With the arrival of Western ships, new plants and
animals soon found their way to the Hawaiian Islands.
The simple‐seeming gift of a few cattle given to
Kamehameha I by Captain George Vancouver in 1793 made a major impact on the Hawai`i’s
economy and ecosystem.
It also spawned a rich tradition of cowboy and
ranch culture that is still here today.
Spaniards introduced the first cattle to Veracruz,
Mexico in 1521. Vancouver picked up
descendants of these animals from the Spanish mission in Monterey, California
when he set off across the Pacific, intending to use them as food and gifts.
Cattle were not the only animals introduced to
Hawai`i during this period. In 1778,
Captain Cook left both goats and pigs.
British introduced sheep in the 1790s and they all soon
roamed on Mauna Kea and Hualālai. In
1803, American Richard Cleveland presented horses ‐ a stallion and a mare ‐ to
Kamehameha.
When Vancouver landed additional cattle at
Kealakekua in 1794, he strongly encouraged Kamehameha to place a 10‐year kapu
on them to allow the herd to grow.
In the decades that followed, cattle flourished and
turned into a dangerous nuisance. By
1846, 25,000-wild cattle roamed at will and an additional 10,000-semi‐domesticated
cattle lived alongside humans.
A wild bull or cow could weigh 1,200 to 1,500-pounds
and had a six‐foot horn spread. Vast
herds destroyed natives’ crops, ate the thatching on houses, and hurt, attacked
and sometimes killed people.
Kamehameha III lifted the kapu in 1830 and the
hunting of wild cattle was encouraged. The
king hired cattle hunters from overseas to help in the effort; many of these
were former convicts from Botany Bay in Australia.
Hunting sometimes ended in inadvertent tragedy. In 1834, the trampled dead body of Scottish
botanist David Douglas, for whom the Douglas Fir tree is named, was discovered in
a cattle-trap pit on Mauna Kea.
Hawaiʻi’s
wild cattle population needed to be controlled for safety reasons, but the
arrival of cattle hunters and Mexican vaquero ("Paniolo") also
happened to coincide with an economic opportunity.
In the early-1830s, trade in sandalwood slowed down
as island forests became depleted. At
about the same time, whaling ships hunting in the north Pacific began wintering
in Hawaiian waters.
Ships provisioning in Hawaiʻi ports provided a market for salt beef, in addition to hides
and tallow. With the economic push of providing
provisions to the whaling fleets, ranching became a commercial enterprise that
grew in the islands.
Cattle ranching remains an important export and food industry in
Hawai‘i.
The total number of cattle and calves on Hawai‘i’s ranches as of
January 1, 2012 was estimated at 140,000-head, roaming nearly 750,000-acres of
pasture land.
When living in Waimea, I had a brief experience in “ranching.”
We picked up a day-old dairy bull calf from an Āhualoa dairy; we named
him “Freezer Burn.” We removed the
middle seat and transported him back home in our VW van. (I know; real cowboys don’t name their
steers.)
After bottle-feeding him and briefly pasturing him, he ditched the
premises and hooked up with part of the Parker Ranch herd.
The image shows them swimming cattle to a transport boat, farther out
in the bay. In addition, I have included
some other images of cattle transport using this similar technique in a folder
of like name in the Photos section of my Facebook page.
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