In Focus: Animal Rights Hawai'i
By Cathy Goeggel

Animal Rights Hawai'i is a not-for-profit animal advocacy organization, founded in 1977. We are an all-volunteer group that works for animals through education, investigation and litigation. Our campaigns have included the fur industry, circuses, rodeos, performing animals, feral animals (from pigs to birds), vivisection, product testing, and the plight of animals raised and killed for food.

Our most recent litigation was to try to force the State of Hawai'i Department of Agriculture to perform an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the slaughterhouse and manure lagoons that are being built at the ocean's edge in a tsunami evacuation zone at Kalaeloa. We lost, as will thousands of people living along the leeward coast when their beaches are fouled by sewage from the Hawai'i Livestock Cooperative killing plant.

One of our on-going campaigns is to rescue just a single animal from death at the annual Hawai'i State Farm Fair. This year's fair began on July 19 and ran weekends through August 4 at the Aloha Stadium parking lot.

"IF GOD DIDN'T WANT US TO EAT THEM … HE WOULDN'T HAVE MADE THEM TASTE SO GOOD."

That chilling statement, made by a 4-H participant, at the Hawai'i State Farm Fair a few years ago, embodies the antiquated mind set of those who sponsor and run the annual initiation of young people into the arcane business of raising animals from babies to "market" size, and then paying them wildly inflated prices for the bodies of their former pals.

Each year lambs, pigs and cows are paraded around the auction arena, some sporting ribbons and glitter, and are sold, by the pound, to banks, restaurants and feed stores. The children, who have cared for these animals, are inculcated into the belief that the money they receive is worth the betrayal of their animals to the butcher's knife.

Each year members of Animal Rights Hawai'i have attempted to buy one animal. However, the Hawai'i Farm Bureau and the 4-H auction Committee have instituted a rule that one can bid ONLY on a carcass, and that the only animals who survive the fair are dairy cows, whose future at the end of their productive lives, will also end at the abattoir.

Our members have been spat upon, cursed at, screamed at, and been physically abused by the wonderful people who are "building the character" of the 4-H kids. We have been discriminated against by the Livestock Committee, which refuses to respond to our queries about the fair—such as when the animals will be killed.

Who pays for this? You, the taxpayer—and at multiple levels, because 4-H is part of the University of Hawai'i Cooperative Extension, the auction is directed by faculty members of the UH College of Tropical Agriculture, and the State of Hawai'i Dept. of Agriculture gives about $50,000 to the Farm Bureau to run the fair. The butchers are getting a new slaughterhouse at Kalaeloa, courtesy of both the State and federal governments. They appear at the Legislature every year with their hands out, feeding greedily at the public trough. They are very honest about the fact that the meat and dairy industry CANNOT survive in Hawai'i without constant infusions of public monies.

And so, why is ARH's money not good enough? Is 4-H so bloodthirsty that they will not allow one animal to live? Perhaps it is because we have investigated and publicized violations of the federal Humane Slaughter Act-at the very slaughterhouse where the lambs and pigs and cows will die…or perhaps it is because we have documented filthy cruel conditions at several local farms, and cruel dairy heifer crates (photos can be accessed at www.animalrightshawaii.org).

For more information about ARH, please visit our website. You can download our flyer, learn about our campaigns, and send us your comments.

ARH is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(C) (3) tax-exempt organization. Donations are welcome and are tax deductible.

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