‘UnPresidents Day’: expressing displeasure with Musk, Trump

A biologist, and two biotechs from the Wildlife Refuges were fired on Friday afternoon.

The trio was among more than 400 people who held signs on Monday expressing their displeasure with President Trump’s recent executive orders and actions.

“We have no biologist on Kauai, anymore,” said a sign-waver that acknowledged the symphony of car horns blaring in support.

Organized through several different unnamed sources, campaign participants claim the event was an “Un-President’s Day” event, “Not My President’s Day, a 50-501 Project, the “We the People…” and “National Protest” campaign that was fueled by social media to draw the crowd that did not include any elected officials.

“I feel the injustice in my bones, as the daughter of two Mexican immigrants, as a biologist, as a first-generation college student, who just lost my dream job. For no reason other than exploitation and abuse of power. We are not able to look after the wildlife and the critical habitat on Kauai,” said Daniela Casillas, a former U.S. Fish and wildlife service biological technician.

“People need to see that the injustice that is happening is affecting their neighbors, their friends, and their community, and whether or not they care about these issues they will feel the impact,” Casillas said.

Similar campaigns were being waged throughout the country as witnessed on television newscasts from around the country similar to election result coverage that post results from one end of the country while in another part of the nation, people are voting.

“I don’t think they realize exactly what this meant, and Trump actually denied claims that he was part of project 2025 and so a lot of this stuff that’s happening is directly following project 2025 which he denied any claims to,” Bryn Webber, a recently fired refuge biologist.

“I know Republicans losing their jobs right now who just got their dream job and now have lost their dream jobs and I know many Republicans are starting to regret their decision as it affects their daily lives and all the programs that keep our water clean, our air clean, everything that people rely on, on a day to day basis, and yeah, I just dont think people were aware of how devastating these effects would be and if they had realized that, they wouldn’t of potentially voted that direction,” Webber said.

“We are fortunate that the conservationist community is tight knit, strong resilient, we are intelligent individuals, we care about our work, and we won’t stop fighting until that work is able to be executed even if we have to do it as volunteers, that’s how much we care about it,” said Casillas.

“You have to participate in democracy,” said Pat Gegan, a social studies teacher at Island School who had his family in tow with his mother-in-law boasting a sign about surviving World War II.

“Elon is not an elected official and this is basically a coup and our county is waking up and rising up and there are a few of you billionaires out there and there are millions and millions of us and I hope you are ready for what you created,” said Webber.

Lani Kawahara, the Young Adults librarian at the Lihue Public Library was ecstatic about the participant turnout but lamented the lack of young people, either participating, or spectating, at the event.

Ed Manley and Esther Coletti of Philadelphia learned about the event and wanted to be a part of it before they flew home.

“We’re from the home of this year’s Super Bowl Champions,” Ed said. “We needed to do this because it’s too cold in Philadelphia to do any kind of rally.”

Sue Feutz and Leigh Feutz of Wailua were early arrivals and watched the fired biologists prepare their signage.

“We had to come,” Sue said. “Things are so bad, you can’t just sit back on the couch.”