2019 09-10 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – September 10, 2019 MC: Correct. Cause we control the animals in a very professional way and we don’t – we’ll take everything down but we won’t cause damage to the land. So we control and watch every step of the way so we have the best results – cause our Island is so unique – we have so much different vegetation, so much different land, um, environments, I should say, on this Island. Different places we go we always have to work a different way to adapt to that area. So I got to admit – we really lucked out on our part cause we get to see a whole different ball game than most goat grazers out there in America – due to our different environments. We’ve get to strategize and workings in so much different ways – it’s very unique. NP: So tell us about the last project you did with the County? MC: So with the last project that was a hill that they only used herbicides that was an acre and a half that we cleared – it took us slightly over a week – we tried a couple different methods. First I tried just a baby thing cause we’re in a County park. We tried to just bring them there daytime hours. I didn’t really like that approach to it. The goats and sheep will actually eat all through the night – all day all night – so by taking them out of there during the evenings we actually slowed down the process which we could have done it faster. So it actually took us, I believe it was ten days to do that – due to some trial and errors and I only had – I took a herd size of 89 to that job. But we did very successful. Like I said the County and 3 C got a lot a calls from the community on how this is a wonderful method and hopefully it can be seen more around the communities. JO: Mark, this is James. What park was this? I think you told us last time you visited where you were going to do it but my memory’s not so good so. MC: Sorry about that. This was right down here at the Bayfront \[unclear\] the Bayfields, OK. Right behind Ben Franklin and Goodyear. Yes. Which was, um, there was different types of vegetation in that area so it was really nice that everybody could see how the goats and sheep united together to finish this job in the best way we could. JO: Yes, very good. MC: And there was, sorry, there was one area we actually did in the middle of the soccer field – they could not mow it due to the last flooding – when they cleaned up everything – that was their clean-up pile so there were some rocks leftover and they couldn’t see where the rocks was. We took the animals there – within five hours we had that completed – moving on to the 21