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Wall Street Journal publishes it’s first story about Hawaii’s feral critter problem on April 2nd, 2009.  Here is the inside scoop…

On March 29th, 2009 I received a call from Ann Zimmerman, reporter for the Wall Street Journal.  Ann apparently found me through one of my many hobby website developments regarding issues important to the public and our community, Hawaii’s growing rooster infestation being one of them.   Ann was excited to have gotten a hold of me and said she had just arrived back at home in New York from Kauai.  She mentioned vacation renting in Lawai on the south side of Kauai.  She went on to tell me how much she loved the island of Kauai but that she couldn’t sleep very well while she was here some of the nights.  She congratulated me on my efforts to help residents and business owners tame their feral critter issues.  To my surprise, she told me she was nearly wrapping up a feral bird story which would be appearing as a fairly large story in the Wall Street Journal (thumbnail preview and snippet on the homepage of www.WSJ.com and the printed version).  She wanted my input for the story as a real estate professional who went as far as to offer his community a solution to their feral bird issues.

As many of you know, I have been in the real estate business for nearly 10 years and that I am the Broker of Ocean Rock Properties on Kauai.  As you can imagine I have been getting lots of feedback from the WSJ story which mentions my name personally numerous times.  To sum it up, some people are happy about the story and feel it will spark long overdue action on a county or state level to counter the feral bird problem in Hawaii.  But on the flip side, I have also taken some heat over the story, as if it were my fault the story is true, lol! I see it like this.  The story reported is true, like it or not.  For the handful who don’t like it, they should direct their energy toward fixing the problem, not covering up the issue as if it didn’t exist!  Furthermore, if these individuals are really concerned about a loss of tourism and blame the story for repercussions, they should look back on themselves as they never called for administering responsible control over an obvious problem way back when.  Truth is, I would love to honestly be able to tell future clients that the feral bird issue is on the outs, but at the moment, its not.  The feral bird issue has never been a deal breaker for any of my past clients (unless a direct neighbor is caging a slew of birds), and I certainly am not in the business of misrepresenting circumstances to clients.  With that said, I have no regrets in confirming the fact that Kauai and other islands do have a feral bird issue upon being asked.  I said what I said in hopes of grabbing the attention of our county or state to act on funding a start up program that would finally give residents, businesses and visitors some relief.

As we all know, tourism is vital to Hawaii.  We also know that I didn’t start designing special traps for enormously loud roosters on my property for the money either.  I really was fed up with the darn issue and found a legitimate way to help everyone out.  It should be noted that regardless of my input, the feral bird story would have been published no matter what.  So…………………………..now that the story has been published and the chips will start sprinkling down where they will, I want to make sure that you all know I am seeking this issue to it’s positive outcome which is a follow up story down the road which reports on how wonderfully the state and counties have responded to tame the feral bird and critter problems throughout the islands for all the many benefits that would offer (especially for Kauai).

Other interesting facts about the Wall Street Journal feral bird story…

Upon reading the pre-published version of the story which was given to me hours before the story was turned in, I was able to ask the editor NOT to dub Kauai “The Barnyard Island” while also thwarting a comment which acclaimed resident support for GMO crops on Kauai.  These items would have published had I not been given the opportunity to intervene.

Here is a link to the story located on WSJ.com – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123863006121980573.html

Aloha,  Branden