2020-01-14 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 14, 2020 MRH: ....the DHHL lands but you guys got to understand those people are so confused right now in what they’re gonna do. NP: Um-hum. Well, we’re pressed for time but thank you Mark. Thank you so much for coming and being willing to share with us. We really appreciate it. MRH: And the last I have for you is if you guys would like try out roasted sandalwood nuts – of the food of our forests. NP: Oh, you can put ‘em, oh, on the table we’ll do that on the way out. Thank you. All right, so, um, our next speaker is an experienced active local bird hunter – Brian Ley... Experienced and active local bird hunter, Brian Ley, will speak for the bird hunting community on observations and conclusions of the 2019/2020 bird hunting season NP: All right, so, um, our next speaker is an experienced, active, local bird hunter, Brian Ley. He’s gonna speak for the bird hunting community and on observations and conclusions of the 2019/2020 bird hunting season. BL: OK. Brian Ley. Born on Hawaii – just to keep the record straight on that. Dismal comes to the devastating, horrible – it’s been a horrible year, you know, and scientifically speaking I’ve been hunting with the same dog for 7 years, hunting the same areas and the bird populations are just dwindling and disappearing from areas and, you know, places that historically have held birds, you know, that was guaranteed I could get a limit by 8:30 if I hunted by myself. Usually, I’m hunting with four to five guys cause the hunting’s so good and the dog is so good that I could take four or five guys out and we can have a good day and everyone come home with two birds thru three birds limit and this year I’ve had zero. Never have I ever had zero birds. Multiple times. Christmas Day I hunted all day – took two shots – that was it, you know, hunting areas that were historically good spots, you know, and a lot of it’s the habitat, you know, nobody – everyone talks invasive but nobody complains about all the vegetation is invasive. It’s not native to Hawaii. So why not use invasives to take care of invasives. You know, if you look at the sheep and the goats – they’re generations – I mean a person generation is 20 years – these goats and animals is one year and you figure that how many generations these animals are here – they’re not invasive – they’re endemic. They’ve been here, they’re adapted, they’ve become part of the Island, they’ve become part of the ecosystem. Everything has a balance, you know, everyone talks about saving the palila birds but we have a fire hazard that is uncontrollable. Everyone will agree with that but nobody wants to do anything about it, you know, we’ve got money to put concrete slabs in and put in nice little port-a-potty toilets at the hunter check-in station, we can make little – 29