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Home My WebLink About2018-11-13 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes 2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawaii Minutes Meeting Date: Monday, October 24, 2016 Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Hawaii County Building – Council Chambers I. CALL TO ORDER: Meeting was called to order at 6:33pm. II. ROLL CALL: Willie-Joe Camara, District 1 – here Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina, District 2 – missing Naniloa Poglen - here Thomas H. Lodge, District 5 - here Kenneth “Kalani” DeCoito, District 6 – missing District 7 – Teresa Nakama - here Mark C. Bartell – District 8 – Jonathan Bartsch – here District 9 Quorum established ALSO PRESENT: Belinda Castillo-Hall, Corporation Counsel B. Command, Deputy Planning Director GUESTS: Dr. Earl Campbell, US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Dr. Shane Siers, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Patrick Chee, State of Hawaii DLNR, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Small Mammal Control Planner (DOFAW) TL: Yes, we’re calling this meeting together here at 6:34 this evening. We have some guests that we’d like to introduce here this evening as well, uh, first... BK: Um, roll call? 1 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TL: I’m sorry? Oh. That’s right. We’ll run it through our roll call. BK: OK. Willie-Joe? WJ: Here. BK: Ike? TL: Missing... BK: Is Ike here? ?: No. BK: Missing, OK... Nani? NP: Here. BK: Tom? TL: Here... BK: Kalani? TL: Missing. BK: Theresa? TN: Here. BK: Jonathan? JB: Here. BK: We have quorum Chair, thank you. III. ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INTRODUCTIONS: TL: OK. Thank you. OK. We have some introductions tonight that we want to make and I want to particularly, um, welcome Theresa Nakama from Kona District 8, I believe it is... BK: Yeah. 2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TL: She’s our new commissioner from Kona – one of our new commissioners from Kona. I do want to welcome her to the commission. I think she’s gonna bring a lot to the table for us and especially is a very active young lady and we welcome her to the commission – so, thank you, Theresa, for taking the time to volunteer for this job. It’s important to us that you’re here. I’d also like to introduce Dr. Earl Campbell. He’s here with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Dr. Shane Siers, did I say that correctly? SS: Siers... TL: Siers. OK. Sorry about that, um, I forget things, you know, like the roll call and... And Patrick Chee’s here from the Division of Forestry and Wildlife,, ah, Dr. Siers is with the Department of Agriculture – the USDA. Um, I want to quickly go through here and see if we have any – I’d like to approve these minutes for June 20 and this is when we had Chris Yuen from the Board of Land and Natural Resources here, um, if we have any discussion on that – what I’d like to, ah, approve these minutes – is anybody want to second? IV. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: NP: I second. TL: All in favor? WJ: Aye… TN: Tom? TL: Yes? TN: I just have correction on page 6. All the way down in comments section, thrd 4, ah, 3 paragraph from the bottom – when I gave a comment. They have not now – not now shown and it – after shown it’s supposed to have the word “nor”, “nor given.” That’s the only two corrections I have. TL: OK. Everybody OK with adopting that and the correction? WJ: Yes? TL: OK. All in favor of this thing? \[The ayes have it\] 3 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 V. BUDGET REPORT: TL: OK. With the correction any \[unclear\]? OK. Moved and seconded or moved, passed. So the minutes are adopted. Ah, budget report, um, I’m going to pass on the budget report for this evening and, um, we’ll move on to public testimony on any of the agenda items. Are there anybody from the public who have any comments that they would like to make, ah, please take no more than three minutes. And also, state your name, um, if you don’t mind and, um, keep it to this rodenticide issue... VI. PUBLIC TESTIMONY ON AGENDA ITEMS: SR: I’m Sydney Ross-Singer, Director of the Good Shepherd Foundation. I just wanted to comment that what we’re seeing here – which I think is the conflict that exists between the hunting community and the Fish and Wildlife is that Fish and Wildlife’s agenda, as was just on that slide, is habitat restoration and native habitat restoration and I think that the animals that the hunting community is interested in are perceived as invasive species by Fish and Wildlife. So, um, cause native habitats would not have all of these species. So I think that’s the basis of the conflict that exists which, ah, it’s just based – different agendas here. And one of the things that I have as a concern, um, when I see the research that’s being done and the goals that are being sought in these efforts is that, um, I think if a species is non-native – the impacts on those species are pretty much ignored, ah, in fact, they might even be considered non-target impacts against non-native species may be considered a benefit – a beneficial outcome – secondary impacts – and I think that’s a problem and I think that undermines the, um, intention of Fish and Wildlife because if – when they’re doing, for example, rodenticide studies, I’d like to know how those are impacting on species that, um, I value, such as the introduced owl – the barn owl – or, um, you know, egrets or any other – feral cats – there are a lot of species of game animals that would be impacted by this but I think what typically happens is the impacts that are being studied are usually on either endangered species or native species cause that’s what they care about – those impacts, um, I think it would be really beneficial if, um, in the design of research there was a greater consideration for all the species that are impacted, ah, you know, how the pigs impacted by this – how are game birds, um, the sheep, the goats – all sorts of animals and I think, um, instead of just that focus on native and endangered species... ?: You have 30 seconds... SR: Yup. That’s basically my comment. I think that’s – that’s the unfortunate dynamic in this situation is that their goal is native species restoration and 4 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 your goal is game management and conservation. So \[tape distortion\] versus conservation dynamic that I talked about last time... TL: Right... SR: ....and, um, so I just wanted to point that out and hope they can hear me and take consideration of those... TL: I do appreciate that and I believe that we will have an opportunity to address a couple of those this evening, so, thanks, Ed. Anyone else that, um, care to make a statement on this issue that we have before us this evening. If not, um, I’d like to introduce and have them come up – we need another chair, actually. I’d like to introduce Dr. Earl Campbell from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, um, he’s gonna be up here tonight, he’s gonna give us a PowerPoint presentation on this Programmatic EIS on Rodenticide and their broadcast use. ?: \[Man not speaking in mic\] TL: Sorry? ?: Ask if \[unclear\]. TL: Is there anybody in Kona that has any questions or comments? TN: We have an audience here but they’re here to listen what the guest speakers have to say. TL: OK. All right. We have a \[sounds like deep bench\] folks. EC: So what I’d like to do today, I guess, one thing is do I need to have the speaker \[unclear\]? TL: Yes, please. WJ: Turn it on. EC: OK. So is it on right now? Press down? WJ: It’s not on. It’s gonna turn red over here – see like that. ?: Sometimes the mic don’t turn... EC: Can you hear me? Hello? TL: There you go... 5 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: OK. I got one. See what I’d like to do today... WJ: Now, it’s off. There... VII. DISCUSSION: 1. Dr. Earl Campbell, (USFWS) – power point presentation on Programmatic EIS on Rodenticide and their broadcast use. 2. Dr. Campbell, Dr. Siers and Patrick Chee of DLNR to discuss the use and broadcast of Rodenticides as part of a “tool box” of available or to be available alternatives to the control of rodents and mongoose to include mechanical and aerial broadcasting of rodenticides. EC: OK. Is it on now? Thank you, so what I’d like to do today is just to present a PowerPoint on sort of a broader effort that the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Land and Natural Resources and a range of federal and state agencies have been working on dealing with rodent and mongoose control in the State of Hawaii and one of the key things I want to do is to make sure that everybody here has correct information on what we’re trying to do and the goals of it so one of the key things that I’m interested in and our agencies are interested in is to try to look at rodent- mongoose control from a broader programmatic sense and to try to do it better and safer. So what I want to do is just to cover the initiative that we’re doing. I want to touch base a little bit on what the approach we’re doing – how we will accomplish rodent and mongoose control and eradication and how can you get involved and this process actually has been on-going for probably about a year or so – so we’re in the midst of it and I’ll – I will touch base on where we are on the timeline in the process. So the first things I’m going to touch on is what is the initiative, why is it needed and who is involved. So the purpose of the initiative that I’m gonna be describing is to develop and make available to conservation entities in Hawaii an effective comprehensive landscape-level integrated pest management approach for rodent and mongoose management. And the key thing that we’re looking at is we want to provide managers a tool box that shows them the safest, most effective methods to manage rodents and mongoose in natural resource situations. So, again, the focus of this is solely in natural resource areas or natural resource situations. So, as many of you are aware, rodents and mongoose negatively impact Hawaii’s native species and also native cultural practices. It’s – you look on this slide here a range of things that have been negatively impacted or consistently impacted by rodents – just as an example – but impacts of rodents in Hawaii on natural resources are very broad. I think one of the things from my experience having worked on this issue is my mind typically goes to the impacts on birds, um, and seeing examples like that, 6 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 but it’s really the other place that surprised me after working on these issues for years – is the level of impacts on our forests and plants and basically our ecosystems in the level of impacts on plants and also snails. So just an example of things. So looking at this and this has been discussed over a number of years on how to best approach this, um, one of the things that’s clear is there is no comprehensive resource available for land managers to evaluate methods for rodent and mongoose control and eradication in conservation areas. And the key thing is, you know, people are doing these efforts individually – in many cases we have people that may not know how to do things correctly or may be following labels – we want to make sure that this done in the safest, most effective manner possible. So when I think about the work that I’ve done with – in urban situations – in an agricultural situations in the past – you tend to have pretty broad manuals and training for folks. One of the things we want to do is to make sure that there’s consistency across individuals and entities doing this type of work for conservation and that the managers know the pros and cons of the different tools they may be choosing to do rodent control with. So this – this project has a broad range of agencies involved with it. The co-leads on this are the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. We also have a number of cooperating agencies that include parts of the Department of Defense, ah, NOAA, Department of Hawaiian Homelands, um, USDA Wildlife Services, um, and EPA and the National Park Service. I think one of the things that a number of entities saw with this is – in particular the EPA – is the goal is to try to figure out how to do this safely and effectively. So what is the approach? And, so, I’m gonna review the NEPA a little bit and a little bit about the parallel process for the State of Hawaii and what we’re moving forward on. So, I think a number of people are familiar, at times, on the NEPA process – a key thing on the NEPA process is the goal of this is public disclosure of what federal agencies are doing. So a key thing for me as a federal employee is to ensure that you guys and any entity knows broadly what we’re planning on doing and the different things we’re doing. The State of Hawaii has a parallel process – the HIPA process – or HRS 342 – and so from a practical viewpoint these processes are parallel so this document will serve both NEPA and HIPA processes. So, if you look at the NEPA process, the first thing that we do is – both entities – is public scoping. So we had a public – we had two public meetings on the Big Island earlier this year in March – we had reasonable attendance at both Hilo and on the Kona side and we were on all islands in the Hawaiian Islands – at this point we ask the public to provide comment – we got 7,000 plus comments – so at this point what we are doing is we’re going through – we’re reading every single comment but the key thing for me is – we need to address the issues that the public has raised to us in a document that we’re working on and so that’s a key thing about public scoping. The next step in this process is the production of a draft programmatic EIS and that document will lay out what are the 7 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 agencies proposing to do – what are the actions we’re proposing to do and that is given to the public and there will be public hearings on that next year and we would like to get comment back on that, but the key thing is from the perspective of process that draft document is the point where we want as much comment on what the agencies are proposing. The first again – the scoping – was we wanted to get people’s concerns and we wanted to make sure we’re addressing it. The draft is where we lay things out and we want to get input – have we addressed your concerns well or other people’s concerns well. We will take those comments and then we will have to go back and do a final programmatic document, um, that will be brought to the public, um, and then after that has been reviewed then we’ll have a record of decision. So the key thing is that this is a fairly lengthy process but the key thing is public disclosure of what we’re planning on doing. And, again, the point we’re at in this process is we’ve just finished scoping and we’re working on the scoping comments at this point. So what is a programmatic EIS going to be doing? It’s gonna analyze the impacts and alternatives to using an integrated pest-management approach to control or eradicate invasive rodents and mongoose to protect native wildlife plants and ecosystems that support them. So in the simplest sense we want to produce a tool box that looks at all the different tools and their range of things that have been proposed – if we don’t have enough information on some of them – they may not be included in the tool box ultimately because we can’t tell the public what the impacts are or costs and benefits. So the key thing is we’re looking at things that we’re gonna be able to tell the public – what are the pros and cons of, of things being done. So the \[unclear\] framework and what we’re gonna be doing – we want to look and assess if the pests are negatively impacting native species and management goals. So we’re gonna look at that. We’re gonna evaluate available control eradication methods giving consideration to the human environment. And a key thing with the NEPA process is what are the impacts on people - what people are doing. And that’s the human environment. We will be looking at implementing selected methods. We haven’t made any decisions on what the methods are but obviously there will be some that are selected ultimately if we go forward with that. The other key thing is we’re looking at monitoring and I think Sid brought up some key points and it’s – I think it’s particularly important to monitor our target pest. Non-target species and those would be native and non-native species – to determine the effects of the methods because, you know, we are looking at methods that are going to reduce rodents and mongooses but they may be impacts on other things but we want to make sure people know what we’re doing to monitor those impacts. So the key thing I’d look at with this is it’s gonna be based on sound ecological principals; it’s gonna be in compliance with state and federal pesticide laws and regulations and it should be compatible with and safe for all natural 8 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 resources in the human environment. And it needs to take into consideration impacts to cultural rights, practices and resources. As we’re doing this we’re also doing parallel processes looking at cultural impacts so we are doing, um, we are looking at things from a federal and state perspective looking at it from cultural permitting too. TL: OK. May I ask a question? EC: Yeah. TL: On – when you say “sound ecological principals” what exactly does that mean? EC: Well, I think, when I think about sound ecological principals, you know, some of it is going to be looking at are we reducing the predators and actually having an impact on the population. I think there’s situations where you have individuals doing predator control where actually the predator control has no impact. That’s a problem. The other thing is, if you’re doing predator control – are you actually having a response in the species that you’re trying to save. So, in, it’s in the very simplest sense, you know, sound ecological principals, but, you know, we want to make sure that what we’re doing is safe and effective but we shouldn’t be doing it if we’re not having a positive effect on what I consider the targets which are the species that are important to us. So the next thing I want to phase into is how will it accomplish rodent and mongoose control and eradication. What will it do, what will it not do, what methods are considered and what are the alternatives? And I think a key thing that I want to comment on here is – in this we use the terms “control” and “eradication.” When I look at a main Hawaiian Island case – most cases we’re really looking at control of pests in an area, um, where you are gonna have reinvasion and you’re gonna have to re-treat areas if there isn’t a fence around it. We’ve started to have some areas for rodents and mongoose where there are multi-species barriers being put up for seabirds in particular. In those areas you’re not gonna have rodent and mongoose re-invasion in, but I think in the most cases here, you’re looking at application of things multiple times over time. The cases that I think about eradication are gonna be off-shore islands, so, I think that’s a key important term that people need to look at and, and, you know, that’s, for instance, projects that are being considered right now are mice on Midway, ah, is an example of that. So, again, I want to just cover what will it do, what won’t it do – methods considered and alternatives. So what will it do? And I think this, this is critical. It’s for informational and planning purposes only. So what we want to do is to make sure the managers know the different methods that are available to them and those methods have public review. So we do want that disclosure with the public. We want to 9 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 improve and facilitate rodent-mongoose control on federal, state, and private lands through applying IPM. One key goal is to establish standards and principals for rodent and mongoose control and eradication. There are many good projects currently that are doing rodent and mongoose control in the state, um, many of them are on small scales and people are doing things correctly but I think the key thing is making sure that everybody does it correctly. One of the things I look at is if it provides efficiencies for future site specific NEPA compliance documents. So this is gonna be a document that covers the entire state but if somebody goes and does an individual project in a site – they still are gonna have to do site specific compliance documentation. This isn’t gonna cover every site in the State of Hawaii – this is gonna be a resource that a manager can go back and say, “I’m gonna pick these tools out of this tool box,” and they can refer to that when they do the compliance document for the public but it’s not gonna cover them for everything. They have to do the site specific work with the communities individually. So what will this not do? It won’t provide project or site specific analysis permits or authorization. So if somebody wants to do specific work in an area, for instance, on the Big Island – this tool will not provide the individual site authorization. People will have to refer to this and do some level of paperwork to state they’re gonna do it but it’ll simplify things for the managers, um, it, it, it will not provide project specific compliance with laws and regulations for project level planning. So the key thing is, again, people for individual projects in – on the Big Island, for instance, they’re gonna have to do some level of things that – a planning for the individual site – and the third thing is it does not stop ongoing rodent and mongoose control eradication projects that are being conducted in compliance with current state and federal pesticide laws and regulations. So what we’re really trying to do is to bring up a set of standards for people to do things better and, as you can see, you don’t want to stop ongoing efforts as you’re trying to get things tighter and better done. So here are the methods that are being considered and again these are all being considered. None of them are final. They’re mechanical traps that are being considered – so they’re live traps – kill traps and multi-kill traps. And the rodenticides that are being considered are diphacinone and chlorophacinone and brodifacoum. So one of them currently is being used in the State of Hawaii and that’s diphacinone. Chlorophacinone is one that’s under consideration and brodifacoum really is only being used on off-shore islands. It’s really the sole use pattern where that chemical would be considered. Um, the application methods – bait stations, canopy baiting, hand broadcast and aerial broadcast are the application methods under consideration and again I need to stress that all these things are under consideration at this point and we’re weighing the pros and cons of things as we’re getting information from people and then seeing what the feasibility is. 10 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 The geographic scope being considered is the following. So this is – it’s gonna be the State of Hawaii – Pacific Islands within the Hawaii and Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. So we’re looking at Midway, Wake, Johnson – so a lot of the far outer islands that are quite a ways away – those are under consideration for this. Areas that we’re excluding are gonna be the Mariana Islands and Rose \[???Samoa\] and that’s because we’d have to a fair bit of work to do public outreach in the Marianas or in American Samoa – so it’s really focused on Hawaii areas. How can you get involved? Well the key thing I look at as a step for involvement in this case is we welcome any participation – the next step of the NEPA process – and that would be when we put out the draft programmatic EIS for public comment. And we will be having public meetings and we will be ensuring that there’s adequate time for people to review the document but we really do want to have comment from people on that document, but that would be the next point for public involvement and at this point I think I’ve probably covered it as best I can. TL: I have a couple questions on what you’ve just gone through and, um, if you can, um, maybe have Dr. Siers and Mr. Chee come up with you - I think, well, some of us are missing but, um... EC: OK. TL: ....we may have other questions and there may be questions from the audience as well that, ah, as to the scope and the breadth of what you’re doing. Um, on this, this programmatic impact EIS - that’s not something that’s in effect right now? It’s something you’re working towards? EC: Correct. It’s something we’re working towards, yes. TL: OK... EC: And just to clarify – four projects that are ongoing right now – they have individual compliance documentation for them, so, you know, the work does have compliance documentation – the key thing we want to do is simplify it and we’ll have standardized compliance documentation. TL: Um, in that – brings up another question is – how did this study in Pohakuloa get started? Cause you say that there’s supposed to be public disclosure and these sort of activities with the public before you start moving into testing, ah, in these areas... EC: The work at PTA is – well, I think this is little – they’re slightly different things so the programmatic EIS is a different thing than this – it’s a – I think the testing would be a subset that’s going to support... 11 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TL: The EIS... EC: It will provide a component of that, but there’s been work over the years, actually, to get the research on safety of different things or what are the non-target of risk so the work on this has actually been multi-year, probably, over the last fifteen... TL: Um-hum.... EC: ....to sixteen years. ?: \[Man not speaking in the microphone\] I think the intent tonight was to – after Earl’s presentation – I was gonna specifically address the PTA... ?: Can’t hear... TL: All right, then, then, I withdraw my question. EC: No worries, but the main thing is we want to make sure you have the information. TL: OK. On the, ah, when you talk about the studies that you’ve done previously, I know some of it was done on Chinaman’s Hat, ah, Mokulii, I think it’s called... EC: Um-hum. TL: ....as I grew up it was just Chinaman’s Hat – we didn’t have a – and also you did some work on Lehua – Lehua Island off of Kauai – is that correct? EC: There was work done on Kauai – but I wouldn’t look at that as being one of the studies building to that. There was a project trying to eradicate rodents on Lehua, but when I’m thinking about the studies that support this – over the years there’s been work looking at what are the risks of rodenticide use to birds or what are the risks to pigs, or – so there have been supporting studies looking at different things to assess risk – and I look at the Lehua project as it – in a management action that was attempted, um, that ultimately did not get rid of the rats but – I look at that as a management action. TL: Hm. Well... One of the things I noticed about that Lehua and some of the other studies that have been done that I’ve had an opportunity to look at things in a very cursory manner – I’m not pretending to be any sort of a science study but like in Lehua, for example, they went through great pains, um, to, ah, make sure that it was at the lowest – when they trapped 12 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 rats or so forth, I think didn’t they try to pick it during the winter months when \[unclear\] low and the birds were gone so the impact was minimized, ah, to some degree. EC: They, um, and I’m not – for me I’m just trying to recollect the timing of... TL: I’m not putting you on the spot there... EC: Yeah... TL: ....I’m just kinda curious as to... EC: ....but they did try to time it so it had the greatest chance of success for removing the rodents – so the key thing was there was monitoring on rodent abundance and the bird abundance and they were weighing the different things on when was the most feasible time. TL: The question that came to me out of that is – that was a fairly thorough, ah, before, you know, ah, pre-study of what they were going to be doing – before they started aerial spraying of rodenticide on Lehua, from what I understand. That is probably going to be far different than what you’re gonna be available to you here, um, in, you know, in that, ah, specific, you know, conditions before you start distributing this rodenticide – especially in the forest. EC: Yeah... And I, I think, you know, one of the key things I look at – and I think it’s important to step back, is when I look at the weighing of what tools one should use – I, I, I wouldn’t immediately go to the use of aerial broadcast in situations – I think there are certain places or certain situations that, that may be the tool, um, you and I talked on the phone... TL: Um-hum... EC: ....for instance about the, um, the new, ah, new traps that are being produced in New Zealand... TL: Right… NP: Excuse me. Dr. Campbell could you move your speaker a little closer to your voice there, um, people are having a hard time... EC: OK. No worries, thank you... NP: Thank you... 13 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: So when I look at it – I think one of the key things that I think is important is having a manager weigh what is the best technique – there may be situations that a manager might choose to do that – but I also think that there are other tools that may be as good or may be better for certain situations so I – but I do think that the dry conditions that occurred on Lehua – there would be wetter conditions in forest – here – so, you know, obviously there are gonna be differences if somebody were to do a broadcast application. NP: I was curious – how much of your, um, decision making is based on your finding from, ah, Mokapu and, ah, Lehua Island experiments. EC: Um... Actually, there – I think the experiences – because both of those things are, are, I think, management actions where people learned lessons where things went well or didn’t, I think that’s an important thing is people learn things – those are gonna be incorporated in it, but I think a lot of the things that are going to be in it are, are the results of studies that people have done where we look at the answer – assuming people are going to be concerned and with the comments we’ve got on what is the risk to game or what is the risk to non-targets and one of the key things over time that people have done is try to collect the data to answer those questions – so that’s the type of thing that will be in the documentation because I think it’s important for managers and the public to know that. TL: I do – I do have just one on the game \[unclear\]. How much emphasis do you give our game animals or game birds when you look at the impact to a non-targeted species – which is something that, ah, Mr. Singer had brought up when he came forward this evening? EC: I think there’s a very heavy emphasis on it, um, in looking at the past work that’s been done because there are questions and I think they’re absolutely appropriate on, you know, if something’s put in the environment – what is the impact to people that are taking game from, from the environment so there’s been background work done on, you know, what is the uptake to pigs, what, how much is carried in pigs, you know, where would the – what risk is posed, so that’s a key thing that people have been trying to look at the question of, you know, what is risk and I think the key thing that’s important is that, that information is out because that allows a manager to make the decision, again, it’s gonna be up to the individual manager of what they’re gonna do but I think they need to know the pros and cons of what choices they might be doing in an individual situation – but there has been a fair bit of information collected on that. TL: The question that I have in that regard is, you know, does the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, you know, value the game that we have here? 14 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 PC: Well, I mean, the answer – part of the answer I was gonna give for your earlier question, though, was, was that, you know, ultimately, land managers that might be using rodenticides – they’re going to look at the, you know, all of the, the information and, you know, possibly if there are non-targets such as game animals – they may chose not to use rodenticides in that, that way – in that area... TL: Um-hum... PC: ....because it’s a tool that’s not appropriate for that area. So it really – it’s dependent upon the site specific questions and issues there and, you know, of course, game mammals if there is hunting is something that’s going to be considered, ah, whether or not they use that in that particular situation – so that’s what this programmatic EIS is supposed to give people that perspective and, ah, you know, make sure that that’s not being impacted if that’s – if they are there. TL: Um-hum... Thank you... TN: Tom? Can we ask questions, Tom? TL: Yes ma’am? TN: Can we ask questions? TL: Absolutely... TN: Um, it was mentioned that there was a public scoping back in March in Kona – do you know what date that? PC: I would have to look that up... TN: Because I would love to know who attended. I certainly would have been there if I had known – and others. PC: It was... TN: And who attended and where was the meeting... PC: It was over at the Kona – West Hawaii Civic Center – I think that’s where you folks are know actually. TN: \[Unclear – sounds like “Is that Patrick?”\] PC: We probably had twenty plus people there. We had more people here in Hilo. 15 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 ?: Um-hum. TN: And where did you advertise that this meeting was taking place in Kona? thth PC: We heard from \[unclear\] that March 14 or 15 I think. TN: Where was it advertized and who did you call out to this meeting. Did you email – did you put it in the newspaper – did you put it on the radio. How were the hunters supposed to known that this was coming about? PC: I’m pretty sure it was advertized in the, um, in the Honolulu Star Advertiser and I’m not sure if it – it was also published in the West Hawaii Today and also in... TN: Are you sure? Are you sure? PC: There were – there were articles... TN: Because if you advertize in the Star Bulletin Advertiser – we don’t receive those papers here – we don’t look at it... PC: I’m pretty sure there was an article that was in the West Hawaii Today that talked about our meeting upcoming, but, um, the other thing was it was also – it was also out on the various new channels, um, so if you had seen KHON or Hawaii News Now or KITV – they had various stories about the upcoming meetings. EC: One of the things... TN: They did... EC: One of the things I think’s important is we’re more than happy to outreach to you folks and if we – when we do the next step where we’re gonna be putting out the draft – we can send copies of the draft to you folks when it comes out so you’ve got it and then we can coordinate directly with you guys on the times of the public meetings, cause I think it’s particularly important that we get – you folks have an opportunity to see things and comment on it – because it’ll make it a tighter and better document. TN: Is your PowerPoint on a website that we can look at? EC: Um... PC: I’m not sure... We can try and put it someplace... 16 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TN: You can make it available... TL: Yeah, we also have it so we can forward that to her... EC: Yeah... TL: But she brings up a good point, I think, in that a lot of this stuff – if it is put, you know, out in the open, if it is put in a, um, on your website, you know, it makes it much easier for people who become aware of it to be able to say, hey, you know, we can access it, you know, through the website and so forth and, um, what Barbara also brought up on this notification is that we generally are the last to know, ah, over here on anything, um, that’s going on, and, um, the communication process between possibly Fish & Wildlife Service and DLNR in many cases, ah, doesn’t really get to us in a timely manner nor an efficient manner, um, to where the people who, you know, would be most interested are able to get it. So that, that is something she brought up that I think is hopeful – something that can be worked on and... EC: I think that’s appropriate. TL: Yeah. EC: I think the key things is when we do outreach, you know, we’ll include you on the outreach \[unclear\] and... PC: Yeah, oh, I was told that the West Hawaii Today had picked up the story th on our meetings in March on February 25 – so – and the, the news release about that was sent to all the news outlets, um, of course, before that so that they would – they could pick it up, so... NP: Excuse me. Um, I think the core of the problem is, is that, um, Dr. Campbell – as you were explaining the NEPA process, um, you made a statement, um, ah, what U.S. Fish & Wildlife, ah, their informing the public on what they’re planning on doing – right there it gives you that feeling like – the plan is already there – they’re just telling us – you’re just telling us what you’re gonna do. Not that there’s an opportunity for the plan to be changed due to public sentiment or feeling or opinion. So I think that’s the core of the feeling of the communication problem is that even if communication is perfected – is there hope that the public will be heard and can the plans be changed. EC: Nani, I think you make a really good, good point and that’s one of the reasons we had the outreach, um, and I think the comments that we got broadly, um, show a wide range of appropriate concerns dealing with, you know, what are non-target risks – what are risks to game – what are 17 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 risks to water – what are risks to human health and at this point in – from receiving any questions that we have to address – I think we’ve gotten some really strong comments that we as agencies need to address – the key thing right now for us is we need to sort through the comments and think about them on what the path forward is – so I don’t think it’s, it’s, it is too late for people to, to, to have input. I think a key point in the process is when we come out with the draft EIS is looking at what are directions the agencies are going in that and if they’re directions that you folks disagree with or there are things that we’re missing – and I think that’s key – is making sure to get back to us on it. Ah, having done and worked in the NEPA process over years – the one thing I would suggest is if there are concerns that people have and like something’s missing – it’s really helpful when people say, “Well, what should replace it,” um, because that sort of dialogue where there’s, you know, a problem and then here’s what we suggest doing – helps us figure out what is really needed, but I think at this point in the process, um, you know, the agencies are internally trying to determine what to do, um, and, ah, the questions were extremely broad that we got from the public – which is what we anticipated, ah, but... PC: And the other part of it is, well, what, what the disclosure was – is that we are doing this drafting of this document and beyond that this is actually a document that says – this is the kinds of things that could be done on future projects, so, ultimately, this is a planning document and there’s actually – not actually anything that will be done by this document per se – there will be other projects that will come, you know, after, ah, from other people other than us necessarily that, um, will look at this document as the – a potential – to say, oh, these are things that I could use, ah, in order to deal with rodents and mongoose in my area, ah, when I do this project, so every one of these site specific projects will have to go through a similar process as well. So this is even – even before these projects might be considered – that this document is coming out, yeah... TL: Um, before I lose my train of thought and... TN: One question... TL: ....Mr. Singer, um, has a question. Is there a question in Kona, as well? TN: Yes. TL: Go ahead ask you question. TN: I have a question. Um, it was made mention that currently, on a small scale these experiments were being done just exactly where on what island and what is the outcome of the small scale projects? 18 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: So... TN: Did you hear me, Tom? EC: Yeah. TL: I heard you – but you forgot to say who you were, though. TN: Oh, I’m sorry – Teresa from the Kona commission. EC: So, um, there, \[unclear\] but it’s probably something also it’s good to hear – Pat’s answer from his perspective – when I look at projects I’m thinking about two different types of projects – one are management actions where people are on the ground doing rodent control in areas, um, so that would be a management project. There are also research projects, um, so when I look at management efforts on the ground – one good example is the rodent control that’s occurring on Kaena Point for albatross conservation or another example is rodent control around elepaio nesting on O’ahu and, um, you know, there is rodent control in areas where there’s Nene nesting here at, at \[sounds like Hawo\]. So there are examples across the state on smaller scales where people are doing rodent control and I would consider those management projects. The other suite of projects – and I think it’s a really good question to be asked – is we had a series of research projects that have been done over the last fifteen years and in the cases of those research projects – those were asking individual questions, for instance, you know, would forest birds ever feed on bait or – so those are individual things that ask sort of sub-questions that will build into this larger document that allows managers to have information on decisions – so there are two different types of projects that have been done – I think the ones that people see more are the management ones but in – and those are on-going. The research ones were finite and very short. ?: \[Not speaking in mic – sounds like he might be asking about Pohakuloa\] TL: Is that a research project? ?: \[Not speaking in mic – but sounds like “yes”\] TL: Ah, before I lose my train of thought here, um, when you do this \[unclear\] EIS, ah, and you start talking about these tool boxes, ah, for those that do read it – are you gonna be suggesting, you know, areas where a particular type of thing, ah, or, or, a tool or action would be appropriate, ah, so that people could kinda get an idea of what you’re really talking about, because to say rodenticide in the forest, for example, by itself, cause you’re, you’re saying, you know, where, um, other, other means might not 19 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 be feasible – what does that, you know, for example, what does that really mean, you know, it’s just not feasible, for example, so... PC: Well... TL: Are they gonna be incorporated? PC: Yes. I mean definitely the use patterns of these various tools will be discussed and also what will be, you know, an ideal, you know, situation to use those types of tools because, you know, of course, not every situation will be the same and sometimes you’ll need one tool and sometimes you’ll need three tools, um, or, it, it may require you because of the different, you know, non-target issues and what not – to do something that’s, you know, something that you wouldn’t otherwise do, you know, from Kaena Point to, you know, to, ah, dealing with, with, you know, rats in a snail enclosure or something like that, so, so it’s very different, ah, dependent upon, you know, those sorts of situations and I’m sure that the, with, you know, because we, we have done various research on the tools and how they work then we will know and be able to suggest that these things are better in these situations. TL: Thank you, um, Sid? PC: Tom, just to follow... TL: Yes, sir... PC: ....what Pat was saying, you know, one of the things we are grappling with is how to address folks’ concerns on the question of where are you going to do that – and so that’s something as agencies we’re thinking about, you know, how do we display this in the document, for instance, in the simplest sense, you know, we’re talking about work in conservation areas – so it’s very likely that we would be producing some type of map or diagram showing what is a conservation area in the state because this isn’t going to be applicable, for instance, in residential areas. So that type of map or explanation is probably needed just so people know it’s not gonna be used across the entire state. It’s gonna be restricted to certain areas – but make sure people know what those areas are. SR: I, I think following up on what you were just talking about – it seems like what you’re trying to do with the PEIS is almost come up with a – I don’t know how you can really address all the contexts – the environmental contexts that you need to deal with, ah, and I’d like to hear more about the specific PTA experiment, but, um, it seems like when you’re doing these experiments you obviously have to have, ah, you’re looking for what, ah, what impacts you’re having over a certain period of time and that is, ah, 20 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 you know, almost arbitrary – what time you’re gonna pick. Are you gonna be looking at impacts over the first few months or for a longer period of time and it could be that – because of the complex inter-actions of food chain organisms and, you know, like when you get rid of, I’ve, I’ve read that – when you get rid of rodents on some islands – there was a proliferation of ants because that’s what the rodents were eating – you wouldn’t necessarily see all these impacts – when you get rid of the mice and the rats proliferate – when you get rid of the rats and the mice proliferate – you have all sorts of dynamics when you get – cause you’re dealing with food chain organisms that have been in the environment for a very long time. So from the environment’s point of view – I know from your point of view they don’t belong there – but from the environment’s point of view they’re an integrated component of that environment, I mean, after they’ve been around for like 100 years in an environment – they’re part of that environment – so when you come in and do your management – it’s gonna have different impacts on different environments depending on what’s there and when you refer to your PEIS, which is almost like a context free assessment – like, like, you’re, you know, you’re – like you are doctors knowing and saying what drug do we use for different types of conditions and you’re coming up with, you know, a repertoire of different drugs that you could use – but when you’re dealing with a specific patient whether it’s specific, you know, all the other needs that person has – some of those could be contra-indicated and so forth – it seems like you’re – it’s an oversimplification in your approach for the PEIS. I understand what you’re trying to do - to come up with like a repertoire that’s acceptable – but how do you know it’s really acceptable in a specific real-life situation in the long term when you’re eradicating or heavily controlling and integral part of the environment... TL: Sid? SR: Yeah? That’s my... TL: \[Unclear\] here... PC: Um, you know, I think Sid raises the good – I, I, I think Sid’s interpretation of some results that people have had – where you look at unexpected results of controlling things and that happens in agricultural situations as well as natural resource situations as appropriate. I think the key thing that we’re looking at is we do want to have certain things within the environment that are measured after a project is completed, um, and that’s key is – we want to know is it successful for having, you know, bringing back the species that we need but you also and people have learned that you may also have to monitor other species, for instance, weeds that come up. So some of the things, I think, are stuff actually that are being thought about for this document. 21 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 SR: The only other question I wanted to ask is when you mention cultural rights – are you just mentioning like – what culture are you talking about – cause that’s always a concern to me – it seems that this native Hawaiian culture is usually what’s considered when cultural impacts are considered and there are a lot of other cultures in Hawaii – a lot of other value systems – people who value feral cats – people who value game animals, ah, some people are going to be concerned about the humane treatment of rodents and mongooses who are going to suffer with these rodenticides, I mean, it’s a painful type of a death – I’m sure I wouldn’t want to have that kind of substance, you know, poisons are, are – is a cruelty issue – so all of these are cultural issues and I’m wondering if you’re just going to be concerned about Hawaiian cultures or about everybody’s cultural issues? PC: No, I’m gonna have to answer your question from a different NEPA perspective because I’ve worked a lot with broader NEPA, for instance, with the Department of Defense and Actions and I think there are laws that look at local or native cultures that drive historical, cultural issues and narratives that you do end up when you’re looking at things from a NEPA perspective – looking at some of the other issues that you brought up and, you know, I think those are things that we’re thinking about at this point – on what to address – but we haven’t framed that yet – because we’re in scoping right now – but I think you bring up some appropriate points – so, I appreciate the statement. NP: Yeah... SR: Thank you. NP: Dr. Campbell – could you remember to speak in the microphone because the people in the back may be having a hard time hearing... EC: Oh, I’m sorry... NP: Thank you, thank you very much. JB: This is Jonathan in Kona – I have a question. TL: Yes, sir? JB: First of all, yeah, thank you for coming. Um, is it possible – I realize it may be more difficult – I don’t know – is it possible to control without rodenticides, you know, whether it would be water traps or those other kill traps or anything - is it possible? 22 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 PC: Absolutely. There are ways to control and in some cases eradicate rodents and mongoose without rodenticides – yes, but there are certain situations where it’s almost impossible without extreme great effort to do so... JB: Is that because of large, large areas or something like that? PC: Large areas, large populations or very dangerous situations where it would be impractical for us to put people in those situations. JB: Right. I think it just concerns a lot of us, you know, rodenticides being out there and once it’s gone – it’s, you know, out there – it’s out there and it can get into a lot of things and poison our children and, and hunters and everybody. You just – you just never really know and so I would just ask you to please, please, ah, strongly consider using them as little as possible if not at all and then my other question is – would you – my buddy makes like the best smoked meat on earth and would you eat it if the pig had eaten a rat with rodenticide? You know? I mean, we all have to consider that and a lot of hunters pride themselves with eating the meat that doesn’t have anything bad in it, you know, you don’t know what you’re getting when you buy something, but when you, when you hunt it you’re – you’re usually pretty sure that’s it’s healthy and I’m just pleading with you to use as little if not any at all, ah, especially on our island, um, but wherever you’re – you guys are working. PC: Well, I mean, that’s a valid concern and there are a lot of situations where, ah, especially doing conservation where, ah, we will only pick areas that will, um, not have those kinds of interactions – so, I mean, if, if, a lot of conservation is dependent upon laying the ground work ahead of your doing those actions so, um, if it would – in areas that are, of course, game management areas, ah, those are less likely for us to, to be interested in doing these kinds of conservation actions anyway, um, so it’s largely that, ah, these kinds of interactions between, ah, the two, ah, conservation actions and hunting actions will probably be in, in, ah, different areas to begin with. So… TN: Excuse me – this is Teresa. Um, how far does a rodent travel or a mongoose travel from the bait area whether it leaves the bait conservation area and ends up by the beach or the mountain. Have you tracked them? Have you tracked the rodents or mongoose as to how far they travel? So if you bait them in a conservation area – have you found them outside of the conservation area – and I’m worried about our pueos – that if the rat and mongoose eats this poisonous substance – I’ll call it what it is – it’s poisonous – and they go out of the conservation area and then now they’re hunted by the pueos and other species, I mean, have you folks tracked the distance of their – how far they can travel... 23 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: So... TN: ....out of the conservation area. EC: So there is – there has been data collected on rodent and mongoose movement in Hawaii in different habitats and situations – so there is some data to base on, you know, how far things have moved, um, and also how far things have moved if they’ve consumed bait. So there are some things like that and I think your concern is quite valid and that’s some of the data that’s used when EPA puts together a label for the use of any rodenticide – that’s part of what are the requirements that when, when things are put out the basis for those federal labels is to reduce risk to things – so that type of thing’s incorporated in them – we will be showing that type of information – but I want to go back to the, the gentleman’s statement prior to that because I think it’s really key – one of the things we want to do is to make sure that the data is out and available on what is the potential risk with pigs and, and, and, will things carry and, you know, what are the risks to hunters and I think that really needs to be part of what a manager sees when they make a decision on an individual action on lands – so that’s one of the key things that I, I think is particularly important and I think a key thing with this is – it’s going to – and I need to continue to emphasize it - it’s going to be the decision of the individual manager to utilize this tool box and basically the information on it to pick what tools are gonna be used in the site – we’re not telling people to use a specific tool – it’s going to be the land managers themselves on a case by case basis making the decision. We’re not gonna tell somebody you have to do “x” – that’s not the goal of this. We want to make sure that the managers on an annual basis have the right information to make the most sound decision and the safest decision. WJ: And then... TN: Tom? It’s Teresa. I have one more question. WJ: Go ahead... TN: Where does the public and the hunters and the fishermen and those that are affected by your tool box have a voice? EC: The next... TN: Not during this process – after this process is done and we as hunters and fishermen find out that the system they’re using is not working. Where is our voice? 24 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: Just to be clear – the, the, the thing that we’re setting up is something that people can utilize to plan out their next actions. I think it’s the ongoing dialogue with the land managers. This isn’t mandating that folks do – do specific types of actions – but it’s going to be the ongoing dialogue that is, is currently happening or needs to happen with different land managers that’s going to be part of what – where I think the input is. This is, this isn’t mandated – the key thing of this is – we want to have – essentially mandated – that everybody knows what are the pros and cons of the tools being selected. NP: I understand that one of the tools in your tool box is the good nature A-24, um, rat trap. Which one of you can explain to the audience what that tool in the box, um, is? EC: Sure. TL: Hand on a second – I want to get back to one thing though... You want to address that? WJ: Yeah, um, so, I understand what you’re saying as far as having the tools there – but then, what – I think what scares the hunters and what scares not even just the hunters – is that who’s gonna monitor – you know, you say this particular land manager might want to use it here or this one might not – but who keeps an eye on the land managers? I mean it’s pretty simple to say that, you know, if you’re managing this one area you’re gonna, you’re gonna – most time people are gonna try to use the simplest thing and the simplest thing is just to throw a bunch of rat bait out there... EC: Well... WJ: And then, I mean, it almost seems like we’re beating this dead horse because there’s been a lot of – there’s already been a few tragedies here. We all know about them. How many more tragedies do we need to have? How many more Keauhou Ranches do we need to have? PC: Well, I... WJ: You know, you read the report – the report is very sugar-coated. They say thirteen pigs – that’s the only thirteen that maybe Tawny saw herself. There was a lot more than thirteen pigs that died on that project. How many, you know, I mean, how many times do we need to continue going through... PC: Well, that’s... 25 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 WJ: ....the same thing. PC: That’s part of the reason why we’re doing this, ah, programmatic EIS is because there were... WJ: Cause we never learned from the first... PC: ....because there weren’t, you know, there weren’t things in place, ah, before to, to say, hey, you know, we shouldn’t be using these things in this way, ah, but, I mean, of course, there’s also the EPA, you know, labels that people should be, you know, following, and that’s, you know, that’s an additional layer on top of these... WJ: Right, so who’s to regulate these land managers so that they’re, I mean, you know, we can have this great document and all it is – all this document is saying is, yeah, you can do it. Yeah, you can use it. EC: No. Actually, I think you’re incorrect in that statement. Um, you know, I think the key thing when I look at it – cause I recall that same incident that – in, in, on a personal level it’s caused me a great deal of concern and frustration and, um, I think the key thing I look at is we have to be able to do things safer and better and be able to make the right decisions and I think one key thing is to make sure that managers know all the pros and cons of what they’re doing and they should be doing the regulatory paper work – if they’re not – that’s, that’s a key problem. If managers aren’t doing that type of thing that’s incorrect. The other thing is they need to be doing it by the label and if they’re not – that’s where the pesticide branch of the Department of Ag should be going out and doing investigations. You know, people have to do things by the law. WJ: All right... TL: Can I – can I go back to Teresa’s comment to you for a second. Um, I’m not sure if I can paraphrase it quite as properly as she did, but, she’s saying – and in my case here, ah, we’ve seen it and a lot of the situations that are going on – people will give you input, you know, you have 7,000 right now, um, I’m not sure how many of them were – are for rodenticide in the forest – I suggest probably not too many, but, um, cause there’s two things about risk, you know, you have the risk that you study and we have questions for you about that, ah, this evening as we move on but, and then you have the perceived risk of the public and the public doesn’t, I mean, those that I run into – I don’t know anybody here that says, yeah, I think rodenticide is a good idea. I have not run across that person yet, um, so, you know, you have this pretty much – in my experience – overwhelming, ah, ah, public comment of don’t do it, you know, it’s just not something that we want here, but people move ahead anyway – we’ve 26 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 had areas where hunters have made comments about expanding fenced areas, for example, and 2,000 signatures, um, that were submitted and, ah, until today and I forget when, ah, Ms. Case was here, but from the time that Ms. Case was here and Scott Fretz was here \[tape gap\] get back to us – where they had addressed all of these concerns and they have not been addressed but the project moved forward and I think that that’s probably one of the things that Teresa is trying to bring forward to you here. EC: Just to confirm – because I think it’s – I think, you know, the key thing is that’s – your key concern that you’re expressing is that there – that the feeling of not being heard and that there’s not dialogue and you and I talked on the phone about that, um, and I think that that’s something that, you know, I think it’s important for me to hear, ah, and folks to hear and, um, and, you know, the key thing for me to do is to, to try – on a personal level is to do greater dialogue with you folks. TL: Well, one of the things you said earlier or maybe Patrick Chee said it, but, if we’re gonna complain about something – come forth with a solution – you know, what would we do... EC: Um-hum... TL: And I think that’s a very valid – from our side - not just, you know, don’t do it – you know, Nani likes this Nature’s Trap thing which – I didn’t mean to cut you off so why don’t you go ahead... PC: If you want me to get back to the – your question about Good Nature Traps, um, Good Nature – well it’s actually a multi-kill device and you mount it up on a vertical surface and the rodent enters from the bottom and once they get to a certain point it triggers the trap or the device and it instantly kills them by putting a volt through the head of the animal and then they drop out. And then it resets itself and it can do this for 24 times and without anyone interacting with it and, um, a lot of our projects, actually, because of changes in various rodenticide labels it made it impossible or very difficult to use rodenticides in certain areas and so they went towards using this A-24 in those certain areas and they have been, you know, in many cases just as effective, um, and, ah, sometimes, a lot – better for, of course, the area and not dealing with the potential for, for, ah, non-targets in that regard, so, um, some projects the A-24 is something that, you know, is something that can be used, um, for... NP: It seems to me it would be really non-controversial – which would be – which would save you so much time – laboratory work... PC: Right... 27 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 NP: Testings, um... PC: But... NP: ....public outreach... PC: ....I, you know, in various situations the A-24 works great, but there are other areas where unfortunately, you know, the terrain is such or the area is such that A-24s would be unfeasible. But definitely for... NP: You could post them to the fences... PC: Right and... Of course, that would work for, again, certain areas, but other areas it would not be effective enough to get rid of enough of them to, to make an effect. NP: Right, you were saying certain tools are ineffective or not practical for large areas – but it seems to me that if you use diphacinone in large areas you’re taking a huge chance of having birds flying in and pigs breaching fences and you’re, you know, so it seems to me that, um, large areas would be where you would not want to use diphacinone. PC: Again, that would be a question for when we look at those situations and how best look at it – that would be a question for those land managers when that happens but I don’t know exactly, you know, in what situation that you’re... NP: Well, it would just be really good for public PR if you lean toward this method... PC: Well, I mean, clearly, we want to do as, you know, little damage to various levels of people and, um, and non-targets... NP: Right, and just as Sid Singer mentioned the A-24 traps are really humane, I mean even rats are creatures and the suffering is still real. PC: Yeah. TL: I can exercise my prerogative here – I’d like to move on with Dr. Singer’s... TN: Tom? PC: Yes, go ahead... TN: Yeah, excuse me, I have – one more question from Teresa... 28 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TL: OK. A quick one... TN: ....from Kona. OK. If there were 7,000 comments – how much was for or against what the methods that you have in your tool box and is those comment periods still open to the public and one more question is what about having the public – what about the public having traps? Make it open to the hunters and those who are in accessible areas that they can place those traps themselves and then monitor those traps with tags that they can bring back to you. TL: \[Unclear\] EC: Um, let me just try to – there are like three or four questions and Tom help me because I may have missed one. Um, you know, I think that the programmatic document really is gonna apply to state and federal agencies and the nexus with that will be if state or federal funding is involved – that doesn’t mean that a private citizen can’t do certain actions but that probably needs to be coordinated with land managers and that’s probably the best I can speak to that because it’s a little bit out of my line. Ah, the total number of comments we got, you know, we had – they really crossed the board – one of the things that we will be doing and Pat will be putting out because in the state process everybody that we have an address on or Pat has an address on, ah, is going to be provided a copy of sort of the summary of the comments and um, then sort of identifying – they may raise some questions – so there’s gonna be a response to folks from the state perspective... PC: Right... And so we’ll, we will try and address as many comments as we can. TL: I don’t want to interrupt you but one of her questions was – out of the 7,000 how many were pro and how many were con. EC: Yeah, there were a lot, I would say, you know, number wise, there were a fair number that were not supportive of it – there were also a decent number that were supportive of it – so it was... TL: \[Unclear – sounds like “You need their address.”\] EC: Yeah. TL: Just kidding EC: Yeah, but, you know, the key thing we want to do is once we summarize it out and part of the process is we are going to provide feedback where 29 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 people will see examples of all those comments so, so that will be coming in the – the way that will come out a summary of the state – from the state perspective Pat’s got to put out summary documents and it’ll probably be, you know, maybe up to six months before we get through that... TL: I want to move on to Dr. Singer – but one thing in that comment period, you know, when you’re talking about, you know, these people that are pro or con – one of the things that we would like to see or I would like to see – I’m not sure about by compadres here but is how you were addressing those comments, you know, you have a comment that says we’ve got this, this, or this or we’re against this for this reason or whatever – how are you addressing it in your document when it finally comes out because that’s been missing in a lot of your documents so far. PC: Well, a lot of the comments we’re, we’re taking into consideration when we are drafting this draft – environmental impact statement – and this is not the, you know, this is not the last time for people to comment if you folks were seeing, ah, Earl Campbells’ presentation – there will be a comment period after the draft EIS comes out as well, um, the comment period for, for scoping has, has been done. It was open for several months, actually, but, ah, it is been closed for several months now. TL: And you guys are gonna fix that for the future aren’t you? PC: Yeah, absolutely, we’re gonna, you know, make sure that GMAC, as well as the general public knows when the comment period is. So… TL: \[Unclear\] Mr. Siers… TN: Tom, Tom? TL: Sairs or Sears? ?: Seirs.. TN: Tom? TL: Yes, Teresa? TN: Can Pat put me on his mailing list, ‘cause I never received any information on this, cause I never received any information on this. TL: Yes, we can. PC: We can… 30 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 SS: Am I on? Hi. I’m actually really to have an opportunity, I, I enjoy talking about my research and nothing I do is anything that I’m – that I want to keep hidden or ashamed to share with people. I do want to let people know that we started talking about this – actually what’s going on now is Earl and Paul are handing out sort of a brief fact sheet about what it is that we’re – that we’re planning on doing – this small scale research project. We started planning this over a year ago and started looking for a place to do this research over a year ago – we were never trying to keep, um, keep what we were doing under wraps – we didn’t have a – we didn’t know where we were going to be doing this – so we started asking around a long time ago – and that’s when, I’m sure, people started to hear that USDA’s talking about doing some rodenticide research – well, we, it was a very long period that took us to identify a place where, um, and this answers to Mr. Singer’s issues as well – is we do want to make sure that we are doing an appropriate action in an appropriate environment and we weren’t willing or able to do this kind of research just anywhere. We wanted to make sure we had as good a site as possible to do it and that’s why and even when we determined that PTA was willing to host this research we were not yet out telling everybody exactly what we were doing cause we wanted to make sure we had to do our own – we were doing our own risk analysis to make sure – is it – is it an acceptable level of risk to do this research here - so the delay in reaching out to people was not because of any, um, wanting to hide anything we were doing but because we are doing some due diligence and we’re actually, you know, very interested in sharing what we do – so, um, what we did is when we started to, um, get, we became aware that the GMAC had some questions so we tried to think about in advance what some of those questions might be and we’ve come up with a little bit of fact sheet and I’m just gonna step through the sections here so – the first question is, who is conducting this evaluation and why. The research is being done by the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center and it’s being sponsored by Fish & Wildlife Service – so this research is to give some information that will help Fish & Wildlife Service make better, more scientifically informed decisions about the kinds of things that they might suggest might be appropriate or inappropriate for the actions that, that other land managers might want to take under the EIS, um, and again the plan of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of two commonly used rodenticides to reduce invasive mouse populations. So why are mice a problem? Invasive mice have been documented feeding on nesting birds, chicks, insects, native plants, seeds, seedlings, ah, snails, and this feeding behavior negatively impacts the conservation efforts to protect and recover native animals and plants. So why are rodenticides being studied – why not a non-toxic alternative? Well, other management tools like traps, haven’t been shown to be effective and are – they’re too cost – they’re not cost effective to operate over a large landscape scale. You can handle so many – setting so many snap traps – with technology like an A-24 you can manage more A-24 31 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 than you can snap traps because you don’t have to visit them daily, but at some landscape scale it’s just too broad to, to service on a regular basis. They’re also expensive and they also just haven’t been proven to actually be effective on a very large scale and then there is also the issues of like cliff lines and things like that – where as Patrick said – you wouldn’t want to send somebody in... TL: Right... SS: ....to try to, to try to service those traps. So these existing rodenticides – they’ve been approved for use in agricultural and urban settings and they’ve just never been properly tested to see whether they would be effective in a conservation setting and even if they’re effective they haven’t been proven – shown whether they are safe or unsafe in a conservation setting – so not only is our research intended to look at – do these things work for mice – but also we are monitoring non-target impacts and what happens to the – what is the fate of the bait in the environment to make sure that if we are discovering during this research that there are aspects that are unsafe we know that and we can act on that and that will influence our decision to recommend whether this might be a proper tool for a manager’s tool box. We definitely 100% agree that input of toxic chemicals into the environment is something to be avoided and it should be a cost benefit analysis that is taken very seriously and what we really don’t want is for somebody to say, well, look, this stuff works in agriculture so let’s just start using it in conservation areas too. No. We want to actually be able to prove that it does what we want it to do in conservation areas because we don’t want somebody to unnecessarily and ineffectively apply toxins into an environment unless there’s – unless we know there’s gonna be a good chance and it’s actually gonna pay off in the conservation benefit that we’re searching for. Um, yeah, so we’re... TL: May I ask you a question on that? SS: Sure, sure... TL: On this cost benefit - how would you measure the cost benefit of a particular trap over another? SS: Of a particular trap? TL: Over another – or a rodenticides over other traps or... SS: Yeah, you have to, um, plan out the labor and supplies necessary to do the activity to the level to which it’s been proven that it’s actually effective and then it’s kind of relatively straightforward – so you’ve got ten hectares 32 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 of land, well, OK, I know that I can, I can have 10 hectares of land – I can put a snap trap every 20 meters and that’ll take me five guys to do it and it’ll take this long and it’s been proven that snap trapping is effective over this small area so there you’ve got a price and you’ve got some, some, at least some indication from history that there’s the possibility that it might actually work – then you do that same planning effort with a - considering a different alternative – how many people will it take to service it – how difficult will it be to reach every area that needs to be reached – how dangerous will it be to reach every area that needs to reached and again, always going back and looking where there’s research – where there is documented success of management activities to show, yes, this did work – or no this didn’t work – and basically bottom line is you want to find we’re all – nobody is – has a bottomless budget – where every agency is scraping to do the most they can with the least amount of money and if, I, I would say, that I think, if the alternative, if the cost benefit analysis comes out that toxicant use would be $10,000 cheaper – but the budget’s there and the willingness to, you know, um, chose something that was an alternative and that would be a more palliative option for the community – the community’s input does sway decisions like that. Ah, but it can’t go that we know this will be effective, we know it’ll be safe – but it’ll cost a million dollars more to do it without toxins – that, that kind of math doesn’t work. TL: I understand the math part – what I was getting – what I’m leading up to on this is that, um, let’s say that a pig or a sheep or a goat or a deer or – and I’m not just saying, you know, rodenticides or whatever, but I mean – just in general – the non-target species, you know, can come from various types, you know, you have pets, for example, that, um, you know, create an awful lot of anguish at home. What does that cost, you know, how does that cost measure in because, um, you know, if you wind up in a court of law depending on, you know, how that would turn out – they assign some unbelievable values to that and, ah, are those kind of, um, um, secondary effects taken into consideration. SS: Ah, that question goes beyond the, the research scope of what I’m getting at with this... TL: Um-hum... SS: ....but those questions do go to, um, Mr. Singer’s concern and, and, ah, Mr. Campbell’s responses is that again these – any action that might take place using some of these projects under the PEIS is the responsibility of the land manager – the land manager’s gonna be accountable to some, someone as well. Everybody’s accountable to somebody, um, but they need to take into account those of, you know, is, is there the possibility that there might human commensals: dogs, cats in the area. That would very much sway their decision... 33 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 NP: But, but... SS: ....whether they would chose that tool or not. NP: Excuse me. I’m too excited. I’m just curious – how can they be held – the land managers be held responsible? Um, so you’re gonna apply a rodenticide to a large area – are you gonna take some time ahead of time getting a good accurate count of the non-target species – the game species – the birds – are you gonna get a good idea of the count of them before you apply rodenticide in this large area and then are you gonna follow-up afterwards and get any kind of good idea of the mortality rate. Are you gonna take blood samples of the non-target species to see if they have a level of, um, bleeding – I know the scientific words - I just have to look at all my paper – they, they do, ah, may not die, but they, they will start having internal bleeding problems, um, are you gonna test for any levels of that going on in non-target species, um, if, if, you’re gonna do a really good job to hold the land managers accountable – you gotta have that data for not only the endangered species but the, the, um, game animals that we’re concerned about that people eat. SS: That’s, that’s beyond the scope of my involvement in this research project. NP: It’s pretty important before you should use such a thing - broad scale - and the test if obviously, ah, hopefully using it broad scale. SS: Where much of the assessment of risk comes from is what we do know about the toxicity and what they call the pharmoconnetics of the material itself – it’s know that – especially in these two chemicals in particular – they break down in the animal’s body very quickly – and the animals that survive... NP: Yeah, but what if a hunter got one right when it was still in their tissues and not... SS: Sure. And the highest levels that have been recorded in, in living game animals that have been found to have some rodenticide residues in them are so low as to be medically non-significant. I wouldn’t say that would apply to a large pig that had just died from eating a lot, um, that may not necessarily be the case but the, the residue levels that are found in animals that have been found – and this is based on research from all over the mainland United States and lots of use of these chemicals and lots of management applications in agricultural areas – the levels of the – the concentrations of the chemicals are so low that actually even diphacinone used to be on the market as a medical drug – \[sounds like dipaxin\] – for people with high blood pressure. 34 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 NP: Well, yeah, and, and if you know someone who’s on that medication if they get an injury they bleed really bad. SS: Sure, but the, the point is that the levels in animal tissue that have been found are hundreds of times lower than the lowest prescription dose was for the human medication. So the toxic effect is – the poison is in the dose. NP: Yeah, exactly, the poison is in the dose. That’s exactly what I would like to know about. In nature, ah, you can’t say you spread it and then every single creature has exactly the same low dose cause in nature things get concentrated in areas and other areas. For example, right, it was found that slugs, invertebrates, snails, um, they’re not affected by rodenticide – but it accumulates in their body. SS: Ah, these do not. These do not – they, um, the half life on – especially diphacinone in an animal’s body – basically they pass about 50 of it within 48 hours. NP: Slugs and snails? SS: The, um, I’m not so sure about how quickly the slugs and snails pass... NP: Apparently, it accumulates in their body and it doesn’t excrete very quickly. I was studying about it and, um, of course, slugs and snails are really a favorite for so many species – birds and mammals alike. SS: The risk assessments that have been done that, that assess the levels of these trace, ah, toxins that might be ingested by various animals are so low that they would have to eat preposterous amounts of the tainted product in order to be able to be... NP: Well, that’s so confusing because, um, right, it’ll kill a rat or a mouse or a mongoose but a bird of the same size it just wouldn’t... SS: That’s exactly why some of these products are selected to be rodenticides because there are very profound differences in how different organisms react to different chemicals. The reason these anti-coagulants are so popular as rodenticides is because rodents are so susceptible to them and more susceptible than many other organisms are – that’s why they’re selected to be rodenticides... WJ: OK, um, can I go back to where will this study and occur and why. I guess I don’t really understand, um, how is this study going to tie into the EIS. How, I mean, we all know that it will kill rats, I mean, Diphacinone is – it’s one of the oldest rodenticides out there. The LD-50s and all of that is 35 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 already established, um, because, I mean, you know, it says here – this area was chosen because it has a high mouse population and it’s got habitat similar to other conservation areas and it’s remote and, you know, no hunting, of course, but has very low usage by threatened and endangered species and it’s supposed to be pig and sheep free. Well, what non-target species are there – how many of them – and – like the birds that are there the urkels and franklins, um, this is – the questions I have, I mean, how – I guess I don’t understand how – what are we actually testing for? EC Let me – let me address that. WJ: Right? EC: So the key thing that we’re looking at is – when I look at the data that’s available for rats – there’s really good data on field efficacy for rats because a lot of these compounds have been used more for rats than mice as agricultural pests. If you look at where a lot of the field usage of these chemicals is – worldwide – a lot of people are controlling rats in agriculture and so worldwide both these compounds have been used in agriculture in certain situations so there’s data on rats. Mice actually – there’s less field data on – and so one of the key things that I think’s needed for a manager to know - does this work – and the key thing is we’re trying to see should these things be used or not for mice and one of the key questions is – does this even work for mice – how well does it work for mice and we need to get the data on mice specifically – so the key thing we’re targeting is mice with this not rats and it’s because when you look at a lot of the mouse work that’s being done it’s usually in the house in \[sounds like commensal\] so, you know, you get a lot of good data on mice in houses – there’s less data on field use of these rodenticides and we want to make sure that managers have that data because it may actually be the case that mice are, at times, less susceptible than rats to these chemicals. We want to make sure it even works, um, so that’s a key thing that I look at is – we need to get the field usage data for mice and that’s the key thing we’re trying to solve in this case and Shane and others were looking for sites where they could get mouse data – so that’s the one thing I can answer for the reason because we want to have managers know what do these products – how can these products be used for mice in the field and I think that’s the key question – that we felt that there needed to be additional data. The other thing that’s driving this is currently we have a number of situations around the world on off shore islands and Midway’s one example – where we have mouse outbreaks right now where albatross and seabirds are getting consumed by mice - where they’re the sole thing on the island, ah... WJ: So why not test it there... 36 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: In that case – for those sites – where that can be folks have tried to test in certain cases, but in this case, we want to test it here for both the field use here as well as use for other situations but, they key thing is we want to see how does it work in a typical environment where folks would be doing mouse control. TN: Tom, this is Teresa in Kona. TL: Yes, go ahead. TN: May I ask a question? You know, this island is unique and using it as a testing ground \[sounds like infuriates\] I mean, it’s just for a lack of a better word pisses me off. That you’d use this as a test ground and the negative effect of that is hurting us. It’s not helping us. You’re not helping us. It’s hurting us. You’re not hearing us. It’s more than the 7,000 comments that were given to you is not for this – why do you still pursue it – cause now you make the people feel like they’re not being heard. And you keep saying rodenticides on large landowner – well, one of our largest landowners are Kamehameha School and Department of Hawaiian Homelands and this is where the public have no say. This is why I said – where are voices to be heard. You’re not taking us seriously, you’re not taking our voice, our comments, our concerns, and our compassion seriously. You’re going on crossing your i’s dotting your t’s. This is what I see happening here like every meeting that comes from a government regulated body like yourselves – you dot your i’s, you cross your t’s and you don’t listen to the public. I’m sorry, but, you know, why not test where the problem in Midway Island or wherever you are in the South Pacific – that’s where the problem is. We don’t have their problem happening here – and how does a voice of the people – how do we go to Kamehameha School and say we don’t want you to do that or how do we go to the Department of Hawaiian Homelands – those that are non-Hawaiian or culturally, traditional lifestyle and tell them we are hunters – you are poisoning our food. Thank you. WJ: I see here you’ve got two different ones that you’re testing at PTA, right, two different. You have the diphacinone and the, ah, cholrophacinone. Are these gonna be in separate places? SS: There are separate research plots – they’re separate from each other by several hundred meters. Um, would you like me to continue to go through each of these sections so that everybody can be on the same sheet? WJ: Yeah, yeah... 37 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 SS: So, yeah, what I’d like to do is just continue to step through of this – some of you are probably reading ahead but, um, again, you know, we covered why this area was chosen and there is, there is also interest from – there is potential use of rodenticides on the Big Island, as well, not just for other places, but again, that would be up to the managing agency to determine if they were gonna use it on the Big Island and they would have to do their own analysis of risk for non-targets and also – if it’s within their mandate to do so also – talk to the public about that use. So how will the rodenticides be used and monitored. There would be six small study plots – they’re 5.6 acres each – roughly about the size of four football fields. We’ll do \[tape gap\] at a time – one with diphacinone one with chlorophacinone – and within the study area they’ll each receive a carefully measured dose – an application of rodenticide pellets carefully applied by hand – no aerial broadcast. If most of the pellets are taken by mice within 7 to 10 days and we will be monitoring – small monitoring sub-plots counting actual pellets that are left – then there may be a second application because these products have to be eaten by rodents over many successive days in order to be successful. These two commonly - we’ll be using these two commonly used commercial rodenticides – chlorophacinone and diphacinone – what we’ll do is we’ll tag mice in the research plots before we use the product and then track the mice throughout the usage period to see whether they survive. We will also be using trail cameras on the research plots to record whether any other animals are inter-acting with the pellets and we will also be doing carcass searches to see if any animals – dead animals are found in the area of the research. So how much rodenticide is being used? The rodenticides will be applied using the manufacturer and regulatory guidelines under the authority of the US EPA and an experimental use permit so this is being regulated by EPA. Initially – the initial dose would be roughly two diphacinone pellets of about ½ diameter each per square yard – or seven smaller chlorophacinone pellets per square yard in each of the study plots – so these application rates they may go up or down after the first applications based on how quickly the pellets disappear. We don’t want the stuff to be out there any longer than it has to be – we don’t want to over apply but we also don’t want to under apply. If it disappears within the first few days we know we have to apply more the next time. How long do these rodenticides last? Once pellets are applied they will begin to be removed by rodents and will start to break down. In wet environments the pellets can disappear in as little as a week. Up in the colder and drier area of PTA it’s likely that the pellets will last longer than that. The results of this study will help to inform the managers how long the pellets last under various environmental conditions. In the environment once these, once these chemicals – once the pellet that the chemical is in break down the, the chemical compounds of the rodenticides get bound up in soil and they get relatively quickly degraded. These aren’t chemical residues like nuclear waste that have hundreds of years of half life – these things actually break down relatively quickly in 38 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 environment and they break down quickly in animals’ bodies and that’s one of the reasons these two were chosen because they are known to break down relatively quickly in the environment. When will this study occur? This study is currently scheduled to begin in early February and conclude by the end of September 2017, um, we probably could have been ready to be started as early as January but we chose to wait until after the game bird season to, to do this research. So we are, um, taking reasonable steps to make sure that, um, we’re considering the hunting community in doing this research. What are the risks to game animals and wildlife? So these products used as rodenticides because rodents are more sensitive to them than most other animals. The toxicity of a product is based on the type of animal exposed – the body size – and the amount that’s eaten over a certain amount of time. Rodents must feed on these products for several days to be affected, so something encountering this for just a day or two is not going to have a lethal affect. So Natural Resources personnel are confident that there are no longer pigs or sheep in this fenced area so we consider there to be no reasonable risk to any ungulates from this research – this particular project. So game birds may be exposed to feeding on rodenticide pellets – previous research has determined that there is a low risk of game birds dying from feeding on diphacinone pellets. Chlorophacinone is known to be more toxic to birds and there could be some deaths that could potentially occur. That’s why we’ll be looking for carcasses and be verifying whether there are rodenticide residues in those carcasses. Given the small area – it’s not expected that the number of deaths would be, ah, would noticeably change game bird abundance. Nene are known to feed in this area or – they’re not known to feed in this area, but it’s – we recognize that there could be some potential risk of exposure. So what are the risks to humans from eating exposed game animals? Both of these products have low toxicity to humans, especially at the, the... TL: Excuse me, Dr... Can I just ask you a question about that? EC: OK. TL: You said that, you know, Nene aren’t known to feed in this area, but, what if they did and - maybe just one flew over and then died, ah, what then? EC: Well the key thing that we have to do from the perspective of any federal action is we have to look at what the potential risk is of this and look at it from a cost, you know, cost benefit perspective – but a key thing is we have to access a risk and see if the risk is too high if moving forward with this experiment – so one of the key things with this is we will have to look at permitting take of Nene associated with this experiment and we have to calculate the level of risk. We doing very conservative calculations on that, um, but the key thing is we feel that the risk is very low with this, but we’re 39 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 gonna have to go forward and look at this from the perspective of any type of federal action and we will be permitting some level of take associated with this \[unclear\]. TL: You’d be getting a take from it? EC: Correct. TN: Um, Tom, Teresa as angry as I get – excuse my emotions here, but, if you’re in an area that has no pigs and sheep in the experiment process – what’s gonna happen in an area that has pig and sheep when they take your experiment and actually put it to work in reality? I mean, you should have an area that does have pigs and sheep – not in the area that has – that cleans them out – cause in reality the large landowners like DHHL and Kamehameha Schools have pig and sheep in their area. SS: And that’s, that’s... TN: Your control area is not going to be accurate. SS: That’s a valid question from the standpoint of – that poses a great follow- up research question to this – if our result is this doesn’t work for mice – why expose sheep and pigs to it to test whether it works in a sheep and pigs area? The, um, and some of the areas where this could potentially be used are areas that don’t have pigs and sheep, so, from the standpoint of having a clean scientific experiment – it’s best to get all the other variables out of there except what you really want to know. What we really want to know is will this work for mice. Then, it would be up to, um, you know, then it might be a follow on question – if a research – if a management agency wanted to use this in an area that did have pigs and sheep – they would have to seriously consider what the risks are and if they were not willing to go ahead without knowing how it works in an area that didn’t have – that does have pigs or sheep – then they would chose not to use it until it had been tested in area with pigs and sheep. But we wouldn’t want to go that research question without answering this one first. TL: Um, so... TN: In the possible – go ahead Tom... WJ: Sorry, this is Willie-Joe... Um, so I guess why would – tell me why would it not work on mice? SS: Because mice are wild animals – you don’t know exactly – the main thing is we, we know, yeah, this stuff will kill mice if you put ‘em in a cage with 40 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 nothing to eat but the stuff that this is in – they’ll get hungry enough to eat it all and it will kill every single one of them but in the wild when they... WJ: Or if you put it in your feed room with the rest of your dog food it still kills them there too. They could eat the dog food – why would they eat the bait. I mean we know that it kills mice, right? I, you’re gonna put it up there where there’s nothing – I don’t even know why a mouse would want to live up in that stones, but they do and it’s like taking me and putting me in front of the prime rib buffet and telling me, oh, you going chew on this piece of paper or you going eat that, that thing. I, I... EC: So, so one of the... WJ: I guess I don’t get it. EC: I, I... One of the things is when we’ve looked at the literature on diphacinone there have been questions on how well it works on mice in the field and so one of the key things is getting the answer is important because you have people putting this out currently to control mice. We don’t know how well it’s working so I think it’s, it’s important to have that answer in a complete, clean, experimental sense when we put together management recommendations. If it doesn’t work on mice, that’s a big problem. And the key thing is there is literature on diphacinone currently that leads folks to question are we utilizing this correctly – are we even getting efficacy on mice. So, so I realize in a commensal situation where people are putting things out in certain situations and at home it may function but there have been field situations that are similar to what people doing in Hawaii with baiting that has led people to question does this work on mice? TL: I’d like to get back to... WJ: So I guess that we gotta hope for then – that it doesn’t work... SS: Should we – we’re pretty close to the end of this – should we wrap this up and then open it up for questions then? WJ: Sure. SS: OK. So, um, what are the risks to humans from eating exposed game – again – both of these products have relatively low toxicity to humans especially at the – at the very dilute doses that are in these rodenticide pellets – it’s a very trace amount that’s in there and reason that they’re used for the mice is because mice and rats - is because they are very susceptible to the active ingredient whether they’ll take it or is an open question but, and even and especially the diphacinone is actually 41 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 historically used as a human medicine. There are, there are no known cases of human health effects from consuming game animals exposed to these rodenticides – we’ve scoured the literature and we’ve looked at – we’ve looked at case studies of, um, there are cases of human intoxication by rodenticides, but it’s typically, um, it, it’s where they’ve eaten it in the household and even in those cases with proper medical attention – even when people have been exposed to a lot, um, people recover from rodenticide exposure, um, so, but we haven’t been able to find any, any cases where anywhere, where humans that have eaten a game animal that’s been exposed to rodenticide and had any kind of clinical response whatsoever. Since we only expect a small number of birds to be exposed the chances of one of them being hunt – shot by a hunter – especially because these plots are far away from public access, um, the plots are at least a mile and a half away from the exterior border of the fence – so there’s at least a mile and half between the plot and any area where a hunter could access, ah, and, again the birds very quickly metabolize this stuff and pass it and, ah, only very low residues are left in the animal body, um, \[unclear\] concentration of these chemicals decrease rapidly within the body of animals surviving exposure. Any remaining toxins found in animals that have eaten these products is far lower than can be expected to cause negative health affects and again, these aren’t the types of persistent chemicals like PCBs or, or nuclear waste that last a long time – they, they do break down in the body – they break down in the soil. They – it’s – they don’t accumulate to a level where it, it’s of a long term health concern short of chronic, persistent use of the product. NP: That’s as all the information you know as of now. New information may come up in the future. SS: Sure. And, and each, each, um, project that goes along gets a new look at the risk and a new look at the latest research that’s come out and, um, if, if research like that surfaces then things like the PEIS or, um, individual project by project risk analysis would be modified based on that. So what are we doing to reduce public risk? So our choice of the location and the timing of the project – particularly choosing to work around the game bird season and our close adherence to EPA permit restrictions are intended to reduce risk to human health and the environment. Our analysis indicate low risk of harmful human exposure under any of the proposed use of these products for conservation and with the caveat that any proposed use of products for conservation comes with its own risk analysis specific to that particular site. So it would, um, there’s and there’s some, ah, public, are some of our public affairs personnel are listed there that people can contact if they have further questions – but for tonight if you have further questions I’m here to answer them. 42 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TL: And I understand your study perspective as to does it kill mice – I also understand a perspective of both Nani and Teresa, also Jonathan, ah, my good friend here, um, is that you’re doing it in a vacuum, so to speak, right? You know, you have fenced in areas, you don’t have ungulates cruising through the area, ah, you may have game birds that are gonna be – not during the bird season, ah, that you’ll be doing, so, we’re not gonna be having people, ah, interacting necessarily, you know, with birds that may be poisoned or what have you, but that’s not to say that, you know, during the actual application of this – say it goes into a tool box and they decide OK I want to use this tool, um, we’re not going to be using this tool without adequate data. We don’t know what it’s gonna be doing to sheep, goat, pigs or deer or whatever in a particular area, we don’t know what it’s gonna be doing to the game birds, um, in this area and that brings up what you and I discussed, um, you know, I’m curious as to how you’re gonna go through this study. For example – game birds, um, you know, it just, ah, we’re not gonna have hunters that are gonna be hunting them, you know, necessarily – well – shouldn’t be, um, but if a game bird does ingest this rodenticide – this poison tablet or whatever – how will you know that there is this particular number of game birds that ate that rodenticide and were affected by it. SS: We, we won’t know the numbers. TL: Right, so... What makes that a, um, an OK, um, number then? I mean, in other words, you know, now we have this unintended consequence so, ah, unintended or otherwise, ah, we don’t know what the actual affect is gonna be to a game bird or a game animal and for most of the people in this room here – that’s an important question. SS: There, there, there is literature on what the effects are from consuming the product and... NP: But it is true that each species reacts to different degree to it... Some are more sensitive than others and there’s a lot... SS: Yes and then some are, some are very similar as well and it’s not necessarily really easy to tell those apart, yeah. EC: You know, I think Tom, your question is – the questions on, you know, that leads to the question are we accurately – do we have accurate data on game birds and potential risk of – with game birds – for the broader picture – not the specific experiment or pigs, um, I think we’ve got better data on ungulates. There’s been a fair bit of work on that, that modeling can be done, um, and I think – given – information given to managers to make, um, good decisions. For the birds, um, I think we’ve got pretty good data on that and – but for this particular experiment I think the key focus is 43 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 gonna be looking at, you know, what is the efficacy on mice. Obviously, Shane is going to be doing some level of monitoring of things but the specific goal isn’t a non-target study in this case, but I do think, as we develop the programmatic EIS and I think it’s an appropriate question, um, do we have the right type of analysis of risk for game birds – for managers to make decisions on pigs – and that’s, that’s what I hope will be in the draft when we get it out and I think a key thing is to have you guys review those parts to see is this analysis sufficient or not. I’m – again I think that’s – it’s a critical question. TL: I appreciate that... SS: It is a question that is, um, there, these – again these products have had a large amount of use in agricultural areas in, in areas where there are game around the country. There, there have been small numbers of birds found that have died from a chlorophacinone exposure more than diphacinone. There’s never been any indication that the, the, the level of harm to bird populations has been noticeable on a population scale or persistent for any given length of time so they’re – during programs like this there are occasionally a handful of unfortunate side effects of the use of the product but they aren’t damaging to the point where the benefits that you gain are outweighed by the costs of the relatively low numbers of birds that, that can potentially succumb to this. TL: You know, um, we keep hearing my good friend \[sounds like Dramela\] here and I have \[unclear\] there’s a term, you know, acceptable risk, you know, how do you determine, you know, this idea of an acceptable risk and, and again it comes back to this other, other question here that is for the people in this room – the people that we represent around the island – is you have an acceptable risk, you know, which is measured pretty much, right? Or you’d hope it’s measured to some degree, right, I mean how, by, yeah, that’s a good question – that I – good question – my question – how far from this test area do you look for dead animals or dead birds or what have you – I mean, what, what, how, how much of the surrounding area are you gonna be going out and actually looking for these things?. 3. Testing of Broadcast Rodenticides at Pohakuloa Training Facility: SS: Probably just in – just within the conservation area where it’s being tested out of. TL: OK. But then you have... WJ: What? TL: Oh, I’m sorry. 44 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 WJ: What area is that? Where is this gonna be taking place on PTA? SS: \[Asking someone else to answer...\] LS: Hi, ah, my name is Lynne Schnell – I work at that Pohakuloa Training Area – I’m a biologist up there for those of you in Kona too, um, the area’s going to be – it’s in Training Area 22, um, it’s kind of on the western side of the base and, ah, for those of you who are familiar with the base – it’s near the Charlie Circle Area. Does that answer your question? WJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah. TL: Thank you. Oh, Tony, you have a question? ?: No, I have a comment. I’m sorry, I have a comment based on your last question. So it’s \[unclear\]. WJ: You’ve got to talk into it and say your name first. BP: All right. I’m Bran Phillips with the Fish and Wildlife Service and, ah, just referring to your last question about the area that we would be looking at birds moving if they’ve ingested it. As I said, this study is not to look at the effects on non-targets, but there have been a lot of studies that Shane has referenced and those have put radio telemetry on birds, quail and chucker and pheasant and they’ve applied rodenticide in those areas and they’ve looked at the mortality rates – how many birds that have had those collars on them have died – how far they’ve moved – so there is good data going back to some other studies on the mainland that show that mortality is very low from diphacinone on these birds – so we can take that data from these other studies and then we look at this one and we go to what Shane was saying – we expect pretty low mortality from our game birds on it – we can’t put an exact number but we know from other studies that it is gonna be low. TL: OK. Yeah. I appreciate that. TN: Tom, Teresa from Kona, Tom? TL: Hang on... TN: Tom? TL: Just a minute Teresa... TN: Yeah. 45 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 TS: Thank you for coming, I’m Tony Sylvester, um... TL: The past chair of GMAC... TS: I have a few questions I wanted to ask – just to bounce of what he’s saying here – that my original question was that, ah, what exactly is the affect that you are trying to achieve and I believe you kind of covered that. And, it, it, to me it just looks like you guys are just using rodenticide to test its effectiveness on mice in a particular area? Is that correct? That’s basically what this is about, ah, how long is that gonna go on – because if they’re gonna be doing these in other areas later it’s gonna have to be perpetuity, right. I mean I’m not gonna just put poison once or twice and then be done for ten years – so how does that mix in with the test that you guys are doing. If it’s a one time, two month deal or three month deal and then you’re gonna collect your effectiveness at that point. SS: Well, yeah, what we’re testing is how it – the affect it has in a onetime use. The three – the different plots we’re doing are in different sections of the same area that we’re working in. So when you apply it – does it work? Now the manager’s responsibility in taking that information is going to be how to best use that to minimize risk and minimize the chemical inputs into the environment to get the – to get the effect you want. There are some areas where mouse eruptions occur. You get these huge spikes in mouse populations and then whatever the resource was that led to them spiking goes away, suddenly you’ve got a lot hungry mice left so in a, in a situation like that the manager might chose OK we know that June-July this happens every year – we get this spike – we’re gonna chose to apply this right at the end of one of those spikes where those mice are really hungry – they’re then a lot more likely to eat the baits than if there’s lots of alternative food and then we can knock that spike down and kind of cut down on the damage that they cause because of that over abundance of mice. So that’s a responsible use pattern for a land manager to use and you might have to do it every year – but if they do it right and do it at the right time they can have a lot of impact by using a small amount and, and when you time it right – when you time it when they’re really hungry that’s all the less product you actually have to use to get the effect you want, whereas if you use it without knowing and you just go out and you broadcast a lot of it just any old time of year and it didn’t work so we’ll apply next time – that’s the wrong mind set. TS: Yeah. OK. OK then with that I have a few questions but it’s - I think a lot of it will probably lean towards the land managers, you know, then you guys, but one of ‘em is – would each site specific project require an EIS – at that point – once you guys are complete with your project – and then it’s part of 46 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 the flow everything passes let’s say and it’s in a tool box for a land manager to use – what process does that... PC: Sure. Every, every project will have to go through its own compliance, um, so it’ll either be an EA or an EIS dependent upon the project and what the site requires – so it really depends on what the site is. TS: OK. And if part of that same question is – will the land managers evaluate the reduction of rodents to successive native regeneration and make that data available – because to me it’s part of the test – when I first thought you guys were doing this test it’s like what Willie-Joe and everybody else was saying is that you’re gonna test it – you need to kind of test everything to see how all this works and, but, it sounds like you guys are not gonna do that – but now it’s gonna be up to the land manager to put it all together. In other words like up at PTA if you’re gonna get rid of the mice and this and that well, are they gonna do anything to suppress evasive grasses and things that will still prevent regeneration of native species and stuff like that or are you just killing rats and mice and, you know, the whole plan gonna be followed through – is there funding for meaningful restoration... PC: \[Unclear\] for a lot of projects – that is a good thing – that’s a question that it really depends on the project and what they’re looking for, ah, but I know that, you know, some projects that I’m, you know, working with on the state side – yeah – we do pre-monitoring before the action, monitoring during the action and monitoring after, ah, and then we may have follow- ups after that just to see, you know, how... TS: Does that data ever become public data, I mean, is there any ways that we could look at some of that data... PC: A lot of it... TS: ....successes – cause we hear of all of these projects over the years this and that and we often wonder what the success really is other than people saying, you know, I have a one acres plot and it looks great and this is all we did - but how does that transfer to the landscape... EC: So just to answer your question – one of the things we are gonna try to do is to do the broader summary of the successes or places that things have done as part of the document that we’re putting together, um, you know, I think so one of the key things is pulling together that so people can see what’s a range of places that this has, you know, techniques have been used currently, um, and what are the relative successes, but I also think in that type of analysis you have to talk about what are the things where things didn’t work so it’s gonna go – do a broad overview – where have 47 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 there been successes \[unclear\] but we’re also gonna have to comment on failures, um, and ways that things can be approved. And I think one of your comments on data and you know people showing successes, um, I, I, I think that there is a need for people to speak more about the successes where they’re doing rodent control or mongoose control, um, and sharing that with folks. TS: I’ve seen it with the turtle recovery so I know it does work but, yeah, you know, it seems in our forest a lot of things we don’t know. The... ?: Can I weigh in on that? TS: How would you determine if any of the effects of aerial rodenticide dispersal has on raptors? And I know that’s probably a question you can’t answer – but I don’t know how quantified data or raptors if they came in and ate a mouse or a rat or a mongoose. Cause up on the Saddle Road I see a lot of \[sounds like Oe’io\] they do eat mongoose and stuff like that so I’m just kind of curious. I know there’s study in Europe before with raptors and stuff there and it seems kind of \[unclear\] there’s some bad and there’s some OK. It’s all like you said – it all depends, I guess, on the species or whatever. EC: Yeah... ?: I think that’s the biggest concern with a lot of the native people here have with the owls and the... EC: I think it’s a reasonable concern... ?: Yes. ?: Or can – with something like that... EC: Well, I think, you know, the EPA does have - will – as things move forward – there may be things that we’re going to have to do from a perspective of monitoring so that’s one of the things internally that we have to talk about but I, I, I think the concern on – for ‘io is clear, um, I think they’ve – the service itself has concerns about the ‘io and use patterns – so there’s likely to need to be recommendations dealing with ‘io. TS: Does the National Park do any of this type of dispersal? EC: No, you know, currently, at this point – just to be clear – only in – there’ve been some test situations where there has been hand or aerial broadcast done, um, but, you know if I look at it down the line – that time of monitoring is important. The other key thing is that there’s bait box use 48 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 that’s occurring, um, there has been some level of studies done looking at risks to ‘io and pueo, ah, in the past, so we already have some data to build risk analysis out of - so there’s some background data and then something that, um, people have more recently been looking at is, um, just look – we have done some work looking at, um, we have done some work looking at background levels of rodenticides in, in, in raptors and that stuff is still in process of being worked but we were looking at things that came from re-hab sites and stuff like that. TS: Yeah. I saw one with an owl... EC: But so, but people are – it’s an important question that people are considering... TS: Thank you. TL: Um, \[unclear\] you said that there’s – no that’s you... Um... You said that you have studies on game birds. Are those available either online or? SS: Yes, ah, yes you can find some of those online. There’s not an abundance of data but there has been some studies done and one of ‘em is they’re referring to is in Washington where they were testing these products and \[unclear\] to answer the questions that you’re talking about. They can be online and if you contact the people on these they can, they can – they can talk to me and then I or Shane can provide you with some of that information. TL: I’d like to, you know, look at that data, actually. So hopefully you can get a hold of that and that would be good. TN: Tom? Can I ask a question? TL: Yes, I’ll get to you Teresa – one second. Go ahead. Teresa go ahead. TN: OK, Tom. When does the comment for the EIS ends? EC: So just to clarify there are several points where public comment is asked for, for the EIS process. So the first, ah, the first thing that starts things out is a Notice of Intent and the comment period ended for the Notice of Intent. So the next step where we are encouraging and we’ll be asking for public comment is when we get a draft of the programmatic EIS done and we’re probably looking, you know, nine months away or things like that from tonight... TN: Do you have an approximate date? 49 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 EC: Um, you know, I, we’re, we’re trying to look at, you know, late spring next year, um, but one of the key things is we need to get, a draft \[someone coughs\] and we’ve been spending a lot time just looking at people’s comments and what do we need to address but I’d be looking at late, late spring is probably what we’re shooting for and we’ve been requested not to have it overlap with the Legislative Session, um, because of scheduling for people attending meetings, so, you know, we, we have... TN: So your draft will not include your experiment that you’re taking up from February to September of 2017. EC: The draft will have information from this experiment in it – correct. TN: Yeah, but, the, he said his experiment will run from February to September of 2017 and if your draft comes out in early spring – his experiment won’t be done. EC: You’re correct. We will have preliminary results in it – we’ll put as much results as we can in it because they key thing is we need to provide that to the public to see so we will be reporting as much as we can in there. PC: But there’s a comment period after that when the final draft, ah, final EIS comes out whenever that comes out several months down the line. EC: So there are two additional chances to comment. One with the draft and one with the final. TN: And when is the final approximate date to be completed? EC: My guess is it’s probably going to be a year plus after the draft EIS. So this is – it’s a multi-year process to put this together. TN: Thank you. NP: Um, right, it just seems to me that before you even went as far as you have you should have gotten more information on, um, the effects on raptors – the pueo, ‘io and the barn owl because they diet primarily on rodents. Not like the game birds – they have a lot of other things they eat but the raptors primarily eat rodents so it seems they will be the most affected and ‘io and pueo, at least, should be, I know you’re not concerned so much about the barn owl but many people are and the other thing is what about starvation for the raptors. Ultimately, you want to bring down the rodent population quite a bit, I’m sure it’s your goal – what about their starvation - of the raptors. 50 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 LS: Sorry, this is Linda Schnell again from Pohakuloa Training Areas. The raptors we did take into account for this particular study, um, Hawaiian Hawks, in particular, are extremely rare at Pohakuloa – we see maybe one every two or three years. So we see them very infrequently. Pueo are not known from this area either and I’m not really sure about the barn owls – we do count birds in this area pretty much annually and, um, but barn owls we’re not out there at night so I’m not really sure what the barn owl presence is but we do know our two natives... NP: I guess what I keep seeing is this experiment is for the purpose of doing it broad scale – so I’m not that concerned about this little experiment – I mean it isn’t little – it’s 30 acres – but, still, when you say oh this is all good and great and let’s just do it and, of course, you’re gonna have different site... LS: But this allows us to focus just on the rodents without having to worry about secondary target affects – those can come later at different questions in the next piece. TL: OK, ah, anybody else out there – Jonathan? Teresa? TN: Yes, um, I guess everyone doesn’t seem to realize how unique the island is. We can’t be compared in my mind with the experiments you’ve done on the mainland. I’m pretty sure the diet they have on the mainland is certainly different from the diets over here – especially our birds. Our ‘io is only on this island. I mean, where are you folks going with this and not including the ramifications of your experiments on these birds that fly and eat at night. Are you folks working 24/7 on your experiment? Will you be there from the wee hours of the evening to the wee hours of the morning and watching the birds come and eat your bait or the rodents that have eaten the bait? They’re nocturnal, right. Have you taken those thoughts into consideration in your experiment? TL: Are you referring to the barn owl, Teresa. TN: The pueo… The pueo… They eat at night… TL: They’re not nocturnal, I don’t believe. TN: They feed at night. TL: Oh... I don’t want to get into an argument with this but I... TN: I know, I know, but I travel the night road from Kona to Waimea and sometimes up to Humuula in the evening and we have the pueo flying over 51 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 us. So I know they’re there in the early evening and the early mornings before as the sun goes down and as the sun comes up. TL: Ah... TN: Are your experiments only during the day in your testing site area or will you be there in the early evening and the early morning hours... EC: The - once... TN: It’s just a question... EC: Once the rodenticide’s applied it’s there for 24 hours until it degrades or is consumed so, um, so there’s no ability to do something just in the daytime or just in the night. It’s there continually, um, the information we have about pueo is they are not – they’re not abundant if present at all in the area where we’re doing the research, um, so, no, there can’t be 24 hour monitoring of every plot where it’s used but the information that we have and the risks associated with the known abundance of the animals and the probability of their being negative consequences and the weight of the negative consequences as compared to the weight of the positive benefits – those are all things that need to be considered and again on a site by site, case by case basis – so we have determined for this small scale research experiment the benefit of having the information outweighs, potentially, the potential loss of a few, of a few birds and if it’s gonna be applied on a large scale somewhere else they’re going to have to do their own analysis of what the likely risks are based on the abundance of the animals in that area and, um, how much of a potential loss might be considered acceptable in order to reach the objectives that they want to reach and that, that will be a call that will be made by those land managers and all within the scope of the law and all with the best guidance that the science like we’re proposing can give them. So we don’t want irresponsible use. We want to know what works, what doesn’t work and what the effects of what we’re doing are. WJ: OK, um, I got one, just one last comment and hopefully I can have you understand where we’re coming from. Not – this is not necessarily geared toward the PTA project cause I think I understand what your study is about and it’s about mice and, I mean, that’s as far as it – it’s about as far as it goes. But with the EIS on this side – you gotta understand where we’re coming from – with the hunters, the gatherers, the people are coming from – it’s that “Oh, well,” attitude is how I – kinda how I describe it as, you know, the concern to have this tool in the tool box is a great concern for us because we know that in the past it has, I mean, it’s been used without even being able to be used this way – but it’s that, OK, we’re, you know, we’re gonna use it here in this forest and, yeah, the pigs are gonna die – 52 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 my concern is not worried about catching one pig and eating that pig – my concern is that there’s not going to be any pigs there for me to catch. I seen that with my own eyes in Keauhou and there is nobody that can tell me otherwise. I seen it. And it was way more than 13 pigs – that forest was wiped out in a matter of a week. That is – you got to understand where our concerns is coming from – and that goes back to my comments earlier about who is – who’s gonna regulate these land managers? You know, who regulated the past land managers. How did that not become a big deal - how did that get swept under the rug – when nobody knew about this? This thing – of course, you know what the consequences was – of course they knew – you think \[sounds like Tawny\] didn’t know that the pigs was gonna die? When you dump out all of that rat bait out of one helicopter you’ve got to expect the pigs and the whatever birds will eat that beautifully peanut butter flavored pellets is gonna eat – I mean – I’m not one doctor – but I’m not one dummy either, I mean, you know, and, and neither are anybody out there and, and that is, I mean, I’m not saying this was anything you guys had anything to do with – but what I’m saying is that – that is a concern when, when we hear about these kind of things – projects – not, not, not the project – I mean, the project, I think, is just fine. You know, I didn’t realize that we didn’t know if it’s a good method for mice – so I learned something today – but it’s the potential for misuse and the “Oh, well,” cause you gotta realize that none of our game animals are native. We don’t have recognition for our game animals here. Everything that we eat is considered invasive – whether it came 1,000 years ago with the Polynesians or not – it’s still – in the eyes of these environmental people and the eyes of the Fish & Wildlife Service it isn’t still non-native and it’s one of those – unintended consequences but, “Oh, well,” in the big picture – they don’t want ‘em there either – so that is where our concern is. It’s not a personal thing – it’s a worry that when I’m dead and gone my grandkids not going have nothing for go and enjoy the forest for, you know, I mean, there’s been so many places here on this island all right, I mean, you got Hakalau – you got all these places that are – have been taken away from, from us pretty much and what do you give us – two days that we can go walk around there in, in – a year? You know – a few open houses they call it. The people don’t have real access to it anymore – once these places get taken away – that’s it. The local people don’t necessarily – are not gonna go to the forest just to go look at the ferns and the birds, you know, I, I have nothing against the ferns and the birds and the trees. I, I love going in the forest – that’s one of my passions – and, but, yet, we utilize the forest in different ways then just preserving this things so, I mean, I guess that’s, I just want you to understand and, I mean, that’s where a lot the passions come from, you know, from like Teresa and stuff on the Kona side is that it’s not a matter of what this exact study is, is doing – it’s the big picture that we see and the big picture is that we’re losing our game and we’re losing our lands and our access to our lands and that’s something that we feel that we’re not, you know, I mean, another comment that I picked up on 53 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 earlier was as far as, um, you know, knowing the difference if we get rid of these animals, if there’s gonna make an impact on to what we’re trying to accomplish, you know, we’re trying to save this particular species of plant, bird, or snail or whatever – now is there a – is there gonna be a, you know, an impact on that – so what happens when there’s not an impact or an adverse impact, I mean, you know, I don’t know how – I mean and how long of a – how long do we wait before we say, hey, this is not working, I mean, and, and you know I’m going back with our Mauna Kea thing, right, get rid of all the sheep – palila populations are still on the decline – nobody’s come and told us yet that, hey, we had 1,000 last year or 10 years ago – now we’re down to almost zero sheep population we’re up to 2,000. I mean, how long do we wait before we say OK that is not working. So anyway, that’s just – I hope you can understand where we – where we’re coming from – like I said it’s not – it’s not a personal thing – it’s just a very strong concern and worry for us and for everybody, you know, any time we hear a fence or aerial anything – you going be up against one a lot of questions. If not – thank you for coming for sure. TL: Yeah, Patrick, one of the comments that you made earlier is that, ah, you know, each of these site specific areas are gonna have to have an EA or an EIS – yet the watershed program that was enacted by Abercrombie and now the 30 /30 Plan, um, has a, ah, professed complete eradication pretty much of all the watershed area on the Big Island – without an EIS or without public hearing or without, you know, you kind of excused yourself sort of from, ah, you know, having to go through that process with the people which makes it difficult for a lot of us to look at this thing in a really positive light sometimes, ah, primarily because we also have – I live in Puna – and Teresa in Kona – there are many, many people who utilize our game and fish as part of their economy – I mean it’s just – they’re living the life that they want to live with because they’re able to do this, um, you know, when we asked – when you’re not doing the study, you know, to find out what is the impact to a non-target species or to a pig or bird or whatever, um, you know, you’re doing it and you’re – like he said – you’re doing it in a clinical kind of environment right but eventually it’s gonna spill over into, you know, areas that, you know, are going to have these pigs, sheep, goats, and deer and, ah, what is the impact going be and he, you know, adequately or eloquently, um, you know, as to what happened at Keauhou, for example, you know, it’s just these are real concerns of ours, um, and, you know, we would like to be able to work with you and to be able to have input that’s actually listened to, ah, you know, cause we’re being ignored, you know, not just us – the hunters – I mean, the, the public essentially is being ignored in a lot of these things. We have gone way over, ah, this time here – she’ll probably not gonna let me back in here, ah... So I appreciate the fact that you folks came here tonight. I learned a lot and I think we all did, ah, here, I think that the scope of what you’re doing, you know, I’m interested in what actually comes out of this, ah, and 54 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 I’m also interested into, you know, it’s just my hearing’s not the best but how I can get a hold of these birds studies as well and, and I do appreciate what Teresa said about the fact that, you know, diets on the mainland are different than diets here too, so, ah, you know, impact may be different up there than it might be here too, just because of what our birds are, ah, left with here, but, ah, if you have any closing comments, I appreciate, for one, that you folks are here tonight and, ah, I’m grateful that you folks did take the time to, ah, come on in. EC: Thank you for the chance to talk about my research... SS: Thank you for the opportunity, I appreciate it. TL: No, ah, thank you, um, and, you know, we’ll keep on you on some of these offers that you made for us – I like this \[unclear\]. Ah, anybody here have anything to say, I appreciate you all being here. TN: Ah, this is Teresa from Kona. TL: OK... TN: I want to thank, yeah, I want to thank the Department of Wildlife, State DLNR and those representative from our government coming out here this evening and enlightening us with this project and, um, excuse me for my emotions - it runs high because it, it sinks deep, because this is more than I, this is more than us – this is about the population that does not make it to this meeting. This is about the public that we represent, so when emotions run high I am compassionate about our natural resources and when anything affects our natural resources it affects us emotionally, so I apologize for my outburst but I appreciate you folks being here. Mahalo so much. Thank you. VIII. NEW BUSINESS: None IX. COMMITTEE REPORTS: None X. COMMISSIONER’S REPORT BY DISTRICT: None XI. NEXT MEETING DATE: XII. ADJOURNMENT: (9:12 PM) TL: All right at 9:12p we’re done. Oh, yeah we are done. We’ll deal with the rest of this later... 55 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – October 24, 2016 ?: I motion that we’re done... Are we supposed to motion that we’re done? 56