their animal can be properly cared for some of the other services you guys offer I believe there's a cremation service there is there are other, there's chipping services and putting the thing that you're paid for of what I consider to be a very reasonable rate or there are specials it's like the sales like Black Friday for pets where you can get you can adopt your animal for ten dollars or if you're a senior citizen you can get senior animals two for the price of one as it were so far have I gotten this right so we do have a regular senior special for senior animals and we do periodically offer adoption specials sometimes they're tagged to holidays like Valentine's Day or that sort of thing and then often it's just a volume issue so right now today I was sharing with Martha earlier we have 110 cats available for adoption on our campus today so the adoption rates have come down drastically because we really want those animals to find homes and you know we don't mean to be flippant about it because we want animals to find good quality homes but at the same time we don't think price should be a barrier to someone who wants to bring some love into their life so we try and make it as affordable as possible I meant to ask you do you have any way of checking on people who do want to adopt to make sure they on the rare cases where someone is perhaps adopting for the purpose of abuse which is rare is that out and is there any law that supports actions you might have to take in that situation and are there any laws coming along to maybe enforce the option of a person not putting out an animal that has not been fixed and abandoning it some kind of abandonment issue for pets I mean right now we're taking the encouragement policy which is we're making it easy for you to bring the animal to us is there any legislation possibly that we could look into to at least indicate that it's wrong or indicate even a small find something if you are known to be someone who habitually raises animals and then abandons them or puts them out someone in Pearl City is doing it I know because I have rescued more mother cats who were person friendly with their babies in that place and so that tells me that somebody is keeping kittens until they get to a certain age and then putting them out well animal abandonment is illegal under current law and there are finds attached to it but you have to know which person did the abandoning well it's like any criminal case you have to be able to build that case beyond a reasonable doubt and that gets tricky in animal abandonment or animal cruelty cases just like it does in any other criminal case but you know our officers are trained to investigate and enforce those laws in conjunction with HPD and it's something seriously and we absolutely urge the public that if you do have any evidence of animals being harmed to please bring that evidence to us we have there's an abuse form on our website you can call our dispatch hotline we want that information but you know I know the public gets frustrated because they see things on Facebook and they think why isn't anything being done well for the same reason that you know you can watch a guy walk out of a store with a candy bar on Facebook and maybe that's not a prosecutable case so animals are more important than candy bars and we're certainly going to do everything we can but you need to be able to build the criminal case just like you would any other okay we only have a little bit of time so I know we wanted to talk about some of the fundraising issues and opportunities because basically ladies and gentlemen the reason this is on the will of the people is because it is by your will and your participation that organizations like this function so let's tell them about that and by the way let's clear up the confusion about the whole euthanasia issue about when animals are put down and when they are not because there is an illusion so we have two minutes to go for that two big topics in two minutes first of all any animal offered for adoption at the Hawaiian Humane Society made available for adoption is kept for as long as it takes them to find a home and they are made available for adoption regardless of breed regardless of appearance regardless of age as long as it's a healthy animal we adopt out ear notched cats all the time there's myth that we don't but we do as long as they're friendly and sociable to a home so there's no time limit animals stay for as long as it takes them to find their perfect family if the first family doesn't work out they are welcomed back and made available for adoption again I have great stories I could tell you about some of our serial animals who just take some time we will schedule another day we don't have time for that today but thank you for letting me clear that up and in terms of funding just because we have so little time the big thing I would have people know is that we are a local organization every single dollar donated to the Hawaiian Humane Society stays right here on Oahu to help local people and animals so that means ladies and gentlemen that not to discourage you from contributing to national organizations but the Hawaii Humane Society is not getting any money from them so we need the help and there are other islands that maybe don't have the same facilities that Oahu has and their animals may have to be put down sooner rather than later and the only way to stop that is to give your funds to the Humane Society so that they can help to create a place for these animals to live to encourage more fostering ladies and gentlemen please if you have a space if you are willing offer to foster they are very reasonable they don't force you they let you know and if you can't do it that day or that week you can't do it but that's another way for travel and also for those if you want to save animals that is the way to do it it only takes a few weeks usually and you're good to go so I want to thank you Stephanie for being here clearly there's more to talk about and I look forward to welcoming you back to explore this in depth and everybody support your Humane Society thank you for visiting with us on the will of the people thank you Stephanie and yes last words oh advocacy at Hawaii Hawaii say it again advocacy at Hawaiianhumane.org if you want to be kept informed of our advocacy efforts please send me an email to that address and I will put you on our advocates list to keep you informed even if there is no confusing show called the will of the people where I am cheerfully forgetting what I'm saying anyway ladies and gentlemen enjoy yourselves thank you for watching and I look forward to seeing you with me and Colleen Hanabusa in two weeks