• Monk seals • Ohana Kauai Monk seals The seal problem, human contact and flawed data. As a Native Hawaiian kanaka who’s family is from Koloa, I do not support the closing of Po‘ipu Beach for the seal, or any
• Monk seals
• Ohana Kauai
Monk seals
The seal problem, human contact and flawed data. As a Native Hawaiian kanaka who’s family is from Koloa, I do not support the closing of Po‘ipu Beach for the seal, or any beach in the main Hawaiian islands.
Why, you ask? It’s simple. Before 1970 there were no confirmed sightings of the seal on the main Hawaiian islands.
Point #2: There are no chants about the seal. Point #3: There is no seal aumakua. Point #4: No seal heiau anywhere in the state of Hawai‘i. Point #5: No genealogies of the seal. Point #6: No seal pohaku or carvings, wood, etc. Point #7: No history of a seal being on a migration canoe. Point #8: No history of migration story of the seal. Point #9: No burn pits where people ate the seals. Point #10: No native weapons made from the seal. Point #11: No seal petroglyphs. Point #12: Is the seal native, or a foreign sub species?
When I was a young boy, my papa (father) worked for Hawaiian Dredging. At that time, the seal lived only on Kure Island and the shoals. All the kanaka knew the seals real name was the Kure Island Monk Seal.
So what is the truth? Is the transplant-ing of seal populations to the main islands a threat to our life style? What is the goal, no fishing areas?
Point #13: I am a true environmentalist, blood of Koko, decedent. Also a fisherman, gatherer, opihi picker, farmer, hunter, ocean man. The solution is simple: transplant all foreign subspecies seals back to Kure Island. Stop the disinformation and protect the local peoples and the endangered Hawaiian (kanaka) way of life.
If you would do this, there would be no problems at all. Also, you need to open the turtle season with a tag system. If you protect the native people you protect the native plants and animals also. Native logic is always the answer.
Kawika Cutcher
Anahola
Ohana Kauai
If a person buys a house for $200,000, and has budgeted for $2,000 per year taxes on that house plus the loan payments, he knows that he can afford those costs. If then, five years later, his neighbor sells the house next door for $500,000, the buyer of that house has budgeted for real-estate taxes of $5,000 plus the loan payment, and he can afford that. But if the first person in this story now has a house worth $500,000, it doesn’t automatically mean that he can afford a $500,000 house, and it certainly doesn’t follow that he can afford the taxes on a $500,000 house.
The Ohana Kauai charter amendment will enable the $200,000 home owner to stay within his budget, and it will at the same time enable the $500,000 home owner to stay in his budget. The 2 percent raise in real-estate taxes each year will allow the county to meet the cost of living increase in the cost of government.
And it will allow the home owner to stay within his budget because he /she will be getting raises along the way.
The increasing prices of homes and land as it changes hands will allow the county to continue services at the relative same cost as determined by the rise in inflation more commonly known as “cost of living.”
This is why every person should feel comfortable in voting “yes” on the Ohana Kauai charter amendment in November; because it is simply fair to everyone.
Gordon Smith
Kapa‘a
