Neighbors’ pets use my lawn as a toilet • Watch out for coqui frogs if ferry service returns Neighbors’ pets use my lawn as a toilet I very much appreciated your letter, Mrs. Freitas. It should be seen as nothing
Neighbors’ pets use my lawn as a toilet •
Watch out for coqui frogs if ferry service
returns
Neighbors’ pets use my lawn as a toilet
I very much appreciated your letter, Mrs. Freitas. It should be seen as nothing short of torture to put your neighbor through day after day after day of incessant barking. This should be viewed as an animal and human health issue, and it should be dealt with as such. We would not tolerate someone starting up some noxious chemical processing in the middle of a residential neighborhood. We should not tolerate people creating continuous noise pollution, either.
Unfortunately, I am less and less convinced such will ever be possible here, and I just wanted to point out why.
People have a strong sense of downright lawless entitlement about their pets here. Unfixed cats run wild. People have written into the paper berating others in their neighborhood for “erroneously” trapping their stray cat and taking it to KHS. You stated: “We have a leash law.” Even though the leash law is extremely clear, it is violated by dog owners every single day, all over the island, with impunity because people believe their pets should be free to do as they please and the Kaua‘i Police Department does not stop it. You think they don’t see the stray dogs?
In the past week, I’ve been accosted by two dogs off leash and off their owner’s property. For the past six years I’ve dealt with neighbors whose pets insist on using my lawn as their toilet on their neighborhood roams. If you can tie the offense to a particular home, Kauai Humane Society is responsive about dispatching someone to try to correct the issue. I’ve not had as much success getting KPD to take such issues seriously. Mind you, that’s with a relevant law.
Pet owners here simply can’t be trusted to behave responsibly, and many believe their pets are above any law. So it is the burden of the offended party to raise the issue. The victims have to put themselves out there to try to fix the problem. Now the unwritten (but often expressed) rule is to “stay out of other’s business,” and people regularly intimidate those that rock the boat as being devoid of “aloha.” Thus, many victims are afraid to speak up. The moment you open your mouth, you are accused of trampling on someone’s “culture” and trying to “change their way of life,” when you just crave a good night’s sleep and some modicum of peace in your own home. This tactic has worked to great success in the past to scuttle any attempts to get a noise and nuisance ordinance on the books.
The County Council can’t do this alone. There must be a flood of victims who are prepared to back up the members of the council for taking the appropriate actions. In the past, this has not been the case. The other side of the issue spoke louder and got their way, even though what they were saying was completely illogical and selfish just on the face of it.
Michael Mann, Lihu‘e
Watch out for coqui frogs if ferry service returns
In response to the article “Hawai‘i floats ferry proposal,” here we go again. While there are attractive reasons for ferry service, there is at least one devastating reason not to have such a service.
That would be the scourge of the Big Island, coqui frogs.
Beginning last year, next to my home, there was the unmistakable all night croaking of, thank the stars, a single coqui frog, which likely hitchhiked aboard some unknown carrier.
The nightly croaking went on for several months, and then suddenly stopped, perhaps by the demise of the coqui frog via a sharp-eyed cattle egret, old age, or a broken heart without a mate.
If there had been a male and a female, we would join the ranks of the sleepless soon thereafter.
The article further states that the proposed legislation — and if passed, the subsequent interisland ferry service — would be supervised by a new bureaucracy of political appointees. That does not give me a warm feeling.
Will this new bureaucracy be searching every plant brought over to our peaceful island? Hey, we already have feral jungle fowl (AKA roosters), a version of divine retribution.
Will they promptly send in the troops to spray citric acid, caffeine, or whatever is supposed to kill the coqui frogs?
As of today, Big Island residents report coqui frog numbers are growing and they are spreading, despite whatever efforts DLNR or the responsible authorities have been doing for years to eradicate them.
Supporters of a ferry service will no doubt rise up in fury at my opposition to ferry service, unloading personal vilification and ridicule upon this hapless writer.
But would you trade sleepless nights for a theoretical future ferry trip or two to another island, already well served by at least two airlines?
Tom Rice, Princeville
