If you want to learn more about what we talked
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All right, this is Nature's Secret Service, the
podcast that puts you in the room with the men
and women of wildlife law enforcement. We're
back this week for part two with our interview
with Keith Swindle, former special agent with
the US Fish and Wildlife Service. If you tuned
in last week, you know that Keith was working
on an important case in Hawaii involving the
Newell's shear water and a petrol boat. The petrol
listed as endangered and the Newell's shear water
listed as threatened under the Endangered Species
Act. And just as we wrapped up last time, he
was telling us that he landed in Kauai and basically
embarked on a 10 -year criminal investigation
to determine whether or not any wildlife laws
had been violated with regard to the take of
shearwaters. And just another brief refresher.
These shearwater birds, it's difficult for them
to take off. They often take off from high places
in Hawaii. In the fall the chicks make their
initial flight at night, and they're often distracted
by bright lights Confusing it for the moon or
stars and that causes them to crash into the
land Before they make it out to sea and that
can result in tens of thousands of birds losing
their lives Essentially being taken under the
endangered species act so welcome back Keith.
Thanks for being back for Episode two, you're
wearing the same shirt. So everybody knows we
recorded this on the same day. We're just splitting
it into two. But thanks for being back. All right.
So just as we ended our last episode, you were
about to tell us that you this took 10 years.
Okay. So we know you arrive. Your goal now is
to start documenting things to what you've described
to me before as a law enforcement standard, right?
You're going to start documenting what's happening
to these birds to a law enforcement standard.
What does that look like? Tell us about like,
yeah, how do you go about this launch? Yeah,
so, so because most of the fallout of these seabirds
occurred during the new moon of October, and
then again, in the new moon of November. But
for 10 years, every October, I would go over
to Kauai, you know, because I lived on Oahu.
And then I would spend essentially sunset to
sunrise looking for shearwaters and petrels.
And I would drive the entire island, you know,
drive all the whole road system. And there were
what we called hot spots. Conveniently, what
even the people that that managed the hotspots,
referred to them as hotspots because they knew
that this is where all this happened. And those
places were a couple of spots where power lines
were aligned in a way. So one way to describe
it is if you imagine power lines going down the
road, If they were arranged like a volleyball
net, in other words, you know, vertically. So
if you have like six lines and there's one and
then another one above it and another one above
it all the way up, kind of like a net. That was
one area. actually is called Kailua Beach on
Kauai, where that was a hotspot. And it was a
little valley that came right to the ocean. And
this net of power lines cross that valley, right,
right at the mouth. And so it just funneled,
it was a natural funnel, and the birds would
fly through there, and then they would clip those
lines and go down. Doesn't take a rocket scientist
to know that that's going to catch birds, right?
You don't you don't have to be a biologist to
know that birds are gonna follow the the wind
pattern down a valley and come out right at the
mouth of yeah Yeah, so consistently every year
I would find more birds there than I would find
in other places and that's why we call it a hotspot
And then there were these that one had no lights
the other problem were areas with with unshielded
lights, okay, and And you know This whole process,
so let's say there were three football stadiums
on the island, basically three high schools that
used facilities and those would be big attractants
on Friday nights because they would have these
big, big stadium. Exactly. big stadium sized
lights and those lights were unshielded. And
that's what I could see from the mountains. It
was eight miles away. I could see those lights
like a beacon. They were the brightest thing
out there on a moonless night. And if there was
a moon, they were as bright or brighter than
the moon. So, yeah. And so I would go around
and find birds, and most of them were either
alive or dead. If they were alive, I would collect
them and take them to the SOS thing or even go
release them at night if that was in a good place
for it. Had to be careful about that because
the attraction of light is so strong in these
things that if you took one and you let it go
at the beach and it flew out to sea, as it's
out on the ocean, if it's a moonless night or
a new moon, if it's flying around and then it
sees a big light on land, it'll turn around and
come back. Oh man, that must be depressing if
you say that. Yeah. Yeah. So I often didn't release
them for that reason. What I would do is then
take them to that whole SOS, save our sheer waters
kind of mailbox at the fire department kind of
thing. And then release them in the morning.
But I would GPS the original location. I would
photograph it several ways to illustrate if it's
usually near a light. you know, illustrate the
light, get an overall shot, get a close -up,
front ID, GPS it, do all the, you know, who,
what, where, when, sorts of things. You're documenting
that type of light there too, right? Like whether
it's shielded, unshielded, all of that. Exactly.
Okay. Exactly. Yep, yep. And then plotting all
that, ultimately plotting all that on maps and
things like that. And then figuring out who the
owner of the light is. And on Kauai, this is
important. On Kauai, the non -private lights
were pretty much generally two owners. The street
lights were the power company on that island.
They managed and maintained the street lights
on the entire island. And then the other public
lights, so like you know, county public buildings,
the football stadiums, which were like public
schools, some tennis courts, soccer fields, some
baseball fields, things like that, was the county
of Kauai. So those were essentially the two entities
with the majority of the lights that were causing
problems. And then, of course, the power company
also maintained some of the power, you know,
all the power lines. And yeah, so I spent 10
years of Octobers at night. Working the night
shift basically, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brutal.
And you know, not that complicated, but yeah,
pretty straightforward. technically not that
difficult, but just, you know, had to be very
thorough. Yeah. And that's, that's hard on you
lived in Oahu, right? And so, yeah, it's hard.
That's hard on personal life, personal relationships,
if all of a sudden you disappear, yeah, days,
weeks at a time. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's rough.
You know, when you're working long nights. You're
doing this all by yourself, which you know in
any other agency They probably would have assigned
half a dozen agents to go over and work on it
But did you have help from like the public? I
certainly had allies, you know in terms of groups
that were interested in saving the species the
biologists things like that, but you know as
you probably experience in your career, you know,
you're kind of a pariah, right? Sometimes you're
the pariah, yeah. Exactly. Because and that's
always depends on the day and the moment, right?
Even with the same person, because, you know,
when I'm out there kind of being the lightning
rod of initially, and remind me to come back
to this, but it started off like an antagonistic
sort of relationship with the violators. After
10 years, it ended up being great, really almost
a partnership, even though I was charging them
criminally. And I'll try to explain that more.
Yeah, so I did have others out there and what
I would try to do is get them to collect information
like I did. That you know could be used and if
you know and ultimately perhaps they would testify,
but I knew that I had to get the main thrust
of it. You know that was going to be if we ever
had to charge. I needed to have that you know
that evidence documented in to an evidentiary
standard. And so, yeah. Do you ever run into
any odd characters out there in the middle of
the night? Yeah. Some of my best intel was some,
well, there were some homeless folks and then
there were some just folks out. on the park bench
because they were drunk and their wife didn't
want them at home. You know, they became good
sources of information about where the sheer
waters were. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, in fact, I learned a lot from one of
those guys. He told me that when he was young,
this this guy I met outside of one of these football
stadiums, he was Out I think he was in that category
of his wife didn't want him at home that late
at night with that kind of breath and. And he
said that when he was young they used to have
to stop the football games because there'd be
so many birds landing on the field, you know.
So these birds would circle circle circle circle
and then end up. exhausted and then it would
land wherever. And there were so many that they
would actually land in the field of play and
they would have to stop the game and like shoe
them off or not shoe them off, but pick them
up and move them off. Wow. So that kind of speaks
to, you know, when I was doing it, we were finding
on just a couple hundred a year. But back in,
back in 1979, they were finding as many as like
2 ,500 a year, you know, just in a couple weeks
span. So by the time you took over the football
situation it would it would be maybe one or two
birds a game would come down Whereas this guy
was telling yeah, and they might stop in the
game Yeah, yeah, and when and like so one or
two birds a game would come down and they might
come down a half mile away From the game, you
know, even though they're circling it or they
might come out cut down in the parking lot or
something like that or sometimes in in the stands
or on the field maybe one bird but he used to
say you know we would have to stop because there'd
be so many birds you know that's actually one
of those weird that's one of those weird indicators
it's like non -scientific but it's definitely
yeah it's it's what we call in the detective
business a clue But the population is decreasing,
right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and basically
we were humanity, you know, was mining these
birds from the sky, you know, I mean, over time.
And yeah, interesting. What about you told me
a story once about some school bus driver? Oh,
yeah, yeah, you know, I was I was out. Well after
midnight, I remember I was at a traffic circle
or a new traffic circle on the island of Kauai.
And I saw a car, what I thought was either a
live bird or a carcass across the way, you know,
and I parked my... car on the opposite side of
this traffic circle. I was just going to walk
over and do my thing, you know, photograph it
and all that kind of stuff. And a school bus,
like an old style yellow school bus, big, big
long bus comes driving along, you know, like
at 2 a .m. or something, you know, maybe 1230
or something like that. And I see the bus driver
is this, you know, middle aged woman. She gets
out and she picks up this sheer water and then
takes it into the school bus. And then I was
like, well, First, I was like, well, dang, she's
getting my evidence. So I went over and talked
to her. Yeah, and I went over and talked to her.
And then basically, as I recall, I took the bird
from her. And we had a really nice conversation.
And I just wanted to know more about her. And
she's like, yeah, I'm driving this. I'm the bus
driver. And I was taking this. moving this bus
for some reason, I don't remember why, and she
saw the bird and was going to pick it up and
take it to the fire station. Just wonderful citizen.
I told her what I was doing and all that kind
of thing. This wasn't like an enforcement contact
at all. But another story, Ed, is I remember
you and I exchanging. You had once told me you
had a foot pursuit and I was so jealous of that
so one So one night I'm driving down This road
real late at night, you know again somewhere
in the midnight or after hours and All of a sudden
I thought it was a jar like a mason jar full
of milk is what I thought it was Because it hit
the windshield so hard and I was going like 40
45 miles an hour And it came out of nowhere.
I didn't see it. But it was just like this bang
and explosion. And I literally thought the windshield
was going to be cracked. It was so loud. And
in a second, the whole windshield had a white
liquid over it. It just was white and almost
blocking the whole windshield. And I pull over,
and I look, and I see up on this little kind
of hillside off the side of the road, I see two
people take off running. So I jump out of the
car and I go in my foot pursuit, man. I am chasing
these two guys. We're jumping things. We ran
through a construction site and we're having
to leap things and all this kind of stuff. And
then they run through this kind of like little
doorway. of this construction site or it was
like one property to the next and it it had I
had to you had to jump through the doorway like
you there was like a foot of like lower wall
or something that you had to jump through so
I jumped through and I turned left and I'm chasing
this guy and then I see him run under a streetlight
and I'm like I think this is a kid you know and
uh and so I keep running keep running and All
of a sudden, the guy, which at the time I thought,
gets tired and he sits down on the grass next
to the sidewalk. And so I get there and I'm just,
you know, I'm almost doubled over heaving, you
know, and he's just sitting there, you know,
calmly. And it's this kid that's about 14 or
15. He was a big kid, you know, I mean, he was
like as big as me, but he's about 14 or 15 years
old. And you know, I had done the whole police
and stop and all this kind of stuff when I was
running. And so I get there and I said to the
kid, why didn't you stop? And he said, well,
I don't know. I just wanted to get away. And
then I said, is this your parents' house? Because
what he did is he ran and he sat down on the
lawn next to this. you know, on the sidewalk.
He said, yeah. And, uh, and, uh, and he, I think
he said, you know, please don't tell them or
something like that. You know, well, I said,
well, what did you throw? You know, and it was
an egg. And, and I mean, I had, I couldn't believe
it was an egg, you know, cause like I said, it
was, I think it was just because I was going
like 45 miles an hour and they threw it at it.
And, and then, you know, the, the, the egg white
just, It went white as soon as it spread out.
And so anyway, I just said, all right, come with
me. And we walked back to my car, which was like
three or four blocks away. I made him, there
was a hose attached to the school, so I made
him wash my windshield. And then I was talking
to him, you know, he said, what are you doing
here? And why did you throw it? And he said,
Oh, I thought you were my, my, my friend's brother,
you know, because I had a similar car or something.
But anyway, that was my big exciting foot pursuit.
Nothing compared to yours. That's still a good
one. That's still a good one in part because
he handled it perfectly. you know that's that's
the kind of lesson a teenager needs because you
know what for all the teenagers listening out
there never throw an egg at a car because it
might be a federal agent driving by at that moment
and i'm telling you if it's official wildlife
we will pursue you we will catch you That's hilarious.
That's a classic example of like how different
stuff happens to you when you're out working
on a case. Yeah. Well, and then the great thing
about it was, you know, while I'm making him
wash my car, he's asking me, you know, what are
you and what are you doing? And I told him everything,
you know, I said, I'm over here, you know, picking
up sheer waters and and, and all that kind of
stuff. And he said, Oh, yeah, okay. And you know,
so we had a really nice, nice visit. That's cool.
Anyway, back to Yeah, that's cool. You definitely
educated somebody that night. So yeah, back to
shear waters and petrols now. So during this
10 years that you're working on this case, you're
documenting what's happening. You're like, as
you said, to an evidentiary standard. You know,
a lot of times, as we talked about earlier, people
think federal agents are often characterized
by bad guys always, but heavy handed, you know,
you know not thinking robots who move forward
and take action and but really Yes, you are documenting
what's happening, but during this ten years Tell
us what what were you doing to try to were you
working with the potential violators these two
power companies and yeah, why Yeah, does that
look like yeah. Yeah, so it was a power company
and then the county government and And yeah,
almost from day one, you know, I mean, as soon
as I actually had like my first understanding
that yeah, this is actually a violation. I contacted
both the county and the power company. Most of
the early dealings were the power company. And
which it was initially it was Kauai Electric,
but then they became a co -op and it was Kauai
Island Utility Cooperative. And you know, I was
approaching them with Basically, some of the
consequence in my mind at that time was a civil
penalty or a civil proceeding if we had to get
there, if they didn't comply. So I worked with
them for eight years on that. And they took the
normal kind of tack of Again, back to our quote
without enforcement, the law is just advice.
Well, with the threat of enforcement, that threats
got to be real or they're not really going to
comply. 100%. What they did is they had eye dollar
attorneys, which I wish in hindsight, I wish
we could have dispensed with those right away.
could have just gotten down to brass tacks and
fix the problem. Instead, you know, their attorneys
basically look for the ways to do this the cheapest
or to get out to do is just enough to make me
go away. You know, and, and then eventually,
you know, they realized I wasn't going away.
So they had to keep doing more. And then they
just wouldn't get over the bar and actually comply
with the law and do what it took to comply. What
sort of what sort of mitigation or what sort
of things were you trying to get them to do?
Yeah, yeah. So I'll tell you what they did do
over like eight years, which is a lot, you know,
so so initially, they shielded all over 3000
streetlights on the island. Okay. Yeah, which
was essentially every streetlight on the island
for the most part. And they they replaced and
shielded those. Now that's I'm not sure exactly.
I don't recall how they did it. I don't know
if there was a federal highway project involved,
which means that maybe tax dollars did the actual
thing, did most of the costs of things. But nevertheless,
they replaced the lights with shielded lights,
which was a great first step. I let them know
of an opportunity and they spent $80 ,000 to
eradicate rabbits that had been released on an
offshore islet off of the island of Kauai that
other seabirds nested on. And these rabbits denuded
the island. So there was a project that some
biologists with the state were doing. If they
had the funding, they could basically eradicate
the rabbits off that island, which were invasive,
released there by the Coast Guard like 100 years
before. and kind of destroyed the vegetation
of that island. So they funded that and that
island to this day I believe is free of rabbits
and the vegetation is recovering and all that
kind of thing. So the idea there is you're going
to create alternative nesting sites, right? Yeah,
exactly. It's kind of like mitigating their take
by improving conditions for seabirds somewhere.
Because the ultimate goal and the way to comply
with the Endangered Species Act is through what
we call a habitat conservation plan that minimizes
and mitigates the take of the illegal take. gave
some money to some offshore island, other offshore
island conservation projects. When I say offshore,
I mean, not the main island of Kauai, but other
islands near the main islands uninhabited. They
funded some research on protecting colonies because
where these seabirds nested cats would get in
and rats would get in and dogs would get in and
kill them in their nest sites. So we experimented
or they experimented and they funded supported
experiments on that kind of stuff. That one beach
where the volleyball net I described to you occurred,
they lowered the lines and then they made them
horizontal. crossed bars on and made them horizontal.
So fewer lines to intercept. I'm looking at a
list of things that they did. Yeah. These are
things they did kind of at your urging, like,
you know, coming in saying, Hey, I'm a special
agent with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
I'm investigating the take of these birds. These
are some things you guys can and should and do
immediately to reduce the number of birds you're
killing. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So basically,
you know, this and I gotta say this gets this
gets me because this happens a lot with cases
that are handled by fish and wildlife agents,
where we we do with industry, we work with individual
people, especially when it's an endangered species
act violation, to try to reduce or stop the damage
that they're causing before we ever get to criminal
case, right? It's not uncommon. Yeah, I mean
you yeah, you did exactly what most agents will
do We don't walk in and say hey, you're under
arrest. We're charging you obviously sometimes
that happens hardcore violators, but if it's
an industrial thing or You know a take situation
that can be minimized that wasn't intentional
to start with we don't come in heavy -handed
Yeah, we only come in heavy -handed. Yeah do
not cooperate Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so all
of this time, they're doing these things because
their argument was that they're doing these things
to basically buy time so that they could develop
a habitat conservation plan to actually comply
with the law. Got it. So while I'm talking to
them, they're also having negotiations with Fish
and Wildlife Service biologists to develop a
plan that would mitigate for all of their take,
but I'm still kind of like, I'm not pleased.
I tell them, you know, we could write a plan
today. Why is it taking four years or six years
or ultimately eight years? And so they were doing
these things essentially to appease me. You know
to kind of keep the threat of an actual enforcement
at bay while they just delay, you know and especially
In Hawaii when you know, I came from the mainland,
right? I'm not not native Hawaiian and I wasn't
born in Hawaii I used to be told to my face.
Well, you know, you're gonna be gone in two years
They're gonna wait you out and so Exactly. Exactly.
So I wasn't. I stayed for nearly 20 years. So
basically, what we ended up doing, and enter
some fantastic attorneys, I need to give a call
out to Carolyn Lown, who was a solicitor with
the Department of Interior. And then Eleanor
Colborne was a Department of Justice prosecutor,
criminal prosecutor. Eleanor is the reason that
this all really happened. I mean, I did the evidence
collection, but the rest of the story really
is due to Eleanor. And as you know, you know,
yeah, nothing happens without a good prosecutor
behind you, right? Yeah, and as you know, and
we had the great pleasure and honor of knowing
people like Bob Anderson and John Webb and Eleanor
Colborne, you know, I think the three greatest
wildlife attorneys that the US has ever had in
my view. Eleanor definitely on one of my cases
that stalled Eleanor definitely made things happen.
You know, she got, she helped us get a really
bad wanted fugitive back from Mexico. If it wasn't
for her, we wouldn't have gotten him back. Yeah.
Yep. Yep. So Eleanor, I basically reached out
to Eleanor and got her involved through the assistance
of other other attorneys that I knew. And we
were kind of at our wits end. We had tried essentially
eight years of trying to get compliance voluntarily
and trying to work with them and trying to just
get compliance. And compliance meaning that they
would do all of the minimization, which would
be shielding all the lights and then lowering
the lines or whatever needed to be done with
the power lines. But there's always going to
be some level of take in these sorts of situations.
So they have to mitigate for that. And that means
they have to do some kind of conservation project
that ideally compensates for the unintentional
take. Right. And they just make it's gonna make
more baby shear water somewhere else to allow
for this number that's likely to be killed on
the island. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. Perfect
sense. But they don't want to do. Yeah. And what
that means. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They say that they
did. And but the clear decision was delay, you
know, I mean, became became clear to me. Yeah.
Well, they said they said it to your face. They
had a strategy. They're gonna ask you. Yeah.
Which is a pretty Yeah. Yeah. You know, when
you're looking at when you're an investigator
and you're doing a case and somebody says that
to you, translation is, I'm fine violating the
law. Yeah, and yeah, that's a stupid thing to
say to a federal agent. Yeah. Okay, so, so you
get you get Eleanor on board. And what kind of
what happened? What kind of charges? Who was
charged? How does Eleanor said, even though we
were looking at misdemeanors, the Endangered
Species Act is a misdemeanor, as is the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act in this sort of scenario. And
you know, there's no trafficking going on where
we can't engage the Lacey act and stuff like
that. She said, you know, even though this is
a misdemeanor, we really want the eyes of a grand
jury on this. So we took it to a grand jury and
the grand jury returned a true bill against the
power company. So we indicted the power company
and about two months. So basically, we were preparing
for trial, as I recall. And so about two months
after one more time, Keith, I'm sorry, I gotta
interrupt, just so in case listeners do not know
what a grand jury is in the federal and state
system, a grand jury is basically people from
the community who are called up just like you
would be for jury service, but you serve on a
grand jury for a while. And prosecutors present
basically their case, or an agent comes in testifies
and a prosecutor presents what they've got. And
then it's up to the grand jury members whether
or not they agree to charge. It's not, again,
another example of you going the extra mile not
to be that heavy handed fed, right? You're going
to let them and these are grand jury members
from Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. So they they heard the
case, and they thought there was enough evidence
to charge. both companies or just the one so
that was against it was really two cases one
against uh the power company and one against
the county the county what was and as you and
i have seen so much over our career when we got
the indictment against the power company um two
months later the county came knocking on our
door of course they saw their handwriting on
the wall yeah Yeah, and they did, but the one
thing I do want to say is, especially for the
county, they were great people. They were basically
looking to fix the problem. I think initially,
in the beginning of this 10 -year period, first,
there's this hurdle of convincing them that they're
actually violating a law because they're just...
lighting the community and they're just delivering
power and things like that. But it's getting
them over that hurdle of, okay, we understand
that we are causing this and then therefore we
are responsible, now what do we do about it?
gotten along better with some of my violators
than I have with a lot of my colleagues and attorneys.
And when you say colleagues, you mean chain of
command people, right, that don't necessarily
see the... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So
I really do want to acknowledge the county employees
and the mayor of that time and and those folks
and then some of the people within the the power
company as well. Because they you know, they
ultimately did do the right thing. But we just
had to, you know, had to do the arm twist. Sometimes
you do you have to be the heavy hand in the room.
So they're they're indicted their chart. Well,
the power company is charged, the county sees
the handwriting on the wall. So they come to
the table. What's the what's the outcome? What's
the result? after the charges are filed, you
go to trial or anything? No, they I think once
the county settled with us and in a in a plea
agreement. So they they did like a pre pre indictment
plea. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes sometimes criminals
will do that. They know that they know an indictment
is coming. So they'll just say, Hey, I'm willing
to plead guilty if you don't indict me. So yeah.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how it happened.
And then, of course, that put the pressure on
the power company. So then they, rather than
go to trial, were willing to do a plea agreement.
And so we did two different agreements. And let
me see if I have, I think. Well, I think you
have the indictments or I mean the press releases
but basically There were fines, you know fines
involved restitution and then probation for both
and So We didn't want To take their money for
no purpose, you know, so we gave them almost
symbolic fines for organizations like this. I
think we did a $15 ,000 fine, which would be
the MBTA level of fine, where we could have really
piled on. But what we wanted to do was apply
what penalties there were into things like restitution.
So they did, they funded several projects, I
guess, that were aimed at conserving the birds.
So what we kind of did in a way is we set up
the plea agreements. And again, this is kind
of a brilliance of Eleanor Colborne. We set up
the plea agreements to essentially be what they
should have done in an HCP anyway. And it also
essentially Which at the end of the day is a
permit to allow you to violate while you're mitigating
for that violation. So basically it meant funding
predator proof fences around some seabird colonies.
And so because cats and dogs and things like
on other islands, mongooses, they kill so many
of these seabirds. The concept was if they could
fence them out and there is this works, it actually
works. If they fence them out, then the colony
will be producing so many young, it will compensate
for them. It will compensate beyond what they're
taking with lights and power lines and things
like that. The reason that compensation is valid
is because creditors were wiping them out. Without
that intervention, they'd be gone. Honestly,
I've had seabird biologists and experts tell
me that this probably may end up resulting in
possibly saving the species because they are
being wiped out, you know, but we're at least
having some postage stamp sized, you know, plots
of land that are protected and they're, you know,
increasing within those. That's the concept.
And they also funded some trends. Yeah. And then
they also funded trans locations. One is called
Nihoku, N -I -H -O -K -U. The cool thing though
to me was, and this is something Eleanor and
I worked out, was that we made it a requirement,
part of their probation, that they had to train,
this is a county I'm talking about, they had
to train all of their employees, which was 1
,344 employees. They had to train them on the
importance and the ecology and the cultural connection
of these species. And I did some of those trainings
myself. Nice. Which was pretty cool. And it was,
you know, it's one of those deals. I'm glad for
my special agent training, right? Because these
are hostile audiences. Exactly. They are hostile
audiences. That's awesome, though. But that cultural
connection can be so important. Absolutely. And
it was cool because these were police, they were
firefighters, they were bus drivers, they were
janitors, they were county council members, it
was the mayor, all that kind of thing. And so
I would go in and a lot of people would be like
this, sitting their arms crossed and pissed off
that they had to be there. And by the end of
it, they would... the whole demeanor would change
because I told them these three things. We owe
it to these shear waters several things. One
is the fact, like I described last episode, that
they gave us soil. So everything we eat that
is grown on these islands is directly related
to these seabirds historically. Two, every fish
we eat which any kind of predatory fish, which
are the tuna and the wahoo and the other predatory
fish that we love to eat, we owe that to sea
birds. And here's how. Even today, whether you're
a sport fisherman in Hawaii or a commercial fisherman,
the way that you find tuna, with all of our technology,
the way you find tuna is you see what they call
a pile of birds on the ocean. And those birds
are seabirds, sheer waters and petrels. And so
what you see is a flock of birds. And what's
going on? is that the tuna are under the surface
of the ocean, and they're chasing bait fish,
like a wolf pack, more or less. And then they
push the bait fish up to the surface. And then
the seabirds see that, and they come, and they're
congregating. And then we see the seabirds. So
what's going on is that the tuna basically are
revealing their location by driving up the bait
fish, the small fish, to the surface. The seabirds
then see them and come, and we see the seabirds,
and then we go and we fish. So when we bring
in yellowfin tuna or aji, and when we bring in
ono or wahoo, that's all due to seabirds. And
then the third thing is the Hawaiian people almost
assuredly discovered Hawaii on their first voyage
from elsewhere in Polynesia by seabirds because
it's these millions of seabirds that are flying
to and from the island. I've spoken with Polynesian
navigators, Nainoa Thompson being the great example,
and he said, we can get Using the stars and using
our traditional methods of navigation we can
get within a couple hundred miles of the island
You know by crossing thousands of miles of ocean,
but you said that last hundred and fifty miles
is crucial Yeah, yeah, and you're gonna miss
Yeah, yeah, and that's when they start looking
for other cues like in addition to clouds and
things like that, but but a lot of it is seabirds
and Yeah, because these very same species that
are moving toward the island before sunset are
traveling across the ocean and then coming to
land. And that's what they would get their final
vector off of. That's awesome. Yeah. That is
awesome. And then one other thing. Yeah. OK,
go ahead. No, no. One other thing is that the
Hawaiian people themselves used to more or less
ranch these species for food. So they come back
to the same spot. So reliably, Hawaiians could
know that every year at the same time, in this
area of forest or area of cliff, there's going
to be eggs that we can collect. And then after
a few months, if we come back at a different
date, there's going to be big fat chicks that
we can collect and eat. And so literally, Hawaiians
have the DNA of seabirds in their bones. Well,
you know, it's a great example of you know, you
help people understand the why. And it's a lot
easier to have cooperation. But, you know, kudos
to you for going to that extra effort effort.
I think one of the most telling things you ever
said to me about this case and how you knew you
made a difference is tell us about what it was
like to be on that island at night at the beginning
of your investigation versus at the end. 10 years
later. Yeah, yeah, thanks for reminding me of
that. You know, the very first time I went to
Kauai in about 2001 or 2002, somewhere in that
neighborhood, there was a light aura over the
island. You know, if you stood back at the beach
and then you looked, you could just see over
the especially over the towns but but the whole
island kind of colodes in the sky and at the
end of this investigation after the shielding
of all the streetlights and after the shielding
of the stadiums and the tennis courts and everything
you could see the stars again like really well
and that was I remember seeing that in about
2012 or something and thinking, wow, you know,
that's because of me. Yeah. How often how often
does light pollution go down? Right? Never. That's
awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's incredible.
So I want you know, we're almost out of time
for for for today. I want to make sure I do mention
though, that as a result of this case, You know
so much effort on your part so much success and
getting cooperation from not just the community
but the businesses and you know the county and
the power company there in Hawaii and working
so well with the biologists at the service and
the Prosecutors at the US Department of Justice,
you know you ended up getting what's called the
conservation champion award from the US Fish
and Wildlife Service and that is a very prestigious
award. You're a very humble guy. You like to
give credit to other people. But I'll tell you,
when that came out, there is, I have looked,
there is no record of any special agent ever
receiving the Conservation Champion Award from
the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a whole,
right? And that is a very, very impressive accomplishment
that I am just... I'm just in awe of and I think,
you know, well deserved, obviously. But, you
know, I think it speaks a lot to what you did
on this case and just how you carried yourself
in general as a special agent during your career.
So, you know, on behalf of a guy who loves wildlife
and the Hawaiian Islands, you know, thanks for
everything you did on this. I can't believe you
did it alone. They should have had four or five
agents including me. over there to help you.
I would have liked to do that. Anyway, Keith
is an awesome case. I'm proud to be a colleague
of yours and a friend of yours. And I really,
really appreciate you coming on to talk to us
about it. It's it's it's just to me it's it's
a different type of law enforcement, but it's
it's just an amazing case. Good job. No, thanks.
Thanks. And, and thanks to you for this. I think
this is cool and much needed. You know, we've
always been kind of muzzled. Fisher wildlife
does not do a good job of telling its own story.
But, you know, I take it that means you'll be
on another episode. I'd love to be fantastic.
Awesome. All right. Thanks, Keith. I appreciate
you being on the show. This is Nature's Secret
Service. Special thanks to the crew here at California
State University at Dominguez Hills in Carson,
California. We'll see you next time. Nature's
Secret Service is written and produced by me,
Ed Newcomer, and is co -produced by the DHTV
team here at California State University, Dominguez
Hills. Follow us on social media and connect
with us online at naturessecretservice .com.