The Foundation works tirelessly to ensure the humane treatment of animals, people and the environment.

he Good Shepherd Foundation is a non-profit, 501(c) 3 organization, founded in 1949 in California by a wonderful, compassionate woman named Rosalie Gordon. Responding to the cruelty of animal research, also called vivisection, Rosalie waged continuous campaigns to save animals from suffering in the name of science. She labored to stop the sale of homeless animals for use in research, and she started a no-kill humane shelter for abused and unwanted dogs and cats. Rosalie also was a great promoter of spay and neuter programs, and the Good Shepherd sponsored local spay and neuter efforts in California by helping pet owners pay for these services. The Good Shepherd Foundation also worked to protect wild horses and other wildlife in our National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries and helped pass the first legislation in the U.S. banning the use of steel-jaw leghold traps. In addition, the Foundation started Children’s Gardens, a pre-school for children with a focus on animals and nature.

During the 1990’s, the Good Shepherd Foundation broadened its philosophy and approach towards animal protection by including environmental and human health concerns. After all, animals need a healthy environment in which to live, making environmental issues an integral concern for animal protection in the wild. And the use of animals in medical research cannot be justified if the causes of human disease are related to human, lifestyle factors. To advance the study of cultural/lifestyle factors that cause or contribute to human disease, in 1991 the Good Shepherd Foundation launched the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease (ISCD), run by pioneering medical anthropologists Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer. Their research has resulted in several groundbreaking discoveries, including the link between breast cancer and the wearing of constrictive brassieres. To educate the public about these discoveries of various lifestyle/cultural causes of disease, ISCD maintains a website, killerculture.com, which explains the theories and research behind these discoveries, as well as providing instructions for “Self Studies” whereby people can try lifestyle changes for themselves to see the health benefits of ending damaging lifestyles. The ISCD has a publishing branch, ISCD Press, which publishes books on this important medical research. The book, Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras (ISCD Press, 2002) is now in 6 languages, including English, French, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Czech and is being hailed a breakthrough by many in the cancer field.

The Foundation cares for a 67-acre nature preserve and is home to the endangered Hawaiian hawk and Hawaiian hoary bat, as well as numerous native and introduced species co-habitating in our novel ecosystem. Part of the property is a model for sustainable living, using recycled building materials, solar energy, organic, humane farming practices, and a fully integrated human-animal inter-species community. Our relationship with animals allows us to study animal behavior and languages of various species, which we teach the public as part of our humane education program. We also have a special focus on humane horsemanship, with Solomon Singer, our director of Equine Services, providing free educational clinics on horse communication and training and ways to improve the human-horse bond. Solomon is also a pioneer of tropical barefoot trimming and full body riding, which uses minimal, if any, tack, and optimizes the natural connection between rider and horse. The Foundation also rescues and rehabilitates horses and other farm animals. In addition, we practice and teach humane beekeeping, which avoids using smoke and works with the bees gently so they don’t get crushed. In all, we have a model inter-species community that teaches sustainability, kindness towards all animals, and respect for simple, close to nature, healthy lifestyles.

The Foundation works tirelessly to ensure the humane treatment of all animals, even those animals labeled as “invasive” and targeted by cruel eradication programs. Across the country, birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, and amphibians are being killed for no other reason than the notion that they are not “native” to a given location, having been introduced there by humans. Some of these attacked species may even be endangered in their “native” location. Wildlife management philosophy today is intolerant of species that “don’t belong”, and uses poisons, snares, shooting, and other cruel means to eradicate unwanted species from entire ecosystems. The Good Shepherd Foundation has become a major voice for the protection and humane treatment of these maligned creatures. In Hawaii, we are the leading, and often the only, voice questioning the motives and methods of these eradication campaigns, and have come to the aid of cats, coqui frogs, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle egrets, barn owls, peacocks, veiled chameleons, and other species labeled as “invasive” and killed for being non-native.

We have also protected plant species slated for eradication, including the strawberry guava (which produces food for people and wildlife), mangrove trees (which provide protection for fish and the shoreline), and banyan trees. Our directors, Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer, have co-authored the book, Panic in Paradise, about the invasive species hysteria in Hawaii, and Sydney has twice been a speaker at the University of Oregon’s Public Interest Environmental Law Conference on this subject, and is recognized nationally for his work criticizing the invasion biology agenda. The Foundation’s 67-acre sanctuary in Hawaii, which is home to coqui frogs, strawberry guava, barn owls, and other so-called “invasive” species, has been featured in various media, including the BBC, Animal Planet, Nature, Univision News, and numerous magazines and newspapers. We continue to call for an end to the destruction of introduced wildlife, and have been educating the public and government that hatred for introduced, or immigrant, species translates into hatred for immigrant peoples, and breeds intolerance and bigotry.

As we look to the future, we hope our efforts in ending culture-caused diseases will mean less suffering for people and animals, and that the model inter-species community we are creating can serve as a source of information and inspiration for others wanting to live a humane, sustainable, healthy lifestyle.