2020-01-14 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 14, 2020 NP: Yeah. MRH: But there wasn’t any regrowing of the young forest underneath it because of the constant browsing by the animals. NP: Got it. MRH: OK. So I’m here today to try to share with you guys that I believe that we have a shared problem here. So as I was planting on Mauna Kea – they had finished fencing Mauna Kea all up and they got the fencing on the Kaohe side of the mountainside between Parker Ranch and the Kaohe Game Management Area. And what was existing there was a fence – that was a barbed wire fence – not a barbed wire fence but just a horse fence because it used to be a horse ranch there. And that horse fence had fallen all apart and it was just wires flapping in the breeze. So the pigs were coming in and out and I would sit on Puu La’au Cinder Cone there next to the Puu La’au Cabin and watch the pigs come in at night as I was watching the sunset. So once the fence went up the pigs were trapped inside of the area and could no longer get back out. And as the years progressed, I noticed more and more grass underneath the trees being constantly dug up and checking the hunting checking stations constantly seeing how much was being take off the mountain I was not seeing people hunting pigs. So I think that we might have a problem, you know, I titled my speech, “Do pigs eat eggs or fly over fences?” So the research has been done long time ago back in the 70s on the effect of pigs on game birds. They do eat the eggs out of the nests and I’ve talked to many a pig farmer who raised pigs and raised chickens and yes, they definitely will eat eggs – especially the young ones – they would go into the chicken coop and eat my neighbors’ eggs so he stopped raising pigs. So I’m here to try to promote more pig hunting on the mountain because we’re not getting it. It’s not happening. Mitigation of the pigs necessary. There can be no eradication of pigs – that’s just an impossibility unless someone starts breaking out poison and poisoning ‘em on the mountain – that would be the only solution. But we’re not trying to stop that – we want more people to out hunting the problem I see is there’s only a one bag limit. So I introduced legislation with no bag limit. Another problem I’ve seen of why hunters don’t go hunt for pigs on Mauna Kea is because you know hunters hunt with dogs. So I talked it over with legislation and we’re also gonna introduce a regulation that allows pig hunters to go on Mauna Kea to hunt for the pigs up there. I’d like to know if you people have a problem with that. With supporting our pig hunting community to go up to the mountain and mitigate the pigs. Is that OK with this committee? NP: How many pig hunters hunt without their dogs? MRH: Not very many. Any pig hunters here? 17