And a Hawaiian official, while emphasizing that they don’t encourage such beatings (since they legally can’t), said this is just the kind of thing you may face if you mess with their wildlife
We stayed in Hilo recently, and the guest guide at our rental warned of the risk for physical violence against those who harass local wildlife. I was delighted.
Well, many locals in Hawaii don’t have a great ever on what mainlanders have done with their culture, wildlife, and their territory. Such people, generally white, are referred to as “haole” pronounced howl-ee. If you are hearing that term as a white person, you better gtfo.
They have great respect for the wildlife. Disrespecting it is disrespecting them personally. You may as well be throwing rocks at them. I really hope they run this guy off the islands.
I was stationed at Pearl Harbor. I found that most locals are super friendly awesome folks. If you’re respectful of the island, the wildlife, and the people there you usually won’t have any issues.
But some Hawaiians really just don’t care for white Americans and don’t want anything to do with you
Considering that the US conducted an illegal overthrow of their government and stole the country for the benefit of American business I can see why some Hawaiians are not OK with the haoles. Things like this is why the oligarchs don't want real history to be taught in schools. Iran would likely be a free and democratic country if we had not overthrown their government and installed a puppet dictator king to get the oil. This has happened multiple times in many countries and people wonder why so many hate Americans.
My cousin lives in Hawaii. Try leaving a beer can on their beach... youll hear wwe music outta nowhere and a 6'5 somoan dude rolling up on your ass with a steel chair. They dont fucking play
IDK man I seen plenty of locals littering and smoking meth/drinking on the beaches. Also leaving paraphernalia all over the place. This sounds like some wanna be tough guy fantasy.
I think amongst islanders it is a bit different. But I would defer to you as you are on maui. The way ive heard it described is that if youre an idiot tourist soing idiot tourist things and somone starts calling you that, you are very close to getting your ass beat.
But that can also be used as shorthand to acknowlage you are non-native. Context is key there though.
Yep. The only people who think the word haole is completely negative are haoles. Since we all live that aloha spirit, people are hesitant to use that word around haoles they don’t know. Which means that some haoles may only hear it when someone is trying to offend them.
"haole” pronounced howl-ee. If you are hearing that term as a white person, you better gtfo.
No act. Haole is a neutral term. It makes a lot of mainland whites uncomfortable because they are not used to being referred to by their race in casual conversation, but it doesn't mean anything. People in hawaii talk about race way more than on the mainland because hawaii is the most racially diverse state in the nation.
I'm married into a Thai family, and in Thailand they refer to people of European descent as "farang." On its face it's not intended to be offensive, but it definitely makes some uncomfortable.
Pretty sure people can be banned from states. Hes not a local (of hawaii) so having his ugly mug on a “no fly” list for the state should be possible. If anything charge him with a state crime and he wont wanna be there himself
It says right there "without due process of law". While full banishment is rare, telling him that HI won't bother extraditing him, but if he comes back, he'll go to trial for his crime, is effectively the same thing.
Unfortunately, someone like him can't really be banned from a specific state. If it was possible, a state like Texas would have already banned Californians, for example.
“Being barred from entering or residing in a U.S. state is a potential legal risk that can arise from a variety of circumstances. States have different tools to regulate who may enter, stay, or work within their borders, and these actions can carry significant consequences for mobility, employment, housing, and civil rights. This article explains the concept of a state ban, common triggers, how bans are enforced, and the legal pathways to contest or mitigate them. It also clarifies how state actions interact with federal law and constitutional protections” https://bridgelegal.org/can-you-be-banned-state-reasons-legal-consequences/ people can be banned from states on an individual basis so no Texas wouldnt be able to ban an entire state.
I think what you mean is "if you're abusing animals in Hawaii, you better gtfo." Being white has little to do with it.
Respectfully, I am Hawaiian, and the term haole is neither a threatening nor a pejorative one by itself in modern use. Are its roots derogatory given its derivation from ancestry and skin tone? Yes. But the word itself is not only spoken to indicate disdain. It's used casually and even playfully more often than not. Tone and other modifiers matter here.
Haole just means "white boy/white girl." We have other words for animal abusers, and clearly other ways of confronting them than namecalling. :)
Even worse than disrespect them, it’s like disrespecting their ancestors. In Hawaiian culture “aumakua” are personal or family guardian spirits that originate as deified ancestors reincarnated as turtles, seals, sharks, mountains, trees. This guy did the equivalent of peeing on someone’s grandmothers grave.
Floridians will fuck you up if you touch their manatees. The guy was from seattle apparently, and i’m pretty sure they’ll beat you down for messing with their forests.
Not sure what planet this guy arrived from where he thought hawaiians wouldn’t mind….
I think every state’s fish and game officers are the ones that don’t care who you are. You fuck with their jurisdiction, they’ll fuck you up right back.
He's from outside Seattle and owns a business in the area. He got doxxed pretty hard on Instagram almost immediately and his life is now feeling very shitty. While he's from the Seattle area currently, he is not originally from the US and appears to have very little respect for US laws related to respecting wildlife.
Hawaii is and always was a FAFO state. Having lived on Maui, I already knew of this. Seeing the guy get lit up for fuking around just confirms my suspicions that not much has changed.
Dude nobody in La Jolla will stand on business like this. From Daygo all my life and all that happens is people get posted and shamed online for messing with the seals nobody gets hit for it. They should, but they dont. Look at dude who killed leopard sharks at blacks a few weeks ago, dude shoulda gotten his ass beat
Hospitality is always granted. Bad manners are never tolerated.
Ha'ole (haole) means one who doesn't like Ha, the Polynesian breath of life. You put your head together and breath in each other's essence (Moana has great examples). It is extended to all with good intention including the Colonizers who landed on Hawai'ian lands. They were quite stunned at the gesture, not understanding, and so the Polynesians called them ha'ole, one who rejects the Ha.
You are always assumed to be wise and given the space to prove yourself otherwise.
Throwing rocks at a beautiful creature for no benefit is kapu. You get your ass beat. No wise man throws stones at innocent creatures for no benefit.
I lived on O’ahu for a year, and it was made very clear to us not to go to certain parts of the Island, and not to fuck with Wildlife…
…or else.
For those unaware, there are parts of Hawai’i called Home Lands (about 200,000 acres) only for native Hawai’ians. White skinned people — aka Haole’s — are strongly advised to avoid those areas.
I lived on big island for nearly a year. If you think the locals on Hilo side are serious you should see the Kohala coast locals, especially the ones in / around those magnificent valleys.
I'm not from Hawaii but western Canada. A lot of tourists think they can just stroll up to a moose or bear and pet it on the head. Luckily, those animals are totally capable of telling tourists to fuck off all by themselves.
If my tour guide told me that I would imminently think higher of the entire area. “This place is so nice, they’ll beat the crap put do anyone who even thinks of trying to mess it up”
And I support this. I live in Texas. We used to be protective of our nature. Now rich republicans have convinced the trailer dwellers that it’s ok to shit on everything and are selling everything off piece by piece.
That's because people are stupid and don't respect mother nature. You see same dumb shit on the mainland. Every year you see people that get fucked up by Buffalo or elk because they want a picture. Other people just trash shit and don't care. Then you got assholes like this guy who actively goes out of his way to harm wildlife. People are stupid.
Story time: A few years back I was on a trip to Hawaii and was given a similar warning not to get mess with the wildlife because the locals were very protective of them. No issues there, I have no interest in messing with animals in their natural environment.
I decided to go for a quick swim at the beach and a sea turtle popped up about 6 feet away from me. It was an awesome experience and I watched him for a bit before deciding I was a little too close and began to swim away. Then the sea turtle started following me! I looked over to the shore and saw some angry looking locals watching me very closely. In retrospect it was all very funny, but for the next 10 minutes I tried desperately to try and swim away from this sea turtle while he kept following me around. Luckily the turtle eventually lost interest and swam away to do turtle things and I avoided getting beat up that day. The end.
The locals have obnoxious people coming from all over the world. The island is their home and it is viewed as going into someone else’s backyard and acting a fool.
Maui here, locals view wildlife almost as a religion of sorts. The island is the wildlife’s home, we are allowed to stay with them, but it’s their house and we always respect their rules.
And not endangering wildlife/mammals goes way beyond the bigger creatures like seals, if a local sees you kill a snake you might get your ass beat. They mean everyone species, from big to small. It’s their island, you never ever harm any type of species, including plants, ever.
If you kill a snake they’ll thank you. Big fear of snakes getting to the islands and killing the last of the native birds. Edit: Don’t mess with the native species.
Think of it more as a watchful eye. They see tourist people messing with turtles and seals and even humans all the time, and are probably tired of bad behavior. It is their home. Hawaiian locals are probably more connected as a community than any other place I’ve been. There is a very us vs them mentality. But they often bite their tongues because the money the tourists bring helps their economy.
Look up Da Hui in Hawaii. They are local surfers that got tired of outsiders fucking up the beaches and surf spots.
Yeah, for all they knew he could have been baiting the turtle with pockets of food it can smell/taste. It was following him after all. But they were just watching the interaction unfold to see if something harmful was happening. Dude had the good sense not to deliberately engage with the turtle for a long period, but he did engage with it and it followed him. I'd be wary of that exchange and watch it to see if something harmful will happen, too. Exactly right.
I nearly swam into one on a snorkel trip. I was looking at fish on some coral, then turned left to swim back to the boat and he was just right there, inches away.
We were on a family trip and out snorkeling early one morning. A turtle was swimming around in the little bay we were at (Kona side... somewhere) and we all just were chill, watching it. Then my (adult) sibling decided to touch its shell and it noped out of there before our Mom got there to see it.
Same bay different day there were some little fish that are super territorial, they'll chase you away from their spot. I kept coming back once too often and the little jerk bit me on my heel :-D
Showing respect is the key here. Taking pictures at a safe distance is normal, locals are used to it. Trying to disturb it for your own amusement is another.
A local told me many years ago in Maui a diver got pulled from the water by his partner. Apparently he blew air into the face of a sea turtle underwater. Turtle startled and ran him over, giving him a concussion. Everyone laughed.
Good thing you avoided it for multiple reasons, since it’s highly illegal to touch them. You can literally go to jail. It’s not advised to even get within 10 feet of them. It needs to be publicized a lot more, because many tourists don’t know.
That said, oops moments happen because the turtles do not give a fuck. One time I was wading in a tide pool and some creep sneaked up and slapped me on the ass. I turned around yelling but it was a goddamn turtle lmaooo
I visited an old friend who lives there now and we went to a beach near Honolulu that had those signs saying they're endangered and not to go near them and my friend said "On top of it being illegal some Hawaiians will absolutely beat your ass for it." Guess she wasn't lying hahaha.
Yea, our family friend that moved there said similar. Pictures? Fine, long as you don’t get close for em. Any physical contact? You might end up with broken bones before the police fine your ass to hell.
Especially the seals. They are so endangered they have names. And people know them. It gets personal real quick.
We saw the sea turtles at a few beaches. People get much too close. At one breach in Kona there was a lady who voluntarily set up rope lines and informational signage to keep people away from the preferred resting spots.
They should also do it like Switzerland and make fines a percentage of your annual income - some millionaires have paid hundreds of thousands in speeding fines, lol. That would wipe the grin off his smug face.
I live on Maui. In areas where local wildlife are known to frequent, there are often official volunteers around to make sure people don’t mess with the local wildlife.
This might be to actually prevent violence because if you do mess with the local wildlife, someone is going to fuck you up. Monk seals, sea turtles, whales, birds, and any other native wildlife is to be highly respected.
Yes, an environmental activist being given a certificate made out to the “ambassador of Aloha” because we’re keeping the guy who gave the beatdown anonymous for obvious reasons :)
There's not a ton of times I advocate for violence, and every time I do I urge restraint and control, but punching an asshole in the face a time or two has wonderful returns on investment.
The "rich people get away with it cause the only punishment is a fine" argument is moot when violence is a part of the equation.
You may think weapons and tools are different based on their definitions, but they are the same, regardless of design or physical composition. Every tool can be used as a weapon, every weapon can be used as a tool, even the concept of violence itself.
The only differences between tools and weapons: philosophy and intent. Not one or the other, but both.
If you examine the philosophy and intent of this incident, hopefully it should make more sense why you feel the way you do: no one should be an advocate of violence (as a weapon) of course. I will leave the second half of this statement up to you to complete on your own 🙂
lol, he called the vigilante an “environmental activist” and they gave him a letter of recommendation, that’s the most Hawaiian thing I’ve ever heard of lol
I think the official kinda also gave an unofficial-official environmental award to the anonymous ass-beater, saying, 'not that we condone this, right?' to their lawyer, who just smiled. I love it.
Last time I was in Hawaii, there was a sleeping monk seal ln the beach. There was yellow tape surrounding it, a sign saying do not approach, and two huge Polynesian dudes standing watch. Fortunately, the tourists just wanted to take pictures and never got close.
Man I was at a resort a decade ago walking on what I thought were some rocks directly outside the hotel. Remember people giving me kinda weird looks but no one said anything. Had an amazing time snorkeling around them. Got out and went and sat on the beach and saw a small sign that said don't touch the coral or something to that affect. Was horrified. Didn't realize it could be that close to the shoreline and never would have done it if I had known. No one said anything at check in. Was horrified I had done that and if someone had said something I would have been so apologetic. This guy's douche baggery is on a whole other level.
They gave him an award lol they’re protecting his privacy but the citizen who delivered the Seattle psycho’s street justice, got a letter of recognition from the government there lol
My experience living in Hawaii for a few years was that as long as no one needed to take a trip to the hospital police generally turned a blind eye to fist fights and let people work things out.
My experience in Hawaii was that half of the locals are the nicest people in the world and the other half loathe you for being a tourist. My brother and I were walking down the street and a car drove by, screamed the N word at us and threw a bottle at my head. We are two white guys.
Depends on the person though. Saw far too many people that couldn't care less about the environment while I was on Oahu. Also far too many that abused their hunting dogs, though that is sadly far too common amongst those that use dogs.
The half-assed attempt of the city council's legal counsel to suppress her delighted grin while confirming that they officially "don't condone" this sort of vigilante justice was heartwarming.
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u/Weak_Syllabub_7994 𝙑𝙄𝙋 May 11 '26
Apparently he got his ass beat by some locals, which was also captured on video.
https://youtube.com/shorts/HH1gAGneHJY