2019 06-25 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – June 25, 2019 BKK: It turned off again there... MC: Sorry about that. OK. The control of our animals is with electrical netting. We can place that anywhere around anything so we’re not – how can I put it – we’re not limited to what we can do with the electric netting. I don’t want to sound too confident or cocky but with our herd and our netting, I’m confident that I could actually go in the middle of downtown Hilo or anyplace in the state - put my net up and have my goats graze – and sheep. Like I said, I’m not trying to sound cocky or anything but I’m that confident in the animals and the netting. It’s very, very good and effective. BKK: What’s the hardest thing you’re facing? MC: Some of the hardest things we face is – honestly, research and development. Our company is so unique in what we do – all the research and development comes out of our pockets and we are very limited on that. We wish we could do more research. Sad to say we just don’t have the funding for it and hopefully one day we will, cause I think we got something good going here and we really, really want to do more research to find out what more these animals are capable of doing. KU: Would the animals that you use versus the animals up on Mauna Kea being feral – what would be the difference you think honestly with the vegetation that they would have to live off of – would they be pretty similar to what your animals would do or would they – they would do a good job? MC: Yes, actually, the feral animals would do a great job. They’re no different from the animals I have. They’re all the same species and thank you for bringing that up cause what I see with the feral animals right now – they can be utilized in so much ways instead of just being eradicated. DLNR – I shouldn’t bust out – I shouldn’t say any names – sorry – I don’t know who made fencing up there but we know there’s fencing that was made for eradications. I actually jumped up in joy when I heard about this fencing being made – not for the eradication part – but for the part I see – that we can utilize our animals in these fenced areas to put the forests back into pristine conditions and move them around – like how we would actually work on a regular pasture and that’s where the helicopter would actually come in really, really handy – moving these animals around that mountain from what we would call from paddock to paddock and one of our biggest problems with that is just managing it the correct way – animal numbers, animal count. Like how I mentioned earlier – you don’t want to over populate but yet you don’t want to under populate and I’m gonna be honest – if we eradicate all the sheep or animals off of that mountain we will run into a major, major disaster – fires – our birds – the palila bird that everybody – that they’re trying to save – their habitats are gonna get wiped out. The trees can’t grow due to the grass being too high – now if a fire comes through – like how I mentioned too – that wipes 5