ABOVE: Kawika Singson with a very relieved Biggs, a dog he rescued from a ledge on a 120-foot, fire ant-infested sea cliff in Honomu, Hawaii Island.
Poor deaf and blind Shirley had tumbled into a gulch, where she whimpered and shivered for several nights. Gigi, a sweetheart of a brindle, fell into one of the many lava tubes riddling Hawaii Island, spending nine long days alone in the dark and damp. And Misty, with her soft, old-soul eyes, disappeared into a shim-thin lava crack, her cries the only sign of life.
These and other dogs found their way into Singson's heart the moment he scooped them in his arms. Each one, he says, went limp with relief. "It touches me to the core. No one else knows this feeling," Singson says. "Just me and the dog, in that tube or crack. It's my fuel."
By his own lights, Singson is not a professional animal rescuer. But the 61-year-old explorer has a 100 percent success rate, hiking deep into the forests of Kau, scaling cliffs and rappelling into lava tubes to save nine dogs (so far) since Shirley, his first rescue in 2019, whose predicament he followed on Facebook before reaching out to the owner.
Singson didn't set out to rescue animals from the many cracks, tubes and crags of Hawaii Island. He's a bit of an explorer and a media personality, one who's established a reputation for grit and grace (in his videos he never reveals the location of secret spots, for example, or trespasses on private lands). After videos of his solo exploits around Hawaii Island—lava flows swallowing his tripod, outrigger canoe races and, of course, dog rescues—made him an internet sensation, he created a television series, Everything Hawaii, which airs seven nights a week on local channel OC16 as well as on all the usual social media.
So while Singson's name might ring bells among the 808 ohana, it's when he rescues dogs that the national press—CNN, USA Today, The New York Times—comes calling, as happened with a recent dramatic save of three hunting dogs. Pua, Stella and Steven (yes, Steven) chased a wild pig down a twenty-five-foot-deep lava tube in a densely wooded area of Kau and got stuck. Forget about drones locating the group—they can't fly among trees let alone navigate the twisting, black abyss of a lava tube. That's when Singson got the call.
When the Humane Society or Animal Control can't take on such high-risk rescues, Singson is often a dog's last hope. Sometimes owners send out an SOS directly to Singson; sometimes he gets the call from the Humane Society or other authorities. He'll gear up and go anywhere on the island from his home in Kona—but only if the dog's location is known or it's outfitted with GPS. Using the pup's last coordinates, he cordons off a perimeter and starts searching for tubes and cracks—a much saner strategy than hiking blindly through the jungle or randomly combing 120-foot cliffs. "My message in every video is, 'I know you love your dogs. Spend a few bucks for a GPS collar, and you will never lose them.'"
It took Singson a few rescues to fine-tune his kit, adding a helmet after falling rocks bonked him on the head, a chest vest for easy access to camera and lights, and a doggie harness—a lesson learned while rescuing Gigi. "I gotta hold onto this dog, but I need both hands coming up the rope. How am I gonna get her back up?" Luckily, someone dropped a harness down the tube, Singson clipped Gigi in and she was hauled out; he bought a dog harness immediately. No longer could a scared dog wriggle from an improvised sling, as Biggs did when Singson rescued him from the slippery cliffs of Honomu.
Singson requests no payment for these daring rescues, so what motivates him? Growing up on Hawaii Island's rugged Hamakua Coast, he remembers feeling bad for the fish that his dad would catch in his throw net. "Even though it was our food, I wanted to let the fish go. I see the life force in everything: butterflies, an inchworm, even centipedes. They're trying to survive, just like me." As for a reward? "Seeing that first tail wag," he says. "That's all I need."
