RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaiian Humane Society president Pamela Burns plays in her office with some kittens up for adoption at the facility.
Humane Society president
heads up national boardWith regard to your recent appointment as president of the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, who are they and what do they do?
Pamela Burns
>> Position: President, Hawaiian Humane Society (14 years)
>> Board appointments: Burns was recently named president of the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy. She also serves on the U.S. board of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators, the Committee for Certification of Animal Welfare Executives. Local boards include the Hawaii Employers Council, Hawaii Community Services Council and the human relations committee of the YMCA. She also is president of the Hawaii Association of Animal Welfare Administrators.
>> Hawaiian Humane Society: Budget: $4.3 million; staff: 55; volunteers: 500 plus
It's a group of organizations with varied interests in the dynamics between people and animals. Representatives include the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Cat Fancy Association. What the organization is trying to do is look at the interaction between people and animals from a wide variety of directions instead of looking at it anecdotally like we do in each of our environments. We want to really look at gathering reliable data on numbers of animals in the U.S. -- cats and dogs -- to promote responsible stewardship and look at ways to reduce the number of homeless animals.
What are some of the projects you'll be working on in the upcoming year?
Our Web site has been getting a tremendous amount of use. We're getting 1.3 million to 1.5 million hits a month. While there is a lot of information about laws, upcoming events, tips on animal behavior and resources on the site, maybe in a year we can put up pictures of all the strays who are lost. That could potentially increase the number who are claimed. Right now we just show samples of what's adoptable or lost. We're also going to do a multilingual brochure.
What about your fund raising goals? Is it getting easier or harder over time?
Certainly the amount of money that the community has supported us with is increasing every year and the demand increases every year. We are looking at new programs and new services. We have grown tremendously in the last 10 years. We were primarily an organization that brought in animals and adopted them out. We are now an organization that does that as well as helping people stay with their animals through some of our programs like PALS, Pets Are Loving Support. If someone is in the hospital and their animal or is sick, we have volunteers that will go in and take care of those animals until the person is out of the hospital. We also have a shelter animal behavior program now for cats and dogs that are coming in here that need some extra socialization. It's for people who adopted animals from us and maybe they didn't plan on that dog not being house broken so they can follow up post adoption, because again we are trying to keep that adoption working. Also for the first two weeks after adoption we'll provide free veterinarian care for minor illnesses and diseases in order to help the adopter get off on the right foot. Every time our donations have increased there is always significantly more we could do than we have money for, so it's always a challenge.
Does the recent change in the state Quarantine law have any effect on the society?
No, but we are absolutely delighted with it. We had gone to the Legislature 13 times to support changes in the rules. Now that we have vaccines that are effective along with permanent ID like microchipping, it allows us to make some of those changes. We also gave testimony in support of the off-leash dog park rules that are part of the parks department and are really hoping they will move along in opening some of these off-leash parks. There are only two off-leash dog parks that are privately run and 37 percent of the households on Oahu have a dog. The council approved off-leash dog parks over two years ago, yet we have not had the rules in place to allow even the opening of just one park. I really hope that will happen.
What are your legislative goals for this year?
We are looking at working with the state legislature in strengthening the animal protection law. For certain kinds of acts of cruelty to animals we would like to increase that to a felony. We would also like to make certain laws that are now county laws into state laws such as dogs in the back of pickup trucks on public roads should be cross tethered. If you are in a farming community, that's fine, but if you get into a traffic it becomes an issue. One of the things we are also doing right now is starting a court monitoring program. We have volunteers who have been working in the courts the last several months to historically go back to look at who was charged with cock fighting, what was their fine, who was the prosecutor, who was the judge, how many times have they come before the court. While we believe cock fighting should be a felony, if we're not enforcing it to the fullest extent of the current law, it is kind difficult to argue why it should be increased to a felony.
What is the stray situation on Oahu? Has it improved?
There are fewer strays than before if you look at 15 years ago. In 1978 it was 25,000 dogs we received. In the past year it was 9,000 dogs. But the cats are still an issue and so many of them are unsocialized. The other thing is this thought that "I feed this cat but it's not mine." When you look at the number of cats we receive in a year, which is about 17,000 it's still a lot. It was 21,000 in 1995 so we are doing better. I think what is really important is that many people feel that our attitude toward dogs and cats is different and we really need to bring cats up to that status, or that perceived status, that dogs have.
With limited space in your current location, have you thought about adding a second site?
We did a second site assessment several years ago for potential sites for another facility. We actually have started some initial discussions with someone about a potential site, because we know that the population is moving out in the Leeward area so we are looking at moving out that way. It's in the discussion stages still.
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