2021-01-19 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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AA: Are there any statements from the public on tonight’s agenda? OK. Now we’re going on to our presentation from Wildlife West Side Hawaii Kanalu Sproat. He’ll be giving us a report on mutually beneficial game management strategies. So when you’re ready Kanalu you can go ahead. 5. PRESENTATION: a. West Hawaii DOFAW Wildlife Biologist Kanalu Sproat will give a report on mutually beneficial game management strategies KS: Aloha, and thank you for the opportunity to present today – my name is Kanalu Sproat – I’m the Wildlife Manager of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife on Hawaii Island – I’m the West side of the Island based in Waimea – my presentation today is Can You Have Your Cake and Eat It Too?” Using non-native ungulates to protect threatened and native ecosystems and provide a professional, sustainable hunting program. This is an overview of just how the presentation is going to go – talk story about the history – the primary objective – what we think the threats are to those objectives and how we plan on mitigating and managing for those threats and then our next steps moving forward. The area is approximately 105,000 acres. There’s 3 land designations under DOFAW – there’s the Puuanahulu GMA (approximately 62,000 acres), the Puuwaawaa Forrest Reserve (approximately 40,000 acres) and the Puuwaawaa Forest Bird Sanctuary which is a little more than 3,000 acres. This is a general composition of the vegetative structure right now – it’s highly degraded over – we’ll talk story about why it’s degraded over the years of use – but about 3,000 acres are native forest and native shrub or barren lava and about 75,000 acres are non-native forest cover, non-native shrub and grass. There’s quite a bit of the area has been degraded over time. The reason it’s degraded is because of the historical use as a livestock grazing area for almost 150 years of the area has been a cattle ranch or some sort of livestock ranch and in the 1960s it was – a forty year lease was signed with Dillingham Ranch for the entire 105,000 acres. That lease was transferred over to Mr. Bonnet in 1972 and in 1984 a large section was removed from the lease because of illegal koa harvesting – and then about 3800 acres was set-aside to become the Forest Bird Sanctuary. In 2000 – that lease ended and so when that lease ended the lands eventually were transferred over to 3