Here's a handy jingle to help you remember the number.
Hawaii residents
are urged to use the new Pest Hotline to promptly report sightings
of invasive pests such as snakes, unusually aggressive stinging ants,
and illegal or unknown animals.
The new Pest Hotline number, 643-PEST (7378), can be dialed from any
island in the state, without dialing a 1 or an area code.
This Pest Hotline is also the Amnesty Line, where people can turn
in illegal animals without fear of prosecution.
The new Pest Hotline relies on a computer program to route calls to
the nearest Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA) office during
normal business hours. On weekends or afterhours, calls are routed
automatically to the HDOA office at the Honolulu International Airport,
which is staffed 20 hours/day, seven days/week. The implementation
of the new number means that neighbor island callers will NOT incur
toll charges as they have in the past when calling the original pest
hotline, 586-PEST. The original pest hotline will continue to be operational.
An existing HDOA database used to log interceptions of pests at airports
and harbors has been modified to also log pest hotline reports.