Talk Story
The price to keep
Hawaii rabies-freeWHEN I first came to Hawaii in 1987, I owned a happy, 7-year-old Labrador retriever named Clancy. I'd raised her from a pup and we'd traveled all over the country together, from Delaware to Florida, to Maine and California.
She was a smart and faithful companion. Once, in California, she escaped from our fenced yard and was hit by a car, pinned underneath it and burned by the hot exhaust pipe. I arrived home minutes after the accident and neighbors had carried Clancy -- battered, burned and bleeding -- to the porch. When she saw me, she struggled to her feet and licked my hand.
Another time, while my friend Mary (now my spouse) took care of Clancy while I was away on business, she baked five dozen chocolate chip cookies for the youth group at her church.
Silently, in the middle of the night, Clancy sneaked out into the kitchen, snagged the bag of cookies off the counter and ate every one. She was overstuffed, uncomfortable and remorseful when Mary found her in the morning.
Mary remembered something about chocolate being toxic to dogs, so she hauled Clancy off to the same vet who'd patched her up after the car incident. Clancy would be fine, the vet said. The cookie-theft story made his day.
When we got to Hawaii, Clancy went directly into quarantine at Halawa. When I could, I'd head out H-1 to visit. I knew she wouldn't like confinement, but the worst part for her was the loneliness. When I'd leave -- visiting hours ended at a customer-unfriendly 4:30 p.m. -- she'd bay. It was hard to take.
After a month at Halawa, she'd caught an eye disease from the other dogs and had to be medicated. She'd also lost her appetite and her shiny black coat had dulled. That was it. I had to return to California to tie up loose ends, so I bailed Clancy out of quarantine and took her with me. My sister said she'd love to have her, so I shipped Clancy off to live in Maine.
Almost every Hawaii newcomer has a quarantine story to tell. Some pets fare better than Clancy, many worse. For military families who have few options when it comes to relocating and with rabies vaccinations widely available, the quarantine is an expensive, cruel and apparently unnecessary requirement.
Quarantine is a strong incentive to keep dogs and cats -- and people -- out of Hawaii. Would-be Hawaii newcomers sometimes change their minds when they're forced to chose between leaving members of the family behind or locking them up.
For those who feel the place is too overrun with people and animals, that's reason enough to keep the quarantine. Others have a stake in it, since it is a self-supporting business staffed by state employees.
IRONICALLY, it's the mongoose -- an animal brought to Hawaii to get rid of rats -- that poses the threat that our stringent quarantine laws are meant to address.
"For Hawaii, the small Indian mongoose is a potentially serious wildlife reservoir for rabies virus," says James J. Nakatani of the state Department of Agriculture. "Puerto Rico, where rabies is established in mongoose, reported 75 rabies cases during 1999 (includes 59 mongooses, 11 dogs, one cat) and 80 cases during 2000 (includes 59 mongooses, 15 dogs and one cat)."
Nakatani says Puerto Rico, with roughly four times Hawaii's human population, spends between $700,000 and $1 million "for post-exposure medical treatment for humans." That would be enough to treat about 300 animal-bite cases.
You could extrapolate, therefore, that Hawaii's quarantine keeps about 80 people a year from getting anti-rabies shots. That doesn't sound too bad -- unless you happen to be one of the 80.
So far, the Hawaii mongoose and pet populations are rabies-free. Meanwhile, although they have introduced many deadly diseases into Hawaii, we don't lock humans up for a month when they get off the plane.
A year ago, the Agriculture Department started "a risk assessment to look into other potential quarantine options that would allow the confinement period to be further reduced but not increase the risk of rabies introduction."
Before another year passes, we hope that review produces a reasonable, humane outcome.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.