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<br />the livestock industries and, so, those are disease that we regulate \[unclear\]. I have to go
<br />through the Ag declaration line – guy’s sitting on his chair, OK, did you go visit any farms in the
<br />UK, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Oh, he got a little interested. Well, what were you there for? I was on
<br />the Foot and Mouth Taskforce. He about fell off his chair at this point. Give me your shoes, give
<br />me your clothes. \[Unclear\] left is all behind \[unclear\] incinerated and I had to self-quarantine in
<br />London for about 5 days before flying back to the United States and then I had to quarantine
<br />myself again for going on two farms for another ten days. So, we take it seriously, but I didn’t
<br />see evidence of that at the Honolulu Airport. So, again, everything’s a place ride away and like
<br />my brother, he goes back to Oregon, he brings the Frank’s Food Portuguese sausage with him –
<br />likes the mild – little bit of the hot \[unclear\]. People do the same thing for their country and a lot
<br />of meats, especially cured hams out of China – apparently, it’s a real delicacy – these viruses
<br />survive in them – they survive that process, and the United States gets tons of contraband meat
<br />and meat products entering the country. There’s a Beagle Brigade but if you think about it the
<br />amount, of dogs and you cannot to a 100% inspection and so, we try capture all this at borders
<br />but again our borders are porous. They’re very porous so we just need to keep an eye on it, and
<br />do what we can but it’s really scary – we’re all kind of holding our breath as these diseased
<br />spread, because if African Swine Fever gets in to our feral hog population we’ll never get rid of it
<br />and we will lose our ability to export to other counties and with Foot and Mouth that will also
<br />include the beef, sheep and goat and swine industries as well – so these are multi-billion dollar
<br />diseases. Number one way that we can prevent it, I think it’s great restaurant, cafeteria waste,
<br />can, the State of Hawaii – there’s 27 states that allow slops swill or garbage feeding of pigs –
<br />Hawaiʻi is one of them – but all these states you must be permitted and be inspected at least
<br />quarterly and it’s a simple ask – just cook food for half an hour – before you feed it to your pigs
<br />and make sure that there’s no cross contamination between the raw slop and the cooked slop
<br />and you contain the other animals that get in to it: vermin, flies, mongoose, rats – other animals
<br />– and you know that there’s a lot that goes on underground. In 2010 we called all of the food
<br />establishments within the State of Hawaiʻi which took about 9 months, and we found several
<br />people that were unlicensed, and we would educate not only the business establishments
<br />providing that food waste but the swine producers as well. That scared off a lot of people and
<br />they just disappeared and went into hiding or they became licensed and, that really helped out –
<br />but this is a resource for pig farmers and a way to divert this from going into our landfills but it’s
<br />a privilege and there are bad actors out there that are abusing it, say, I’m not gonna cook, you’re
<br />from the government, I’m gonna do what I like – and those people scare us, they really do scare
<br />us – because right now we’re dealing with some issues and it’s just really sad that we don’t –
<br />Department of Ag – doesn’t seem to have the backing or support to really go after those cases.
<br />So, it’s really sad and it’s, it’s scary. We’re just vulnerable but I’ll be out there doing my job,
<br />again, it’s only me on this entire Island and I have other jobs as well too, like inspecting the
<br />livestock planes coming in from Kona, um, dealing with trip down \[?\] in bulls in Kaʻu. Anyway, a
<br />whole bunch of different things and disease investigations. But I guess the biggest thing is the
<br />pigs with their big tonsils and so many diseases that they can carry that will transmit to us. We
<br />really need to look seriously at the inter-action between humans and the wildlife in this
<br />particular situation and what are things that we’re doing to make the problems worse and I
<br />guess the classic example was if you needed a pig for, you know, a baby luau – just rattle your
<br />can at the corner of Mohouli and Komohana – put a little rope down – they’ll all come out – pick
<br />which one you want, snatch it up, hog tie put it in the back of the truck and take off. You go
<br />shopping for pigs over there because multiple people feed them and there are laws against it
<br />but it’s such a Hodge podge/mix match that it’s almost impossible for anybody to enforce. It’s
<br />either not our jurisdiction, it’s not a priority, or there’s no backing and then when it’s done on
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