2019 05-14 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – May 14, 2019 recommendations. So that’s – Alva Leopold for those of you who don’t know him – one of the fathers of conservation along with Teddy Roosevelt. So in late 2007 a group of hunters from this Island met at Waimea with the DLNR Forestry and Wildlife people – this was the Scott Fritz was new at being a Wildlife Program Manager – he had just come aboard – and the hunters requested that a plan be developed so we could sustainably manage Hawaii’s game resources. In early 2008 a working group was established – it was composed of DLNR representatives and Island hunters – it was determined early in the meetings that this probably would never get done also we had dedicated leadership so a job description was written for a Game Management Planner that were and one was hired. The scope of the plan was limited to Hawaii Island – early in the discussions of trying to develop a scope for the plan – we reviewed the hunting rules and at that time it was determined that that would be such a big issue to revise that we set it aside to stay focused on the game management plan. From 2008-2010 we developed a – what was gonna go into the plan – we worked on individual sections and at the conclusion of finishing each section we had a review meeting – we all sat down face-to-face – and there were 12 such meetings held over the course of that 2008-2010... RH: In April of 2010 – this plan was submitted – Hawaii Island Game Management Plan: A Five-Year Plan for the Management of Hawaii Game Animals – that would be from 2010 to 2015 and the plan was submitted to DLNR. This is what was in the plan – you can read ‘em if you like – this is the index – but you can see there were – we pretty much discussed all of the issues – each one was a chapter on to its own – we discussed all of Hawaii Island’s game at that time – individually – a history – there’s the contents of the plan – you can read ‘em yourself – we discussed all of the animals, as I mentioned, the land resources, we did a section on the economics of hunting – we talked about the human resources that were available and developed goals and objectives, etc. and there’s the recommendations, the references – all the rules we looked at and some – all the illustrations. From April 2010 to April 2017 nothing happened. The Plan was submitted and it disappeared. Every once in a while we would ask about what was going on and we never got any kind of response – meanwhile – the working group diminished – some people died – some left. This was the original working group - you can see the disposition – the ones that died – you’ll notice that DLNR was a viable, contributor to the plan – I listed the names of those that contributed and in April of 2017 we got an email – the survivors of the working group – were emailed a version – a revised version of this Game Management Plan – we just got it and there was no discussion on what we were supposed to do with it or where they were gonna have meetings or whatever. Again, the original plan was developed by the working group of hunters and DLNR – but it was modified without any notation of where the changes occurred. We tried to go through and compare the original plan with the modified version using some software that went 9