2016-10-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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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