Scope Of Heavy Pesticide Use On Oahu — Finally In The Public Domain

Photo: Sally Paulson, owner of the Pahipahi’alua Walking Horse Ranch, pets one of her Tennessee walking horses. She lost three horses within a few weeks time last fall. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2023)

The birds were the first to go, an unusual number of them lying lifeless in a field at Sally Paulson’s North Shore ranch. Then there was the owl that stood in a pool of water for days as if it had been burned. The owl died too.

After that, a horse nicknamed Blankie died suddenly. Within weeks, Blankie’s pasture-mate Ida experienced what Paulson said looked like a seizure before the horse ran through a hot fence and into a grove of trees where she dropped dead. Ten days after that, another horse, Jazz, died.

“At that point, I’m like, what’s going on?” Paulson said in an interview.

Paulson believes the animals’ deaths were caused by pesticides sprayed on the neighboring Kuilima Lands operated by the Turtle Bay Resort, although there’s no proof of a link.

“Can I definitively say that my horses were directly killed from this? No, I cannot,” Paulson said. “As a person involved in farming my entire life – I’ve grown up on farms here and […]

Full article: The Scope Of Heavy Pesticide Use On Oahu Is Finally In The Public Domain