2020-01-14 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 14, 2020 ?: ....in other areas, um, which is probably more of a reason why there’s not a lot of pig hunting up there than anything else. There’s not as many pigs and those pigs aren’t as nice as in other areas that they could go and then also, I mean, he is right that there’s a limitation – you can’t have dogs on the mountain for pig hunting – so that would limit people as well but I would think it’s more that there’s not many pigs and those pigs that are there are not that nice, I mean, you gonna have some but in general. That’s what I think. NP: Um... Thank you. MRH: They only have worms and grass to eat. Pigs are an omnivore and they love our avocados and our macadamia nuts and the fruits in the forest and, you know, they have to eat worms all the time and grasses and you can see it in their dung, yeah. KU: This is Kean here, um, Mark in your earlier statement you said the sheep were over grazing. Would you say if there was a management in place – game management – back 50 years, 40 years, 30, 20 years – and they control the sheep with hunters, OK, would you say that would help the forestation or what you’re trying to do? Or you just want to get rid of all the sheep? MRH: They’re not compatible with our native forest you guys. Ungulates since the beginning of research – see I’m not a research scientist – I listen to the research scientists. I ask questions of the research scientists... KU: So, so your... MRH: ....I go to the meetings, you know, I go to their conferences, I try to pick their brains to figure out what kind of solutions can we come up for the problems that we have. KU: OK. So my question to you is – the sheep that exist there right now should all be eliminated – is that your theory. MRH: Any time you put up a fence you have to take your ungulates out. Now the sheep on Mauna Loa and all the way across to Puuwaawaa and all across the PTA area – let ‘em be. But we have to control the population you guys – we can’t let it get up to be 60,000/80,000 sheep running back and forth from Mauna Loa to Mauna Kea. Now since this TMT stuff started I wasn’t able to get up and check on the DHHL lands – so I did a lot of research on Mauna Loa and guess what? The forest is regrowing from the lack of there being so many sheep browsing on it. I’m watching the Mauna Loa forest come back. Vegetation sprouting up everywhere. So we have to stay on top of the sheep, 23