After 25 Years, Moloka`i Ranch Tries To Close Down Its Wild Game Business
Moloka`i Ranch is in the final phases of closing its Wildlife Conservation Park, a drive-through tourist attraction featuring wild animals — zebras, giraffes, eland, oryx, Barbary sheep (aoudad) — that ranged on several hundred acres of what the ranch’s promotional brochures described as “their own habitat.”
But the closure, whose announcement in August 1997 followed hard on the heels of allegations that the ranch had repeatedly violated the Animal Welfare Act, has not put an end to the controversy surrounding the ranch’s herds of wild game.
Instead, as the ranch sought to dispose of the animals — spurning an offer from Animal Rights Hawai`i to help find sanctuaries — new questions arose about the appropriateness of the intended destinations. In addition, in late October, the Maui Humane Society found 100 to 200 carcasses of axis deer and black buck at Pala`au Valley, to which many of the Safari Park animals had been removed and which, for several years, Moloka`i Ranch had operated as a trophy hunting area.
‘An Accident Waiting…’
The Wildlife Conservation Park of Moloka`i Ranch got its official start on March 24, 1972. On that date, writes P. Quentin Tomich in his authoritative Mammals in Hawai`i, the state Board of Agriculture approved the ranch’s request “for import of 54 animals of nine species — goat, sheep, and various antelope — to these agriculturally zoned lands.” This action, Tomich continues, was “of special interest for the scrutiny it received which modified the original proposal.
“The public first learned of the plan on March 1 through a newspaper report. An application by the ranch on January 13 asked also for introduction of the collared peccary, Tayassu tajacu (Linnaeus), a small native pig from the American southwest, but this species was withdrawn from the request because it is impractical to construct and maintain fences reasonably able to contain such a small agile animal. Concerns expressed by botanists, environmentalists, and conservation groups included the likelihood of escape for some species by jumping fences or other means, and consequent invasion of forested lands on Moloka`i.”1
According to a report prepared by a ranch consultant in the mid-1990s, the original purpose of the permit was to allow “range use studies” and eventual development of a game sanctuary and hunting preserve.2
Two years after the permit was issued, the ranch had brought in six of the nine permitted introductions and three giraffes from the Honolulu Zoo. The project opened to the public as the Moloka`i Ranch Willdife Park in 1978 for camera safaris undertaken in tour vans.
The giraffes shipped in 1974 were the first of several shipments from the zoo to the ranch. Altogether, from 1974 to 1989, the zoo supplied the ranch with 10 giraffes, one of which died in transit. At least two others died on the ranch when they could not climb out of a ravine. That event led the ranch to build its giraffe enclosure, on about 15 acres in the heart of the safari park.
In the early 1980s, the zoo also sent a herd of 20 or more Barbary sheep to the ranch. They were shortly joined by about a dozen black buck and no more than seven sika deer, according to the zoo’s records.
From other sources, the ranch obtained oryx, eland, kudu, sika deer and, in 1988, East African crowned cranes and zebras. Apart from the animals deliberately introduced by the ranch, wild axis deer from Moloka`i’s large population were able to penetrate the boundary fences and join the other game. When the axis deer became part of the fenced herds, even though the ranch did not necessariy want this, they also became subject to the same standards of treatment as the rest of the animals.
By the time of the last arrivals, Moloka`i Ranch was experiencing problems with erosion, exploding animal populations, and economic downturns.
To address the problem of overgrazing, the ranch, owned at the time by Castle & Cooke, expanded the fenced area of the safari park and, in 1988, sought advice from Burt Smith, an expert in pasture management with the University of Hawai`i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.
Smith advised the ranch to reduce the numbers of animals or expand the park’s size to 10,000 acres divided into at least 10 paddocks through which the animals could be rotated. This would give the grass and ground cover an opportunity to be re-seeded and recover from grazing pressures.
An Peischel collaborated with Smith in preparing the report. In a USDA report, Peischel is quoted as saying that he and Smith concluded “that the Wildlife Park had too many animals, too little forage, too much bare ground, and too little management. The Park was out of control for the amount of animals feeding on the vegetation available; it was an accident waiting to happen.”
But before most of their recommendations could be implemented, the ranch was taken over by a New Zealand company, Brierley Investments, Ltd.
Signs of Starvation
By then, concerns were growing among USDA inspectors over the welfare of the animals at the Wildlife Conservation Park. As noted in a report dated January 18, 1991, by Elizabeth Lyons, the veterinarian for the USDA on Maui, “the current managers of the Moloka`i Ranch have been developing a Trophy Park for the purpose of hunting animals. A 3500-acre area of the ranch was fenced to develop the Trophy Park. The excess animals from the Wildlife Park are to be moved to the Trophy Park area. They started moving some animals from the Wildlife Park in December 1990.” Animals in the “trophy park” — referred to as the Game Management Area by the ranch — need not receive the same standard of treatment and care required for animals maintained under the USDA’s exhibitor’s permit (the minimal standard required of zoos, wildlife parks, and other facilities displaying wild animals to the public).
Lyons notes that, on an inspection she conducted on November 17, 1989, she found, “forage quantity and quality in the Wildlife Park is not adequate to sustain current population of hoofed stock. Extensive erosion in the Park area is evidence of overuse/overgrazing. Feed of sufficient quantity and nutritive value needs to be provided to maintain stock.”
Another inspection in July 1990 disclosed many of the same problems. “Also noted,” Lyons wrote, “is that the only plants available in abundance, in the Wildlife Park, are toxic and/or non-palatable.” A necropsy performed on an animal recently shot showed that the animal was undernourished “and that the conditions of the fat contents of the animal indicated starvation.”
And again, in October 1990, Lyons visited the ranch. “The provision of approximately 6 bales of hay and 350 pounds of barley, per day, does not appear to have provided sufficient nutritional intake for the 1000 (plus) animals, which were already nutritionally deprived from drought and overgrazing of existing enclosure,” she found. “An additional 200 acres of pasture has been fenced for the animals within the park to utilize; this has helped alleviate nutritional deficits, however, not all animals can be expected to utilize this area. With the exception of the aoudads, most animals appear thin to varying degrees.”
One of the ongoing problems the ranch faced was keeping fences intact, not only to prevent the escape of display animals, but also to keep out dogs and the axis deer. As mentioned earlier, the deer especially posed a problem since they competed with the display animals for food and, once inside the boundaries of the Wildlife Conservation Park, were subject to the same requirements as the other animals for food and veterinary care.
And so, Lyons determined in the October 1990 visit that the ranch was not in compliance the requirement for veterinary care: “Observations of all the animals within the park has not been done in a consistent systematic manner. A skeleton of an axis deer was noted with its head stuck in the perimeter fence, indicating that the animal was apparently confined in this position long enough to die and decompose undisturbed and unnoticed.”
‘Marginal Nutrition’
On November 6, 1990, Lyons spoke with Alan Kaufman, the ranch’s attending veterinarian. “It should be noted,” she writes, “that Dr. Kaufman did not inspect any of the animals within the Wildlife Park … between February 1, 1990, and August 5, 1990.”
Her report continues: “Dr. Kaufman stated that he felt that the animals are receiving marginal nutrition but cannot say he has seen any evidence of starvation… Dr. Kaufman stated that there is a parasite problem with the animals. He said that the giraffes and zebras are de-wormed separately. The rest of the animals have not been treated regularly for parasites. He said that they did not want to de-worm all the animals because the healthier you keep them, the more they will breed, which would create more problems for the Park.” When Kaufman was shown photographs of the extremely thin animals observed by Lyons, Kaufman “stated that they may just be old animals.”
Lyons also interviewed Pilipo Solitario, the ranch employee who conducted the guided tours. “He said that the tourists comment on how thin the animals are.” While the giraffes and zebras received supplemental feed, Solitario was reported to have said, “the only grain that the other wildlife received, prior to October (1990), was a few hands full of barley that was thrown from the tour vans to get the animals to come closer. Recently (October) they started feeding the wildlife animals the eight bags of barley per day.”
“Pilipo said that the Honolulu Zoo stopped plans to place animals at the Park because the owners allow hunting within the Wildlife Park. The hunting takes place early mornings and after the tours,” Lyons wrote.
On November 5, 1990, Lyons interviewed Ian Hurst, CEO for Moloka`i Ranch Wildlife Park. Hurst told her that he felt “the animals have been receiving adequate feed all along.” In any event, the ranch was planning, Hurst said, to move the animals to the new 3,500-acre trophy park.
The state veterinarian, Calvin Lum, refused to cooperate with Lyons in her investigation. As Lyons writes:
“I contacted Calvin Lum, DVM, the administrator for the Division of Animal Industry for the state of Hawai`i, on October 31, 1990. Dr. Lum was not willing to cooperate with the USDA investigation into the alleged violations at the Moloka`i Ranch Wildlife Park. He stated that he was very upset that the federal government has gone this far without getting the state involved. Dr. Lum would not comment on his August 9, 1990 tour of the Wildlife Park until we allowed him to review the USDA case against the Park.”
Lum then conducted his own investigation. Afterwards, he informed the USDA that he agreed in some respects — concerning inadequate fence, inadequate storage of feed, and other problems — with the USDA’s findings. “I do not concur,” he continued, “with the findings of inadequate feed, insufficient numbers of employees and of charges that these animals are or have ever been close to starvation.”
Following an extensive, two-year investigation, the USDA fined the ranch $20,000 for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act in 1991.
Protracted Closure
Transferring animals from the Wildlife Conservation Park to the Game Management Area was not easy. Round-ups using nets thrown from helicopters made the uncaught animals so skittish that further efforts to approach them could not be made for weeks afterward. Darting animals with tranquilizers brought other risks. The ranch also drove animals into a series of progressively smaller blind enclosures, leading eventually into corrals.
Between 1990 and 1994, several hundred animals were relocated in this fashion. At the end of that period, Moloka`i Ranch undertook a reassessment of the Wildlife Conservation Park, hiring the Hawai`i Nature Center to lead the project. Several interested groups and experts were consulted during the review, including Animal Rights Hawai`i, the Hawaiian Humane Society, the Maui Humane Society, the Honolulu Zoo, veterinarians, the state Department of Agriculture, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Burt Smith, the soil conservation expert.
In early 1995, Tamar Chotzen, executive director of the Hawai`i Nature Center, released her report, to which were appended the comments of many of those who had participated in the review. The report outlined three options (close the park; improve and expand it; or turn its operation over to a private party to run as a concession). Chotzen’s recommendation seemed to favor the second option, under which the wildlife park would “add value to Moloka`i Ranch’s real estate portfolio and enhance community and media relations” and eventually “generate revenue for the ranch.”
Endangered Game?
Among the studies included in Chotzen’s report was one prepared by veterinarians Jerry C. Haigh and Calvin W.S. Lum. Haigh, based in Saskatoon, Canada, is an international game consultant. Lum, as mentioned above, is the head veterinarian for the state Department of Agriculture. (According to Lum’s office, he was on sabbatical leave from the state at the time.)
Haigh and Lum discuss various methods of utilizing game for revenue-producing purposes at the ranch, including establishment of a hunting area that would attract the “upmarket” segment of hunters. Both trophy and non-trophy animals would be available, in hunts tailored to the desires of the individual guests. A method that provides “a less rigorous hunt, and can readily be tailored to individual animals of known trophy size, is the provision of feeding stations that present a palatable pelleted ration at prescribed times. It takes the animal only a very short period to learn the timetable and a ‘hunter’ can be placed at a strategic place to make the kill. This form of hunting has elements of shooting fish in a barrel, but does make for a satisfied customer.”
Another study appended to Chotzen’s report was from Burt Smith, who had updated his 1988 survey of soil erosion with an inspection made in 1994. As he wrote in a cover letter to the ranch on January 22, 1995, “This report paints a rather bleak picture of a deteriorating site… The area can be reclaimed, but at a price. If domestic livestock were involved and with appropriate management, using intensive grazing techniques, it could be done economically, or at least at break-even.” Smith continues:
“The problem is confounded with wild animals. Each species has different nutritive requirements, grazing patterns, social groupings, behavior, etc. An analogy is similar to a cattle ranch that decides to also raise goats. There are relatively few things in common and many new interactions, even between such common livestock as cattle and goats. The new required level of management is slightly more than the sum necessary for each individual species. That is, if they are to be run economically and in an environmentally sustainable manner.
“Quite frankly, I believe that the present site is inappropriate for a wildlife park. It’s too arid, too fragile for the density necessary for a safari experience. It will take a considerable infusion of time and money to maintain the park at its present state, much less bring it back to pre-park condition, while sustaining adequate animal numbers…
“Nature’s shortcomings can be rectified, but at a cost. The farther away from a natural equilibrium, the greater the operating costs.”
Fluctuating Inventory
At the same time that Chotzen and her advisors were developing their report, the USDA was pressing the ranch to correct what the USDA saw as violations of permit conditions.
One of the most serious infractions, according to a report of an inspection carried out on January 13, 1995, was that “the numbers of animals observed fluctuate widely, especially the axis deer, aoudad, and eland. These varying counts have been a continuing problem, noted on many previous inspection reports. Having an accurate census of the animals is essential to proper management, as nutritional status, feed delivery, and veterinary care delivery are all impacted.”
Although the ranch had been making progress translocating some of the animals to the trophy park, the inspector, Dr. Lyons, noted: “the current problems of virtually nonexistent forage, increased poaching/dog attacks, security concerns (i.e., fencing), make accurate inventories even more important.”
In August 1996, the group Animal Rights Hawai`i released footage of showing what it said was a Moloka`i Ranch employee “callously slitting the throats of fully conscious axis deer who were trapped at night in the ranch’s Conservation Park and transfixed by the headlights of a truck.” The footage was turned over to the USDA. In addition to Lyons’ inspections, the video was used in the filing of a formal complaint against the ranch on February 6, 1997.
The complaint alleged that the ranch had not implemented a proper veterinary program, resulting in the “improper euthanasia of approximately six animals” and the failure to deliver appropriate care to diseased and injured animals. “During October and November 1994,” the complaint continues, the ranch failed “to ensure that potable water was accessible or provided to animals as often as necessary for the health and comfort of the animals.” Other allegations concerned inadequate record-keeping, rough treatment of animals during their transport; and failure to protect animals by maintaining the perimeter fence in good condition. This last failure, the USDA charged, “resulted in the deaths of approximately 30 animals and the escape of two animals.”
A consent decision and order was issued by the USDA on May 7, 1997. The ranch did not admit or deny any of the allegations in the complaint. It did, however, agree to pay a civil penalty of $50,000, and to “cease and desist from violating the [Animal Welfare] Act” by providing adequate veterinary care, making sure potable water was available to animals “as often as necessary” for their health and welfare, and maintaining the perimeter fence, among other things.
Moloka`i Ranch surrendered its USDA permit in August 1997. After that, animals in the Wildlife Conservation Park could neither be sold nor exhibited, although many were allowed under a state permit to be transferred to the Game Management Area.
There, too, according to Scott Whiting, an attorney for Moloka`i Ranch, the ranch’s practices changed. For most of 1998, no trophy hunts have been allowed in the GMA. Instead, he told Environment Hawai`i, local residents are allowed to hunt the animals under no-cost permits issued by the ranch.
According to the latest sets of animal inventories provided to the state by the ranch, from July through December 1997, 19 “trophy” animals, all male, were killed (14 black buck, four aoudad, and one eland), with an additional 45 (all female) being “culled” — i.e., dispatched by ranch staff. These latter included 30 black buck and 15 aoudad. Offsetting these losses was the birth of some 159 animals. Altogether, the ranch reported 584 animals in the Game Management Area. Axis deer were not included in the count, although they continue to find their way into the fenced areas, as they did in the Wildlife Conservation Park.
Between January and June 1998, the inventory grew to 609 animals, again excluding axis deer. No animals were killed as “trophy” heads, according to the inventory; 135 animals were culled.
The Final Roundup
Starting in 1997, Moloka`i Ranch began looking for people willing to take the animals in the Wildlife Conservation Park. Transfers of the wild game were subject to approval of the state Board of Agriculture, which last year began deliberating on various applications to take the animals.
The board approved the transfer of one zebra to Alan Kaufman, the ranch veterinarian, in April. In July, it approved the transfer of a crowned crane, two pregnant zebras, and two oryx to Norman and Anne Goody of Kailua-Kona. The Goodys, who have obtained a USDA exhibitor’s permit, say they intend to allow the animals to be displayed to elementary-school-age children. As a condition of approval of the transfer, male animals are to be surgically neutered while females are to be chemically sterilized.
According to Anne Goody, the two oryx (a mother and juvenile male offspring) have arrived and are adjusting nicely to their new surroundings. One of the pregnant zebras died in labor. The second has just foaled and is to be shipped to Kona when the foal is a few months old. The crane was to have been air-freighted to Kona in mid-December.
Ni`ihau Ranch
In August, the Board of Agriculture approved Ni`ihau Ranch’s request, made in January 1998, for the transfer of 21 eland, 13 Barbary sheep, and 12 oryx to Ni`ihau Ranch. The board placed no requirement on the ranch to confine the animals; they are to have free run of the 70-square-mile, privately owned island. Under terms of the approval, death of the animals is to be “by natural means, euthanasia, or slaughter.”
Death as a result of hunting was not called out in the application or permit. However, according to Fred Helm, a veterinarian with the state Department of Agriculture, it was clearly the board’s intention to allow hunting. “If after herd was built up, they chose to hunt the animals, they could,” Helm told Environment Hawai`i. There is no need for further permitting from the state, Helm said. All Ni`ihau Ranch has to do is provide semi-annual inventories of the animals as well as disease tests done on tissues taken from every animal “harvested” for the first five years, or at least one sample from one animal of each species.
The Board of Agriculture voted against the advice of its staff and the Advisory Committee on Plants and Animals, which had unanimously voted for disapproval of the Ni`ihau Ranch appliation, largely out of environmental concerns.
But Ralph Ishikawa, board member from Kaua`i, spoke in favor. Meeting minutes paraphrase Ishikawa as saying “the Robinson family is very concerned about the environment. For example, there are no goats on Ni`ihau because they were eradicated to protect the exotic plants along the cliff area. The animals that are being considered for transfer cannot get to those areas. While traveling through Robinson land, he was told that no rubbish was to be left behind, including his cigarette butts. He emphasized that Ni`ihau is an ideal area for these animals because it is isolated, the conditions are suitable, concern of the environment by the family…”
Keith Robinson expanded on Ishikawa’s statement. “Ni`ihau has become the only island in the world successfully recolonized by monk seals in the present century,” the BOA minutes record him as saying. “There is a breeding population of about 30-90 self-sustaining animals. In regards to the subject animals, they basically want to increase the herd and get into safari hunting. The situation was thought out very carefully… There is no chance that the animals would get away or get out of control because they control all the water holes. The animals have to come to water and if at any time they decide that the animals have become a pest, men will be posted with rifles at the water holes.”
Earlier, at a meeting of the advisory committee on land vertebrates, Bruce Robinson responded to the environmental concerns of committee members by noting that Ni`ihau already has “a very large population of pigs which are known to wallow extremely liberally and eat the waterbirds and their young. We do not feel any action is necessary as the waterbirds survive the pigs, which are far worse than any type of sheep, as sheep do not eat eggs.”
Ni`ihau is off-limits to all but residents, invited guests of the owners or customers paying for helicopter tours. Visits by the press or other independent observers are rare. In April 1998, however, TenBruggencate, visited Ni`ihau. He wrote up his observations in one of his weekly environmental columns.
“The environmental damage caused by wild pigs on Ni`ihau is immense, and because the island is so dry, it takes a long time for the environment to repair the damage they do to the land,” his column began. Pigs had torn up soil at the base of trees and in a salt marsh, he wrote. “Grass on Ni`ihau pastures tends to be sparse. Pigs turn these areas into dustbowls,” he went on to say.
At a grassy point near Ki`i Landing on the island’s northeast side, he wrote, reporters saw “a dozen grazing pigs in an area that was once an albatross nesting site.”
The problems were exacerbated by a dry winter, he wrote, which “has reduced grazing areas on Ni`ihau.” Livestock owned by the ranch were showing the effects, he wrote, and “the pigs are no different.
Not all views of the transfer were negative. Tom Telfer, with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife Kaua`i branch, was asked by his division to comment on the proposal. The island was already so heavily overgrazed, he said, that there was no native vegetation of any consequence left. Given the depressed Ni`ihau economy, anything that might improve it should be welcomed, he said.
Bruce Robinson told Environment Hawai`i that there were significant differences between the Ni`ihau operation and that of Moloka`i Ranch: “The difference is that they don’t appear to have the control that we do. If we need to get rid of animals, we would. We control the environment completely. If there winds up being a deterimental population, we would just cull them down.”
As to TenBruggencate’s report of the pig overpopulation, Robinson said that that was being taken care of by shooting them. “The pigs are under control now,” he said.
The Remainders
Two giraffes and many of the other animals have been spoken for by the Maui Keiki Zoo. A proposal to transfer zebras to a taxidermist on Maui, Wayne Lu, was rejected by the Board of Agriculture.
Several hundred animals remain in the Game Management Area. Just what Moloka`i Ranch intends to do with these over the long term was not clear. Video footage made during the October 1998 inspection of the Game Management Area shows barren land, parched vegetation, inadequate water supplies, and more than a hundred carcasses of game animals.
An investigation of the ranch for possible violations of the state animal cruelty laws or county of Maui ordinances was begun by the Maui County Police Department. Environment Hawai`i could not determine the status of this investigation at press time.
- 1. P. Quentin Tomich, Mammals in Hawai`i (Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 1986), pp. 191-192.
2. Tamar Chotzen, executive director, The Hawai`i Nature Center, “Recommendations for the Future of the Moloka`i Ranch Wildlife Conservation Park,” 1995.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 9, Number 7 January 1999