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Home My WebLink About2016-03-21 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawaii Minutes Meeting Date: Monday, March 26, 2016 Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Hawaii County Building – Council Chambers I. CALL TO ORDER: Meeting was called to order at 6:31pm. II. ROLL CALL: Per Bobby Command: Willie-Joe Camara, District 1 – absent and excused Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina, District 2 – here Naniloa Poglen - here Thomas H. Lodge, District 5 - here Kenneth “Kalani” DeCoito, District 6 – here District 7 Mark C. Bartell – District 8 – here Jonathan Bertsch – absent and excused District 9 Quorum established ALSO PRESENT: Belinda Castillo-Hall, Corporation Counsel B. Command, Deputy Planning Director GUESTS: Dave Smith, new DLNR Division of Forestry & Wildlife Administrator James Cogswell, Wildlife Program Director Jason Omick, DLNR Wildlife Biologist working with the Wildlife Revolving Fund Steve Bergfeld, DOFAW III. Announcements and Introductions: IV. Approval of the Minutes: February 22, 2016 1 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: Tonight we have with us the administrator of DLNR, Dave Smith; we also have his sidekick Jim Cogswell; we also have with us Steve Bergfeld from the local DOFAW office here – they’re gonna be discussing some of the rule changes that we’re planning on doing and how we’re gonna go about it is one of the things that we’ll be doing tonight – we’ll get into that here shortly and, ah, Dave’s vision of DLNR and how we’ll be working toward sustainability of our game animals and the process for accomplishing that going forward, um, with that I’m gonna move on – the approval of the minutes – we have a huge stack of minutes here, um, anybody want to go through them or do you want to approve them – anybody move to approve them? DY: This is Ike. I move to approve. NP: Second. V. Budget TL: OK, ah, all in favor? \[The ayes have it\] All right, so, ah, the minutes we’ve approved. We don’t have a budget report here so we’ll pass on the budget report. Anybody from the audience have any comments to say on our upcoming discussions this evening? Ah, and just know that Dave Smith and the gentleman, ah, Jim Cogswell and everybody have agreed to interact with, ah, you folks in the audience tonight, so – how we’re gonna do this is if you have questions, um, raise your hand, um, we have a microphone that we will give you – and, ah, you can address them and you can get, ah, as much done that way, I think quicker, um, when they’re done with their presentation so, um, if there’s anybody that has any testimony ahead of time here raise your hand. You do? ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] TL: Oh, OK, no… Ah, our agenda – the way our agenda works is that, um, if anybody has any comments on our agenda, ah, being that we copy this agenda from the Liquor Commission or somebody – it’s just that there \[unclear\] OK, so, and, ah, as far as our discussion goes let me introduce Dave Smith and Jim Cogswell, two gentlemen… VI. Public Testimony MB: Hey, Tom? Tom, it’s Kona. We have someone that wants to make a comment on the agenda. TL: Oh. OK. Very good. All right. Shoots… MB: Come on up here – you have to speak in front of the microphone. 2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 BK: Please state your name… MB: Your name… RC: Aloha, my name is Rochelle Ching. I have lived here in Kona since 1977 and this morning I read something on Facebook that a friend of mine posted and it’s from a family I’ve known for over 30 years and it’s a very strong hunting family and I want to say I for one like smoked meat, anyways, the topic was aerial spraying or dropping of rat poisoning over our forests. I don’t – I don’t see those words on this piece of paper but that’s why I’m here right now is because when – and that came down from a taxidermy in Hilo – that that was meeting – something about GMAC and DLNR – so I’m here today because I heard about aerial dropping of rat poisoning – so my first response was to first do a little Googling research and I was able to find articles from California to the East Coast to Canada where they’ve done that and they’re regretting it. These articles are been there, done that, wish we hadn’t. So then I went and broke it down a little deeper and OK, so we’re spraying the rats because the rats kill our birds and our fauna – anyway, the rats have this horrible disease and blah, blah, blah, blah, OK, but what eats the rats normally is our owls and our hawks and we can’t reproduce those when those are gone – so that’s an issue and how about our hunting dogs? How about our soil, how about our water? How about the piggies? How about the people that eat – I’m just – I’m a little bit – I was just taken back that we would even consider doing something like that. Hello? We’re over here dealing with GMOs and now we’ve got to worry about rat poisoning – the rat poisoning does crap with your blood and I don’t know about you folks but that’s just not a healthy thing for us to introduce into our system and, yeah, I will agree, we, I’m sure we have a problem except for I’m sorry I’m limited, I’m thinking of Waipio Valley that’s the limit of my hearing about the rat problem. Um, so, if we have a problem, I just ask that we would look at it - what’s already been done – let’s not repeat the mistakes that have already taken place elsewhere. There’s gotta be another way we can approach this with the benefit of everybody. NP: Yeah, I’d like to say something. Um, you can go to a new website – it’s www.nopoisonhawaii.org and it has a lot of information about the draft EIS and you can read the draft and you can also – there’s a site you can leave a comment for the draft EIS – so please do, please do. It’s www.nopoisonhawaii.org . RC: OK. Thank you very much. Thank you for hearing me. VII. Discussion 3 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: Oh, thank you, um, yeah. Very well said actually. Gentlemen, with that, we could get you here to the front table and want to go start with that question that \[unclear\] it’s been on everybody’s line so, ah, if you want to weigh in on that we would really appreciate it. ?: OK. The PES – so we’ve done quite a bit of research and worked with Diphacinone which is the anticoagulant they’re looking to use for conservation use. We’ve used it quite a bit, it’s really an effective tool for conservation. You can, ah… ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: Yeah. OK. So \[technical difficulty\] we’ve used it extensively for conservation work. It’s really effective, um, you know, instead of spraying it over the forest isn’t really accurate, we’ve, um, well it’s used in very controlled circumstances. We use it on off shore islands to eradicate rats, to protect, ah, seabirds, we’ve used it in wetland areas to get rid of mongooses and rats and it’s very effective, ah, a lot of the native species have a really hard time with, um, ground, the ground-nesting birds especially, but even our forest birds have a real hard time with the rats, cause rats will climb the trees, ah, and take eggs and chicks and even nesting females out of the nest at night and so, in areas where – if Broadcast were used, ah, it would be used in areas that are completely fenced and inaccessible to animals, so that’s kind of the rule under which it would be used in the forest for Broadcast – but it’s also used in bait stations and what not too – it’s a very effective tool – we’ve been using it for many decades and, um, you know, Diphacinone is a – was developed as an anti-coagulant – as a blood thinner – it can be used medicinally for humans, ah, we’ve used it effectively for a long time, so, I, I think it’s a very important tool for us to use for conservation and, you know, I’m obviously very concerned about watersheds and water quality and health, as well, so… ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: Can I follow-up on that? Um, and just to add – the way it works is it’s pretty much designed for mammals and it needs to be consumed, ah, in fairly large quantities over a period of time, so it’s – unless you’re the size of a rat – it’s not going to be – not going to have a large effect on you and especially if you don’t eat it over a week – a month period – I mean – that’s what they need to do – the rats themselves they need to eat… NP: So birds are the size of a rat. ?: And birds, ah, it actually doesn’t affect birds as much and so, ah, where we use it is very specific. We do – every time we would use it, um, we do 4 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 an impact assessment and in fact this programmatic impact assessment – the \[sounds like Diphacinone usage is only one small part of the – it’s a – it’s a – it’s just a tool kit – a list of very – a lot of different treatments to get rid of rodents and the mongoose and it talks about not just Diphacinone but also traps, ah, self, ah, multi-hit traps and a lot of other ways to approach the issue, so if there is some sensitivity, if there’s some issues we’re concerned about this programatic EIS will help us analyze which techniques, if it’s appropriate to use Diphacinone OK, if it’s not – there’s a multitude of other integrated pest management options that we’ll have and that is the purpose of this programmatic impact statement is that – allow us to do a thorough analysis of it now, so that when we do need to use something to control rodents – we can take this tool box and look through it and see what’s most appropriate – do a site specific evaluation of – to ensure that that’s the most appropriate method and then we use – but Diphacinone is not the only option, by far, and it’s only an option that we use after extreme consideration. TL: \[Unclear\] one second now… ?: Yeah, we do a lot of cage trapping, snap trapping. There’s a lot of other methodologies that we use to control animals. TL: Yeah, one of the concerns that I think people have are that this has been tried here once before – badly – and, um, and on top of that, you know, the Broadcast treatment is supposed to be something like fifteen pounds per acre and you guys were spraying or dropping like 17 ½ pounds per acre – so you weren’t following your own protocols and… ?: That, that wasn’t us. TL: Oh, OK. ?: It was Kamehameha Schools and it was a – it was definitely a project gone bad… There’s a whole bunch of reasons for that – we can talk about it – maybe better to talk about it off line, cause there’s a whole bunch of things that happened in that particular case, um, but it was, it was not applied at the rate that it was supposed to be applied at and there were some other technicalities having to do with, ah, with the way that they tested it, ah, prior, and it was also not done in a fenced area and, um, you know, so the pigs, you know, they were testing it on pigs to find out what the lethal dose was but the pig feed, ah, that they were using for these caged animals had Vitamin K supplement in it – which is an antidote for Diphacinone and so they were using these caged pigs, feeding ‘em a feed with an antidote in it and feeding ‘em Diphacinone and it could hardly kill ‘em and so they’re like, “Wow, it’s safe.” But nobody realized, you know, 5 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 that there was Vitamin K in their feed. So anyway, it’s a long story… But it wasn’t Forestry and Wildlife and the person that did that lost their job. TL: Richard Hoeflinger… RH: \[Not speaking in mic\] are they rats, are they mongoose or a combination of two… TL: Yeah… RH: It’s my understanding that, ah, rats will take peanut butter flavored Diphacinone, which is what you get at the feed store, ah, but the mongoose will not take it. Mongoose used to take fish flavored Diphacinone but it is my understanding that is no longer manufactured or no longer available, so you’re not going to get mongoose on peanut butter flavored Diphacinone. ?: I’m not positive about that – I’ve done a bunch. I think the mongoose eat just about anything. RH: Ah, we tried it at Pu’uwa’awa’a for some time and they would not take – mongoose would not take the peanut butter flavored rat \[unclear\]. I think Eaton used to make fish flavored… ?: Yeah, there was a fish formulation. RH: I don’t think they make them anymore. ?: Yeah, they’re – we’re a pretty small market, I mean, we use just a tiny fraction of that produced and so a lot of these manufacturers aren’t really even interested in dealing with us and coming up with special formulations because we really don’t, you know, they manufacture a muck greater quantities for other industries. NP: So how – excuse me – so how long does it take once a rat or a mongoose consumes the poison till they actually die of hemophilia or whatever – bleeding out? ?: It’s usually four or five days… NP: Yeah, so in that time they could travel outside of the fenced area – die – and pigs could eat them because pigs will eat dead animals. ?: Yeah, but… NP: And then a hunter could hunt that pig and… 6 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Rats have pretty small home range – they don’t travel that far and we’ve done research on it and found that a lot of them die \[unclear\]. NP: The concern is not that it would kill the pigs but it will poison the hunters who eat them… ?: Right… The, ah... ?: But by that time… NP: Nobody wants that kind of meat… ?: ….you’re getting a smaller and smaller quantity of… NP: Yeah, but still… ?: And it only… NP: And doesn’t it wash out with the rain down through the streams and… ?: They’ve done a bunch of research on it. I would encourage you to go read the PIS… NP: Yeah… ?: ….and I’d just read things on Facebook… NP: Yeah… ?: ….because the PIS has question information… NP: No, no, no. I’m not reading Facebook… ?: OK. NP: I actually been reading documents… ?: I kind of quit reading Facebook myself… NP: No, it’s documents I’ve been reading. ?: Yeah. NP: But they have been finding residues clear out to the marine – on islands where they’ve been testing this poison. 7 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Really? NP: Yeah. I could send them to you if you give me your email. ?: Yeah, I’d be really interested in seeing that because I’ve never seen anything like that. NP: I got it. ?: OK. NP: I’ll check \[unclear\]… ?: I’d like to encourage anyone if they do have comments to visit the website – you can reach it through the DOFAW website as well, um, go on, make comments about this plan – voice your concerns or voice your support and… ?: And read the actual document – comment on that. \[Unclear\] other people tell you. NP: No, There are documents. ?: Yeah. ?: Yeah. TL: Ah, Tony has a question for your gentlemen… ?: Hold on. The mics not on… ?: \[Mics not on\] ?: Well, you have to apply it – they have to take a lethal does for four to five days and then it takes several days to kill them and then – and you can do it in pulses – it doesn’t have to be just constant – so you can pulse. The only thing is like Jim’s talking about and I’d like to clarify – just let me clarify – I’m not the administrator for DLNR – I’m the administrator for Division of Forestry and Wildlife and Jim is our wildlife manager, ah, in our administration office downtown, um, ah, so, we use it – we usually pulse it – we don’t just have Diphacinone on the field all the time. ?: \[No mic\] harming the native wildlife? ?: Yes. 8 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Is this on? ?: Yup, I don’t hear anything. But, I mean, so that means you’re gonna have to apply it every year if – I guess – before fledgling or whenever the eggs and, I mean it’s… ?: It’s used, um, yes, we… ?: Otherwise what’s the purpose of doing it once or twice… ?: Yeah, we go into – like on Oahu we do it for elepaio and \[unclear\] and every year during the season we have big boxes, ah, near, near, in every elepaio nesting territory and we apply – we put out Diphacinone kill rats and we took a population from a declining population, ah, at .86 to a slightly increased population so there still is, ah, you know, there’s still some problems with the population but we’ve – taken it from a significantly declined population to an increasing population just doing that – just doing the rat control – and we use snap traps and Diphacinone so it’s been really effective for them. ?: Can they get immune to it like some of the Warfarin resistant rats? ?: It’s possible, yeah. ?: Yeah. Oh… ?: So that’s why we don’t like to just put the same thing out all the time, you know, we like to pulse it so we’ll do that and snap trapping and cage trapping so if animals are resistant or reluctant to take a bait or to go in a trap or one thing or another, ah, if you’ve ever done any predator control, you know, it’s, it’s quite, you know, it’s very strategic, you have to be very persistent and there’s always animals that are resistant to certain methods and whatnot, so it’s, you have to always mix it up to try get – cull the animals. ?: And if we can finalize this, ah, the programmatic EIS – we’ll be able to use all these techniques and be able to control the rats much better, rather than just using one or two different techniques – this will examine the use of a variety of techniques used in combination and it should be more – allow us to be more effective and more quick to respond. ?: Have you looked at the effectivity of, ah, bait stations versus broadcasting this – are you – is one of those more favorable for some reason than the others? 9 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: I like the idea of broadcast because they’ve done bait stations and they’re super hard – I mean, you have to have so many stations and this huge grid and you have to be able to cover it and, you know, so if it’s real open country, you know, it’s really super hard work to go to every station and bait ‘em – but, at least, you’re not doing a lot of damage. If you were to go into an intact, ah, you know, forest or, for instance, in some of our – like seabird nesting areas – that are – the burrows are super tight so you can’t even hardly walk around in there without, um, crushing burrows or causing damage and so this would – allows us to go in and, and, um, kill the rats without having a whole lot of other impact, ah, to the birds that we’re trying to protect. ?: Yeah, I understand that it would be easier for you – but, how about its impact on the non-targeted population? ?: Ah, that’s, that’s part of what this programmatic EIS will be evaluating for us – is to, to let us know better when it’s more appropriate to use the bait stations versus broadcast, versus trapping and allow us to decide – at that point – what the best technique for this particular area with the sensitivities that exist there. ?: And what are the metrics to determine your success or non-success or how are you going to determine… ?: It’s be determined by relying on this EIS – the EIS doesn’t – hasn’t been… ?: You’re gonna go look for dead rats or how are you gonna go about doing it? ?: We’ll have goals – so I just want to say – it’s not about being easier for us – it’s about being effective and, ah, so, what we’re trying to accomplish – so we don’t just go kill rats for fun, you know, we’re doing it for a reason – and, so, you’ll have a metric that’ll be like – and it’s usually nesting success – so what we’re looking for is, is fledglings or birds that are able to fledge or survive, you know, so if chicks are able to survive and aren’t taken by rats and, so, ah, that’ll be your measure of success is how many birds, ah, survive to fledge. RS: Yeah, my name’s Rick Shaning, I live in Hakalau area and, um, I just – I see U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service EIS that you’re holding up there – so… ?: It’s a \[sounds like PES\], yah, it’s a pre-decisional document. RS: So it’s an environmental assessment then? ?: Ah, it’s gonna be an environmental impact statement… 10 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 RS: OK. So EIS, all right, so, what always gets me crazy is that you go through this whole scoping process, you take public comments, you do your alternatives, or, you know, should we do, or this, this, and this, but then someone else up high makes a decision and a lot of times they pay no attention to what the public, who you all work for – the public – what are concerns are. People on Hawaii Island, here, are not gonna want poison distributed, all right? But you’re gonna have someone in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – most likely in Washington, D.C. decide – well, the heck with it – the Palila or whatever you guys are gonna do is more important than the people’s wishes here and it – what it does is it just creates tremendous dissent with the public and they won’t support your programs and, um, anyway, so, back to my question, so who do you believe – who is gonna make the decision on what methodology that is gonna be used? ?: Well, we’re hoping to have a whole bunch of methodologies to use… ?: Yeah… And each – like this is gonna be the programmatic side, so it’ll just give us the options and then whenever we actually go to site specific areas we need to still do the analysis. It’ll just make it a little bit easier for us to decide what our options are and what the best approach is with those particular constraints of that site-specific option and for their – in that situation it’s the people on the ground – the biologists and the DLNR staff – who will be making those decisions. TL: All right… RS: So your agency will – will be doing that – it won’t be the Fish and Wildlife Service? ?: They do work – they manage refuges as well. RS: But as far as this… ?: On our lands it’s our decisions. RS: OK. So the feds aren’t slamming this down your throat being we’re talking endangered species, right? ?: No, this is, this is a joint EIS… RS: Yeah… ?: ….it’s the federal and, as well as, DLNR. RS: Ah, thank you. 11 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: Um, before we – is there anymore questions on this? NP: I have one more question. So, um, if, um, if a pueo eats a poisoned rat, um, are you concerned about the pueo – you say it won’t kill the pueo if they eat a poisoned rat – but what if there’s an accumulation in them – they’re a native species – you have to honor them and they do eat rodents… No? ?: We’re done a lot of research on that and we find that they don’t – they’re not eating scavenged animals. One – they don’t eat the scavenged animals so we leave out for them, 2) most of these animals are just dying underground anyway and 3) they would have to eat a sufficient amount of the toxin from an animal – like, they’d have to be eating a lot of rats everyday – so the, the likelihood of them being able to ingest that much material is extraordinarily, ah, slim. NP: Is there long term tests on build up in their system? ?: Ah, Diphacinone doesn’t build up. It’s actually – goes through your system pretty quick. That’s why you have to eat – you can’t just eat some – it doesn’t body accumulate – you have to eat it like every day for four or five days. For instance – to give you just a concept – just – ah, you know, I don’t know the specifics, but, for instance, for a person to get Diphacinone out of a pig – they would have to eat the pig liver – and in order to, ah, to have a 50% lethal effect on a person, I think you’d have to 170 pounds of pig liver in four days or something like that. So, it’s just to give you an example of… NP: Yeah… ?: ….the scale… NP: ….well, Agent Orange – Agent Orange showed up thirty years later… ?: Right… NP: ….in people’s thyroids and glands… ?: Right. That’s a little different. NP: But, you know, things like that happen. ?: Yeah, understood. TL: Oh… 12 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: \[not speaking in mic\] biology or anything but I do work in the nuclear field and we have a, ah, human performance and so I have concern – I’ve already listened here – and the first thing I already heard was we screwed up once already, but we fired the guy. So what’s gonna happen down the line – if we have all these safeguards – but how do we know we’re not gonna have another mistake, another failure, another of the equipment failed and we dispersed thirty pounds instead of 15 pounds. This is my concern is, you know, we talk a good talk but we have the human performance issue and like I’ve already heard today the human performance has already failed – before – in the test trials – we haven’t even got to the real thing and we’re already having mistakes, failures, and everything else and the thing is, “Oh well, we made a mistake, but we fired that guy and we’ll fire the next guy,” you know, and like the other lady was saying – there are so many things – it’s like the rapid ohia death, you know, we’ve got this thing that just jumped species – we never assumed it would work – Fukushima, you know, we had no idea we were gonna have a massive thing like that and that’s my concern with the poison and everything it’s just – history is to repeated itself that it’s just been a bad idea after a bad idea, after a bad idea but this time we have it figured out, this time it’ll work and that’s my concern and along with a lot of other things, but I just wanted to say that piece so – thank you very much – nothing against the people that work and they’re trying to do their best, I know that, but I know mistakes happen and there’s a lot of things that aren’t figured into the calculations that have a bad habit of jumping up in the future and biting us in the ass and says, well, we never figured that or we never considered that or we never thought that was gonna be a possibility – that’s just my concern – I wanted to voice and put it out there to everybody – thank you. TL: I’d like to move on to another subject which is why Jim is, but, ah, just on this one last comment from mine is that, you know, the criteria, you know, for some of the things that work against hunting like against pigs, or sheep or goats – are that they might harm something… MB: Hey, Tom? TL: ….migrate… ?: They actually initiated the… MB: Hey, Tom? TL: Yo? 13 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 MB: It’s Mark in Kona. We got – sorry we’ve got a room full here and we missed a commentor, so, I want to go back a little bit, so – state your name. D: My name is David. Real quick I want to ask what information or what any kind of data you guys have about the water table – like how does it affect the water table? Does anybody have any information on that? ?: There is a lot of information on that – I can’t quote it to you right – I suggest you go look at the PES and we can get back to you – I can get you some, ah, we can look for – there’s quite a bit of scientific, ah, um, research on that and I can get that to you. D: But don’t you think that’s something that’s kinda important to have now? ?: Oh, yeah, I’m sure it’s in the EIS – I’m pretty sure it’s in the EIS – to tell you the truth, I can’t quote it for you at the moment, but, ah, I would look in the EIS document – go on line and check that out – I mean that’s part of what this whole thing is about is to try to lay out all the information so, if, you go and look and they don’t have anything on it – on their online – to tell you the truth I haven’t gone – and just perused that online thing – so I would check that out – if they don’t have it – then your comments should be to them that they should have it. Ah, we, you know… D: When you say, I’m sorry… ?: Yeah. D: When you say to them aren’t you them? Who is them? ?: Well, the folks, yeah, so the folks that are taking the comments, you know, to the website, there’s an opportunity to comment and you should comment to the folks that are accepting and, ah, compiling all that information. D: And you guys aren’t those people? ?: Well, I’m not personally accepting and compiling and reviewing that information, no… NP: I’ve just one more really quick, excuse me, Tom… A couple years ago there was a proposal to eradicate barn owls and egrets and, and, ah, we worked really hard getting nearly a hundred oppositional comments on there and then in no time at all with the 49 new species wanting to be introduced – the endangered species list – the target again is the barn owl. What happened to all those comments? Were they ever considered? 14 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 There were some from friends of animals, from veterinarians, from important people. Did they get swept under the rug, disregarded? That was nearly a hundred, just, just would like to know if our comments are being heard. ?: Yeah, they’re definitely considered. I mean, for barn owls, if they’re preying on native species we will, you know, if it’s introducing like that – we’ll tend to manage for the native. NP: So comment? ?: Absolutely comment – if you don’t comment then you don’t have anything, I mean, the best thing you can do is comment. It doesn’t mean just because you comment every single comment will be taken like if there’s opposing comments – what do you do? Nothing? I mean, so you just have to consider everything in balance – so we’re trying to find balance, we’re trying to consider all the different options… NP: Yeah… ?: Trying to look at everybody’s different comments… NP: It would be nice if the public felt like their comments were considered a little more… ?: Absolutely, yeah, no question… NP: Yeah, thank you… ?: And David has a very good point and I’ll make a point of going back there and trying to find some of the specific documentation regarding Diphacinone – I know there’s a bunch – I’m sorry I don’t have it on the top of my head, but we – I’ve done a bunch of work with Diphacinone and I’ve looked at it enough – I’m not, you know, I definitely don’t rush to using toxins and things like that but, um, I’ve done enough research on it myself to be comfortable that it’s a safe, a safe thing to use. ?: \[Unclear\] do you have… MB: One more comment from Kona, Tom… TL: All right… JS: OK. I have a question – you mentioned that wildlife has to eat large quantities before it’s affected by the poison… 15 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: State your name first, please… JS: Ah, my name is John Sabati. So my question is – what would be the effects, if you know, if the pueo and ‘io – the Hawaiian hawk – feed these rodents that are effected by the poison to their young and what about, you know, we’re talking about the younger wildlife – like maybe keiki pigs, you know the young ‘io, the young owls? How would this poison affect them, because you’re saying large quantities – yet, we talking about young wildlife – small wildlife? ?: Well, the research that we did originally showed that they weren’t foraging on dead animals. JS: Well, not necessarily dead, because you said it takes four to five days… ?: Yeah… JS: ….for the rats to die, but what if they catch ‘em when they wandering around in a sick daze? ?: Yeah, that hasn’t been our experience. We’ve used it quite a bit. What they tend to do is hole up – once they start getting sick they hole up underground or in burrows and that kind of thing. We did a bunch of stuff with mongooses where we radio collared them and then we had two areas – some areas we had ‘em, ah, we had, ah, we treated it with Diphacinone and some areas we did not – and, ah, the areas, ah, where the animals were treated with Diphacinone – we were having to go in and dig ‘em out to get the collars back. JS: Well, I know about a guy that – here in Kona – that rehabilitates rafters and I had several conversations with him – it’s Mr. Snyder. And he treated – took care of ah owls and hawks that were affected by eating rats that were affected by poison. ?: Yeah, it can be a problem. And the second generation of anti-coagulants also, ah, can be much more of a problem – that’s why we’re not trying to get things like Warfarin or Bromethalindificon \[sp?\] and those because those are more single feed anti-coagulants so we’re not trying to get approval to use those in conservation areas. JS: That’s all I have. TL: All right, John. Um, that’s… Oh? RK: Hi, ah, Ryan Kohatsu, I used to be GMAC District 3 here, but, um, I just got a quick question – I think it was stated that this was specifically more 16 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 for fenced units – is there, ah, size of a fenced unit that this would be used in and if so, is there a guarantee that – to, at least the public concern, that none of these pigs that are – is this an inside or outside would get in or out, ah, during a process like this? ?: To tell you the truth – I don’t know off hand. The number that I’d heard before was a hundred acres. RK: A hundred acre size… ?: Yeah. RK: ….like something that can be monitored really well with fences… ?: Yeah… RK: ….and \[unclear\]. ?: And I – don’t quote me on that, I can’t remember exactly what that fence size is and in this particular document – I’d encourage you to go read the document. RK: OK. Because – then the other concern was, um, I know the Keauhou project – they had the area dispersal issue and all of that but, um, another issue was the ground boxes actually got broken into and the pigs ate the ground boxes which was actually the high concentration, which killed a bunch of them. ?: Um-hum… RK: Um… Is there – and they put the ground boxes on the perimeter so that you catch the ingress and egress of these rodents – to keep ‘em down, apparently I’m assuming. Is there any, um guarantee or something that these things – they’re gonna stay on these fenced units – is there any guarantee that these things are gonna be maintained so that someone doesn’t take home one of these sick ones or something like that, that’s actually outside of the fence? ?: Ah, yeah, they system’s designed so the pigs can’t get to it is generally… RK: But they, oh, I was told they broke the boxes – like the plastic boxes… ?: Well, that, that – you’re talking about the Keauhou drop thing… RK: Yeah, yeah. 17 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: That wasn’t in a fenced area. RK: Yeah, it wasn’t fenced, yeah. ?: That was an open area. RK: But we used the boxes outside of \[unclear\]… ?: And part of the reason that they proceeded with that drop – like I said – was because they had a problem with the testing, you know, because they had the Vitamin K in feed so that confounded everything and they didn’t find out till after so go back to the gentleman’s \[unclear\]. So, when we used it – for instance we used it for elepaio and we use it in unfenced areas, um, we, ah, put the – the stations are all put up – so dogs and pigs can’t get to them. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: Absolutely. There’s a Diphacinone to kill pigs if you wanted to. ?: I got one more question for this, I mean, before man came what was the Hawaiian hawks and owls eating? ?: Ah, I don’t know… ?: Birds… ?: Yeah, birds… ?: OK, so, so, the objection… ?: \[Unclear\] birds extinct… ?: Yeah, yeah, so that’s what I’m getting at – if you do get rid of a food source, I mean… ?: Well, I don’t think they’re eating – well there may have been Polynesian rats – I don’t know if they were here before people – I kinda doubt it… ?: Yeah. But I mean what was the hawks and owls eating then? ?: Birds… ?: And if you’re trying to protect native birds… ?: Right… 18 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: ….and if you get rid of another food source like mongoose and rats and mice – what will the hawks and the owls eat then? ?: Birds… ?: Native birds? ?: Yeah. ?: Native birds… ?: The system in balance. It doesn’t mean nothing eats nothing. ?: You did play this or the Fish and Wildlife Service did off the coast of California – you got rid of the predator for that endangered fox – \[unclear\] pigs out – so the eagles started eating the foxes. ?: Umph… ?: So now you got in a one protected species eating another… ?: Great. ?: Do you folks figure all these things out – I think Tony has a – made a very good point. ?: Yeah, I mean, the thing is a lot these systems are so disrupted already that what happens is you end up having issues – for instance – we’re trying to reintroduce alala, right? And then the io are eating ‘em – so you got one endangered species eating another endangered species so what do you do now, you know? And, ah, I’ve done the same thing out at Kure Atoll we had a, ah, I forget what it was – it was an osprey or peregrine or something of – a bird of prey flew 1,200 miles out to the end of the northwestern Hawaiian chain and it was whacking some birds that were trying to get re-established – they were just starting out up there – I think it was Tristam’s storm petrels or something really rare – yeah – I can’t remember what it was, but anyway, but my thing was, like well he got here naturally and so we should just let it go through its cycle, you know, that’s kind of my thing. I don’t like to tamper with that stuff too much, if we can avoid it, but, yeah, you do have issues like that and now you’ve got a landscape – like before in a natural condition these landscapes – you don’t have all these endangered species. Everything’s kind of in balance, you know, there’s the predator and prey cycle and things are more robust. Now we’ve altered our landscapes and our population so much that, you know, we’re tinkering so much – that you just – sometimes you don’t know 19 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 – you’re right – you just don’t know sometimes what you’re, ah, results are gonna be. We try our best but we’re certainly not perfect. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] NP: Amen. ?: Well, cause we think that, ah, we like to manage certain things like seabirds will pretty much be wiped out – the water birds will pretty much be wiped out and we just don’t want to sit and watch that happen. So we make – we have a value system to value certain things over others so - - for instance we value native seabirds and native water birds over rats and mongooses, so, we kill rats and mongooses to protect seabirds and water birds – if other people feel differently and want rats and mongooses instead then they’re welcome to comment. TL: Bryan? ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: That’s a really bad program – they shouldn’t do that. ?: I know they are – but we don’t like it. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: Ah, we would love to stop it. We’re trying to stop it. ?: I don’t think that’s good for cats or wildlife. I don’t think that’s a good life for a cat to be out there like that and at one point the National Humane Society came out and did not support that program. We’ve – I’ve looked at it extensively – I don’t think it’s good for cats – and it’s certainly not good for wildlife. TL: Ike? DY: Ah, I’ve a comment. I think what I’ve heard is and, and – Jim Cogswell, right? You’ve been to a couple of these meetings, yeah, and constantly, I think you’ve heard the cynicism and the skepticism about what you guys do, um, so my suggestion is that somewhere in the vast chambers of DLNR that some decision be made that, ah, there is some energy and, and attempt made to deal with the skepticism and cynicism because until you do that, ah, anytime you try to do some of these programs you’re gonna run into this and it’s the worst thing that can happen because we need to have these programs of control, but you cannot just come into a community and do it and, you know, there’ve been community meetings 20 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 on this item, ah, I’ve gone to a few of those, but, um, it’s answering the questions, I think, that’s important, so you’ve got to do a lot of I and E. You cannot just dismiss these questions because they’re really – they are real concerns. ?: Absolutely. I hope you don’t feel like we’re trying to dismiss them – I mean we’re trying to answer them the best we can and, and we’re welcome to get the comments – so we’re certainly not dismissing ‘em. TL: Well, um, excuse me. I want to move on. I’m not going to belabor any of this stuff except one small thing, um, you know, this term that you folks use – FONSI – finding of no significant impact – that is rampant throughout documents, ah, all through DLNR and she’s talking about 100 – I have a document from Pu’u Maka’ala has well over a thousand signatures of people that came out to make comment. When you get this finding of no significance impact from the public, um, it’s like you’re not even addressing any of them and we actually have asked for, you know, how did you address the public concerns – like in Pu’u Maka’ala for example – and we have yet to hear, um, back on, on that. And that’s not what you folks – actually I gave that to Scott – so I expect at some point they’ll get back to me but it’s rampant, I mean, it’s just over and over and over – it’s at Pu’uwaawaa or it’s just, um, you ignore \[unclear\] you’re not, but the implication is that you’re ignoring the public and we want to get into the game rules, um, here this evening – it’s the same thing there – you had pages and pages and pages of recommendations of which maybe one or two were adopted and, you know, the rest of them were, you know, no action, no action, no action, no action, um, so, but maybe before we run out of that plan that we had – maybe we could get into that – the game rules and the changes and how we might be able to go about that? ?: Ah, yeah, the game rules, they’re very important – we will be doing a revision, again, um, it’s a long process and I invite and I hope that the game commission gets up and running and we’ll work very closely with them allowing them to make their suggestions as to what needs to be changed, ah, then we’ll look at it and, and see if we can implement some of those changes and get that happening and I think with the game commission the process will go a lot smoother on the public side, hopefully and, ah, let us do that with a little less pain than it took the last time we did it, um, so I’m looking forward to working within the next year and starting to get that process moved along. TL: Ah, there will be several of us here who have comment about that – it’s last July, um, we talked about, you know, the potential for getting a group, maybe statewide or whatever together to start feeding you, you know, ideas as to how to change the rules and amend the rules and don’t get me wrong – I’m not dissing the commission.. 21 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Mm… TL: You know, I think that, that commission, you know, it needs to get implemented in the worst way, actually, for a lot of these questions that we have and that DLNR take that commission and treat them as a partner rather than just some entity that’s, you know, giving you advice or trying, you know, say what their concerns are. Um, I think some of myself – maybe I’m speaking just for myself – ah, what I’d actually like to see that process get started sooner, ah, cause that commission’s gonna take a year to get going and we’ve actually been waiting since 2007 for this revision. 2014, no, 2016 right now – that’s the – not nine years – we don’t want to go another, you know, nine years and there’s a lot of those rules that need to be changed and, um, so, I don’t know if anybody else has comment, ah, as to that or what – yes, sir? ?: Just let me think, um, didn’t we just finish a game rule revision – like we went through it for years and we just got it done like in the last couple of years, so… ?: \[Unclear\] ?: ….last year. OK. So, OK, so it’s junk – so we re-do it, but, I mean, it’s not like we have no \[unclear\] we did do a lot of \[unclear\]. TL: No, you did not, actually, and I don’t mean to argue with you about… ?: No, we did, actually. We just did it. TL: The whole idea of that was to get the money. Get the tags, get the money, get the licensing back in together. That was critical for you. You needed that $200,000 or $300,000 that you were getting from licenses and so forth and \[unclear\] this is the only thing that we’re focusing on and it… ?: That’s not what happened. It got bogged down in years of making all kinds of other changes. TL: Yeah, but \[unclear\]. ?: There was lots and lots of changes in those rules and you know what? We’ll be glad to re-do it and it can be a continuous process, we’d be glad to fire that back up again – don’t have a problem with it – so, can we get a process where we can talk to the hunters and find out exactly what it is, I mean, we could start an informal conversation without having to go through, you know, formal meetings and stuff, so, if the hunters could get 22 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 representatives that want to talk to us and tell us what it is about the rules that concern them right now and what kind of changes we want then… ?: That’s exactly what we did the last time… ?: Let’s do that. ?: \[not speaking in mic\] ?: ….changes for the rules and you did nothing with it. You just sat on ‘em and you did exactly what Tom, ah, indicated, ah, there, nobody wanted to make any significant changes. The, the… ?: They got bogged down for years in other things not having to do with the fees – it had nothing to do with the fees and the other thing is a lot of the hunters don’t agree – so sometimes they’ll say, “Hey, you shouldn’t have more than three pigs and another guy’s going, eh, yeah, I like take twelve pigs,” and then we’re talking about how many pigs, ah, dogs, you know, so then we talk about how many dogs, but the – there’s not unanimity amongst the hunter community so, you know, we do want to work with the hunter community but, as you probably know, there’s not unanimity on a lot of these things so, you know, maybe we could start like an informal community – can we start talking about what is it that – I don’t know what you’re talking about specifically Richard so, for instance, what is it that you wanted in the rules that didn’t get in the rules and let’s start talking about that – maybe not tonight, we can’t fix it tonight – but… ?: It isn’t what we want “in” it’s what we want “out.” ?: OK. What do you want out? ?: \[not speaking in mic\] ?: OK. \[Unclear\] fix it tonight, but let’s start talking about those and Jim’s gonna be in charge of that. Jim: Yeah, I think, ah, we kinda get bogged down with talking about what happened in the past and what happened in the past and what happened in the past. Ah, I haven’t been there. I wasn’t there… TL: No, I know and… Jim: ….and I’m here now and I’m and I think that we can get this ball rolling… TL: Right… 23 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 Jim: ….and I’m there to make sure that it does. TL: Let me just say that for myself and I don’t know if I speak for others here but I do speak for myself, ah, I’m encouraged by the – what you folks have been doing recently, um, I’m encouraged by the fact that you answer your phone, you write us letters, you give us – you communicate with us – Dave Smith has been, you know, the short time he’s been there he’s been excellent in communicating with us and I am personally very encouraged and I appreciate what you’re doing and the tone that you have changed, actually, ah, it was not present before and so… ?: Yeah, let’s get a process where we can start talking about these things informally and then, you know, you know, it’s like, it’s gotten so difficult to do rules – it’s you know bog down and process and there’s always technicalities but it shouldn’t be that hard – it’s not that difficult to do rules – and so if there’s things that people agree on we ought to be able to make changes relatively easily – it shouldn’t be a four or five year process to do rules. TL: If you talk… MB: This is Mark in Kona, you know, I agree 100%. It shouldn’t be four or five years… ?: Right, absolutely… MB: It shouldn’t be seven, eight, or nine… And, um, ah, you know, Jim, I look forward, um, you putting together a team, right? Of people outside DLNR that can work on this specific issue, right, and, I mean, I’ve hunted here for umpteen decades and the bag limit for birds is never changed, right – drought – no drought, you know, it’s, um, it’s not the way to manage game, right? It’s not and, um, yeah, the past is the past, but for a lot of us and a lot of the animosity here and the people stacked up in the room is the past is a predicator of the future, right? Tom commented on, hey, guys return phone calls, we’re getting maybe a hunting commission going statewide – all good – but, you know, um, that’s what people believe, you know, it happened to us before, show us why it will change. And Jim, welcome aboard – I’m glad you got the position – but, you know, what? I’d round up another two or three guys from each island – get some going – and let’s get these hunting rules on the move because they’re archaic and the process by which we can change them, ah, needs to be revised, right? And if that takes a bill – then we draft a bill and we introduce it next year to streamline this whole process, right? ?: Yeah, one really tough thing is that, um, I don’t know if I’m looking at you or I’m looking at where the camera is but, ah, I’m looking at you on the 24 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 screen, ah, a lot of the things like seasons and bag loads are set by the legislature, I mean, by rule, you know, which is a crazy way to say it because then you can’t, you can’t change based on you know what the nesting season is and that kind of thing… MB: Dave, Dave, Dave – that’s why I said – it’s archaic – it’s… D: I totally agree with you. MB: Right. D: Absolutely. MB: So let’s change the process. D: Yes. That would be great. MB: Let’s introduce a bill – take it out of the legislature’s hand – who in the legislature knows how many pheasants you should harvest? D: Exactly. Well, there may be some hunters in the legislature… MB: Or how many sheep we should be able to take on a daily… D: \[Unclear\] MB: ….or in what area – what islands can support multiple pigs versus one pig. D: Right. I agree with you. MB: Right? D: Yes. MB: So let’s, let’s use some vision and some foresight and get the team together and make it happen. D: Right. Tell us who should be on the team. I can tell you who’ll be on our team – you tell us who’s gonna be on your team. MB: We – give us a week and we’ll draft that list, OK? D: Great. Awesome. NP: Give us some paid positions. 25 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 D: Yeah. Sorry… I can’t do that… Can’t even fill our own positions. But, yeah, I totally agree with you. KD: You know, I get one comment. It seems like, you know, everybody’s smart on this and that but it’s like it’s one big joke. It’s like it’s one big joke. D: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be joking, I’m just, I just… KD: No, no, no, no. I, you know… D: \[unclear\] joke. KD: ….no apologies, but the truth going be told. So like for me, I just gotta tell it like it is. This is not one joke – whether it’s poison affecting the water… D: Oh, absolutely, I agree with you. KD: But see, when it’s all said and done and you get older, you still going live here? D: Yeah, I was born and raised here. OK. I’ll live here for the rest of my life. KD: OK. So that’s the concern I get with other people because half of the time we talk about the past because the past is when people move down here from the mainland and say, we know best. And then when they make one mistake, oh, yeah, they was fired and where they stay? We got to live with ‘em, our kids got to live with ‘em, our grandkids got to live with the mistakes – the mistakes, see? So whether it’s affecting our water with poison because of rats and mongoose cause of one bird – or the hunting rules or what have you – they gotta change – oh, well, you tell me when or we gotta go see legislation or what have you – you’re dealing with people’s lives. D: Yeah, understood. KD: OK? So to me \[unclear\] people joke it’s not, oh, well, you can comment on the website and we’ll get to it if we can attitude. You know that attitude went out the door, but… D: No, I totally hear you… KD: You cannot – you guys get paid by taxes – I listen with concern – try open up one meeting to the public and say it’s an information meeting of what we are doing with this poison – to alleviate all that questions. And not say – oh, no, put ‘em on line – because that’s one other way of saying, we’ll get to it when we can and we never. You know, we not one joke. 26 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 D: Um-hum. KD: This is real life that we’re dealing with… D: Yeah, understood. KD: ….that’s why Kona would’ve been packed and over here would’ve been packed with questions and that should be taken to heart. I’ve been sitting here listening to all this and the remarks I getting, sorry, from you, is – it’s like one character of giggles – like, ah, no, no, yeah, yeah, no, no. D: Sorry, I won’t laugh anymore about it. KD: And it’s not right. So I hearing, you know, animosity, I hearing this, I hearing that – nough. Be concerned. D: OK, I’m… KD: Hold one public meeting – but you guys no like hold one public meeting because you guys gonna have to get police officers cause going get crazy. D: Hm. KD: This is why we here – to make sure everybody get the information in the right manner – whether it’s water – oh, I cannot get you that information. Well, how can you get that information. Oh, the poison this the poison that – but you get guys saying that they – they get doctors that did this – veterinarians that asking these questions that they worked on things they did, but because it wasn’t your research you won’t take it. You cannot be like that, cannot. You’re dealing with people’s lives – I get grandsons coming – and I see with my sons and when they hunt, you know, and I feel proud. And I going be damned if I going sit here and let somebody like you think otherwise. So that’s why I’m here. So I here. And if you think Mauna Kea with this whole TMT is bad – you never see bad yet, brah, when everybody get together in a crazy way – just warning you. That’s why my job is make sure everything is neutral in my area. TMT is nothing, nothing. MB: We have a comment from Kona. D: I’m sorry if I showed disrespect, I definitely do not think otherwise, ah, I have the highest concern for clean water and what not, so, you know, I consider myself a real strong environmentalist and, and I don’t think that we’re doing things… 27 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Excuse me… ?: Let him finish… State your name – jump in – I’ll help you… David: Excuse me my name is David, I dealt with you earlier. What uncle just said is like on the spot. This is our lives, yeah? You get a pay check out of this, right? So – like when you guys come to these meetings, you guys got to be more open minded and actually listen. D: OK. I’m sorry if, you don’t \[unclear\]. David: That’s the least you can do. You guys, you guys have like a little giggling joke between the two of you guys – which is fun – whatever – but we’re not getting paid for this, you know, we’re dealing with this. Just remember that. TL: All right, I have a comment on – along those lines too, which, um, I don’t know whether it’s Molokai or rural Hawaii or the Big Island here where, um, it’s estimated we get anywhere from a ½ a million pounds or more of game, ah, that are harvested. Molokai and there was a study done or a survey done where 40% of their meals are, you know, from subsistence resources, you know, hunting, fishing, you know, back yard gardens and this sort of thing, ah, what this gentleman just said here is absolutely true of the Big Island, um, hunting and fishing is part of the economy, ah, their economy – many of them need these lands and the decisions that DLNR makes without taking them into consideration has a real affect upon the economy, ah, here and this is why you, you know, are having to deal with some of these things a little bit and may be uncomfortably at moments, but, but it is a reality that, you know, we need to and this idea of taking comments, um, you know, comments need to be addressed, I mean, it just – the environment is one thing – the birds are one thing – and I don’t think there’s a single hunter in here who wants to see those birds gone – not a one – I can probably say that, ah, with extreme confidence, but, at the same time they don’t want to see their animals gone – at the same time they want to have sustainability and, you know, we’d like to see DLNR work towards – again with that commission – and which is a question that we posed to you – how do you see yourselves working with that commission – when it gets up and running. D: I don’t really know what the exact \[unclear\] the commission would be but, you know, Jim runs the wildlife program and they’d be interacting. ?: I would envision that they would work, ah, stay in close communication with the game, our game coordinator and work every month every time there’s an issue. They’d work through – they’d have – they’d put together these committees that you were suggesting for the rule change, for 28 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 example, um, the working group to get this – the Hawaii Island game management plan together and as often as they saw fit – they – the – they’d pull it together and talk to these people and try to get an idea of – try to send them out to their individual islands to try to get consensus of what they want so that whenever we do come up with one rule change or another – that it’s not suddenly blocked by another island or by their opposition… TL: One question there that comes up there frequently is in this HB 799 which, ah, you may be familiar with – that’s the arrow shooting bill – there are no safe guards in that draft that’s out there right now, ah, and in the notes to the committee it’s referring to the fact that the game commission, you know, is liable to move through and that you would then be working with them on these issues of aerial hunting – so my question to you would be sort of how do you see or what influence do you see the commission on aerial hunting – do you want to – like for example, ah, in the watershed – outside of the critical habitat for palila, for example, you know, there was an effort by DLNR to come in and start eradicating game, ah, from outside the critical habitat so that they wouldn’t come into the critical habitat, ah, you know, those are kind of the things that get people on, you know, in here kind of exercised, you know, it just , when it’s not, when it’s not really part of your kuleana – you’re just making these decisions – without a single word to the public, and, ah, and we only heard about that by accident in the conversation that Tony had, ah, with Chairman Aila, and, so, ah, that’s a question and then Rick has a question. R: Just wanted to make a comment about game commission and the legislature – what the game commission does in most states is they set the regulations – it’s not done by the legislature – quasi legislative board appointed by a governor to represent the people – and so there’s the voice of the people is that there should be a commission \[unclear – not speaking in mic\] and that’s how if functions. And I hope to goodness that this thing, if it goes through, will function somewhat like that – if the legislature has to give up their authority on managing game and fish – \[unclear\] because otherwise, the public is not gonna have a voice and that’s what’s been a real problem with this state. The public do not have a voice and they get the feeling that DLNR don’t care, I mean, they really do – and, you know, I worked for DLNR – I worked for Montana Fish and Wildlife and Parks for thirty years – so I know how it’s done elsewhere – I know how it’s done here and I was so disgusted that I quit… ?: Hmphf. R: ….because this DLNR does not care about the people. No one is held accountable – you forget who you work for – we pay your salaries – the 29 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 people here in this state – and, um, that’s how I hope that fish and game commission works. Thank you. ?: Actually, in, ah, most jurisdictions, the fish and game commission has higher and fire authority over the head of the – your department, in most cases. TL: Not that we’re asking for your head – you understand. ?: Yeah, you know, I’m not sure how it’ll work but I – remember we talked about that Tom and there was that group prior – I forget the name of the… TL: Hawaiian Hunting Advisory Council… ?: Yeah, and that seemed to work well for a while and then it fell apart – I’m not sure what happened to that… TL: We lost our funding. ?: OK. TL: And that’s what, um, and I can see this commission working that way as well, and, you know, the funding part that they’re asking for the money that they’re asking for right now is still a puzzle. Nobody seems to be able to tell me where did that 100 grand come from, you know, and previously in last year’s bill, it was, ah, 150 or whatever it was, I forget, it was an astronomical number and, and… ?: Yeah, we have committed, um, to trying to make it work regardless of, you know, what kind of funding we get. TL: Um-hum. So, I – do you look at – in your own mind – as working with this commission as a partnership? ?: Absolutely, yes. TL: A voting partner… ?: A what? TL: A voting partner… ?: A voting partner – I don’t know how it will be structured but we certainly intend to work with hunters on that, yeah. 30 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: Ah, you know, Rick’s right, you know, people from here feel that they’ve more or less been abandoned, you know, we’ve, ah, get lip service in the past – and I’m not addressing this to you, too, um, we’re rolling \[unclear\] by what we’ve seen so far and, ah, the previous have been very secretive about everything and, ah, so we’re moving on... KD: I get one more question, I know this, you know, this water thing which is bothering me – do you guys even consider the County waterworks and when this – when they got to treat the water and stuff – do you guys actually touch bases with them if there’s anything with this water that is OK or if there’s any kind of situations they come across, I mean, do you guys even touch bases with that department? DS: Yeah, we work closely with the county boards of water. KD: OK. DS: And so a lot of the work that we do, ah, relative to watersheds and water, ah, quality and whatnot and quantity, ah, we work very closely with boards of water supply and in fact, we want to work even more closely with boards of water supply, cause that really is the crux of the matter in a lot of the water cases is, ah, water use by people. TL: I’d like to get back to HB 799, ah, and the aerial shooting. How, without, there are no check points or safeguards, um, within 799 right now and it’s \[unclear\] shooting time, anyplace, anywhere, um, sort of, yeah, there’s none there – they’re each – house draft 1 had limitations as to remote and inaccessible and \[unclear\] and, um, so how do you plan on affecting those flights, I mean, what criteria and what and how are hunters and other local people, ah, as far as salvage and being able to hunt and bringing numbers down and does that ever enter into the equation if you see they got too many numbers – the numbers are too high, we have to bring them down – if hunters went in there and brought them down to a much lower level would that satisfy you – you’d say, “Well, OK, maybe we don’t have to shoot now by aerial,” um, shooting – any one of those things that… DS: So we use aerial now, it’s a really effective tool in certain areas. We’ve – a lot of it’s been vetted really carefully with the hunting community so, for instance, a lot of the work that we did on Molokai we worked through the hunting community for many years and, I think, you know, it’s an on-going process back and forth conversation, but, so, we use it now. It’s not going to change the way we operate necessarily, you know, and so it’s not like a – all of a sudden there’s gonna be, you know, lots of aerial shooting or something – it’s not going to change the way we’re going about it – the one thing that I know that we’ve had some problems where, um, there was a couple of operations – my understanding is that, you know, it wasn’t 31 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 performed maybe the way people wanted to see it performed or, you know, there’s issues – like there’s a couple of red flag issues – like hot button ones – that people really didn’t like and, um, I can tell you my approach – so when I first came in with DOFAW and I was a biologist on Oahu we used to do all of the nuisance pig control – so if somebody had a problem with pigs – tearing up their back yard, golf course, or whatever – any kind nuisance – they would, ah, contact us and we would go out and do the work. I would go out and do trapping, snaring, hunting, you know, whatever it took and then the Oahu Pig Hunters Association came to me and they said, “How come you guys are doing this? We’ll do this stuff for free.” And I said, “Great!” And so we got a deal right – that was it – I never did anymore pig control after and we had points of contact at the Oahu Pig Hunter Association and they – from then on – I had, you know, one guy that would call pig hunters - I got a pig complaint, call Oahu Pig Hunter Association and they would take care of it and they handled all, you know, who would get dispatched and what area it was, who was the appropriate person to handle this particular situation and they did a really good job and for years it was a fabulous relationship where they did that work for us and so I kinda look at this as the same type of situation where if there are things that the hunters can to help us accomplish our management goals – that’s great – and we should do everything we can to make that the top priority. And, in fact, hunters already do a lot of that stuff, you know, I mean, if we didn’t have hunting for a lot of these animals they’d be a complete nuisance – they’d be tearing up all the golf courses and everybody’s back yards and so, ah, and destroying the forest and so the hunters already are a major contributor, probably the – without question – the largest contributor on animal control in the state and so I think we should work very closely with the hunters to do this kind of work and that should be the first crack so, and it’s, and, you know, I hope that is what’s going on and if it isn’t than we just need to target, you know, I think a lot of these things where, ah, a lot of the issues are communication issues and I just think we need to improve the communications but I certainly would support, ah, in every case, making sure that the hunting option was exhausted before we move to other means. TL: Yeah, and I appreciate that process actually, um, the, where we get a little concerned is, um, like this thing on Mauna Kea, for example, you know, to try and eradicate outside of the critical habitat, ah, to prevent them from coming in to the critical habitat. \[Unclear\] I mean that was just something out of the blue that was dropped by accident, ah, in a conversation and how that was discovered and there’s no communication with the – not us – not the public that I’m aware of at all, you know, \[unclear\] and so, you know, and I appreciate that open communication channels that you’re encouraging, you know, I think that that’s a good thing, ah, anybody have any questions on that subject? 32 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 MB: Hey, Tom, I, yeah, it’s Mark in Kona – I got a couple of comments, right? Um, ah, yeah, the bad experiences you spoke about, um, happened on this island. 1) above Kona on Holualoa when there was a cattle shoot from aircraft and the other was in Kohala where I’m told no firing happened from the helicopter but hunters were delivered via helicopter to eradicate goats, right, so – no communication – next to neighborhoods, lots of gun fire. Actually, there were hunters in the forest during the cattle eradication in Holualoa – so you had guys on the ground hunting in the state forest reserve while the helicopter was shooting cows, right? That’s what you get when you get no communication, um, yeah, I believe you that on Molokai that the communication was probably good, so we have maybe – reasonable communication – we have no communication, um, my issue, honestly guys – is there’s no process that we know about, right? So when you go to shoot and use a helicopter to do it or deliver hunters via helicopters to cull animals, ah, the process is anything but transparent, right? That decision is made by somebody within DLNR and \[unclear\] the board of DLNR has relegated its responsibility in authority and given it, um, to the head of DLNR, right, so, the check and balance on when to use aircraft to cull or eradicate is a mystery to a lot of people and I think what the hunting community – there are probably many in the hunting community who would say you should never do it – while there are others in the hunting community that say it’s probably a reasonable tool, um, if the appropriate process is followed, right, so, in a fenced area where the goal is zero animals – got it – understood that, um, but, you know, the reason we have Mauna Keas is because there’s no animal management – right? There’s no game plan. When you let thousands and thousands and thousands of sheep run around Mauna Kea, eat all the food, begin to chew mamane trees cause that’s all they had left – create massive dust storms – right? Well, you get to the point where you didn’t manage the herd – it’s too excessive – now we get sued – it’s in federal court and the state is mandated to remove the animals. So I got two points, one is a point and one is a question is – the point is – if we have a plan for Pu’uwaawaa or a forest reserve or Pu’uanahulu or wherever it is – Ka’u Forest – about how many animals are acceptable in that – we can manage to that number of animals, right? Um, but that is absent – it is wildly absent, right? So that – if we do that correctly odds are the use of a helicopter to cull animals will be slim. But when we use a helicopter to cull animals or eradicate animals, man, it’s just like the process may be different on Molokai than it is on the Big Island, on Maui, or, and it’s not transparent – it’s not transparent – and I tell you – if you guys – my advice is make that process transparent, really, really transparent – what’s our goal, how we’re going about it, why do we get to this decision, what alternative means and be really public about that and, um, if you don’t, it won’t be a good thing – it won’t be a good thing – and the issue with 799 is it lays out none of that – zero – there’s no check, there’s no balance – there’s no oversight. And believe me – when we’ve had chats with Kekoa 33 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 and Emma and Suzanne and, ah, you know, I don’t know that we’re moving the needle at all but it’s important, it’s really, really important. TL: I just have one question to follow-up there… DS: I agree with you… TL: ….um, where is the money coming from for the eradication on Mauna Kea, for example? ?: Section six… ?: Probably Section 6… ?: I think it’s Section 6, Federal Funds, Federal Grants for Endangered Species and probably some \[sounds like SWIG\] funds. TL: The – do you know how many animals were left up there? Do – anybody have any idea? There he is… ?: Ah, we don’t have a good estimate but I would say there’s probably a hundred or less. TL: Why not at this point stop shooting and try and keep \[unclear\] with hunters at this point going forward? ?: Well, it’s open for hunting everyday so people are welcome to go up. TL: \[Unclear\] ?: ….the court order asked for zero – that’s what we’re trying to comply with. TL: Is there any reason for it to be zero? No, I’m serious… ?: Well, that’s a good question. TL: Should DLNR maybe start looking at saying, hey, you know what, we’re at a level now, let’s stop the eradication and let’s change this zero mandate and let’s work at keeping them at manageable levels. DY:: So, Tom, to follow-up on what was said previously, you know, I, for me it has always been dealing with DLNR – it has been dealing with a failure of our resource management policy and unfortunately you guys have to deal with this because you’re on the line – you’re the flack catchers – but until somebody in a position of authority decides that our game mammals are a resource to be managed, um, we’re gonna continue having these 34 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 discussions and you guys are gonna come up and be flack catchers, so, my suggestion to you guys is to change that policy – the same thing – you know, we’re talking about game mammals – you can say about Aquatics and the aquatic resources. So the State of Hawaii has to begin to do resource management – all resources – not just the sexy birds, you know, you have to do it for everything and I think some of the frustration that you hear is that hunters and fishermen have been left out of that process and so our interests are not heard and so I would suggest to you that you start making some noise on our behalf… NP: Or sincerely, sincerely convince us that you can wear two hats. MB: Hey, we got a question and comment from Kona to Hilo. Introduce yourself. D: Hi, my name’s Darcy, um, I went over to hunt in Hilo for wild cattle – that was managed by DLNR – so how come you guys no open more programs like that for the rest of the island – like up Mauna Kea for the sheep or goats or pigs and all that? If you let the hunters do that – that going maintain most of the population on most animals, ah? Instead of restricting them. ?: Yeah, the public cattle hunt we worked for many years to set that up and it’s been working successfully for two years now but the goal of that program is to remove the cattle from the forest reserve because of all the damage they’re doing to the forest. I don’t know if you noticed the difference between Hawaiian Homes and the Forest Reserve, but there’s no regeneration of any trees in that upper section, so that’s why we’re building the fence across from Hakalau Refuge over to, ah, the top of the forest and our goal is to remove most of the cattle from that area with public hunting – so that’s what we’re doing now. ?: I understand that – I seen it when I went – but how come you guys no open more like that for manage everything else, now you going try and manage the forest and all that and keep it going but if you no let the hunters go in and you guys going just eradicate and shoot and from the helicopter and stuff, how you going keep everybody happy and sustain everything and you gotta let – try open up more programs for that… ?: Do you have other areas that you would suggest a similar program to the cattle hunt? ?: No – wherever you guys get problems with that kind stuff. Let the hunters help out. If it’s land locked, find out if we can get a way to within – get access to get into that area – then let the hunters help and then you guys helping out the hunters – they feeding their families, like me, I got to catch 35 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 two pigs a month for feed my family. I get nine people in the house. I make $13.00 an hour. I’m very scrape by on what I make. I can barely go hunt with what I make. I get hard time drive up Mauna Kea for go look for sheep cause I no more money for put gas. I can go in my back yard for catch pig, but if I get chance for hunt cattle some place, that’s four hundred pounds of meat I can put in my freezer – I’m all up for it – I’ll scrape up that money to go and catch one cow. And if I can shoot more than one, I go shoot more than one. If I can take more people with me for go help out, I’ll take more people with me – but got to get more programs like that for help out. If there no more that kind program – how you going manage anything, how you going manage all the game and all the forest and the birds – from the mountain to the ocean, right, I fish, too, I pick opihi, I catch crab. I do all that kind stuff too, I was born and raised on this side of the island, I grew up contact – grew up hunting, fishing, trying to survive. When you dig out of somebody else’s freezer and then you come to game management – when I see one sow with babies I leave that pig – I look for the other one. I look for the ohe, I look for the boar and me, myself, I’d rather eat the boar. Everybody like the sows because they fat, but I no like the sow – the sow is the one that bring the animals. Even the wahine goats – that’s the ones that bring the animals – you get one, two drop one time – so even the sheep same thing – how you going manage that? You got to let everybody help. If you no like make one program or save anything out for the public how is anybody gonna know and how they going help manage everything if you guys no let anybody help manage anything like the hunters, how we going do it? Cause like I was told, the hunters are the stewards of the land. We the ones that maintain the population of the animals, we the ones that try to help keep the forest going cause without the forest we ain’t got nothing – without the forest we ain’t got food, we ain’t no animals, we ain’t got no \[unclear\], we ain’t got no water, so, what you guys going do for help the hunters out and the rest of the body – the people on the island for keeping all that going? Like open up more programs – that would help out. ?: Well, we’re definitely open to any additional programs that you guys can suggest to us. The cattle hunt was a good situation where we were able to do that and I wish it was open 7 days a week – they… ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: Well in the \[unclear\] presently it’s only open weekends and holidays. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] those are the things that need to be changed. ?: And I would say that there was conflicting, ah, we had people that didn’t want it open 7 days a week with, from the hunting community so we get different, um, perspectives from different constituents. 36 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: But if an area is slated for eradication it shouldn’t matter and then the rules have flexibility to allow that in an area that needs to be eradicated… ?: I would agree with that. We should be able to issue… ?: The rules should apply differently that you can get more people in there and make use of that food… ?: I agree with you on that. ?: \[Unclear – not speaking in mic\] ?: Yeah, and we are able to issue control permits for those situations. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] TL: I think a game plan… I have a question, you know, Mark earlier was talking about managing to a level – you know – when he was talking about game. One of things that, you know, we have always wanted to see and have been – and this commission has been asking for is to manage game in the watershed and, you know, know what’s in there, know what the impact is and, ah, and then try and manage it for a sustainable number and, um, and I know that’s one of the things that the commission would like to do as well, but, is there some program or process – I know that, ah, he just walked in here and I forgot his name, um, this is bad when you get age, um, but, um, Kanalu, is, you know, trying to, you know, do a census of animals and stuff, um, why aren’t we doing that in various areas and, you know, coming up with a number. You know this area can sustain so many animals and, ah, when you do have endangered plants and these other things that you’re working with as well, so that you can try to work towards a forest without fences instead of having these fence plots everywhere, you know, to, and if you have ever used that area without dogs – to open it up for dogs if you need to bring the numbers down, you know, dramatically for a period. ?: I agree. I think that’s something we should work towards, ah, presently we have one biologist in Hilo to manage all of the east side and we have one biologist in Waimea to manage the whole west side so we’re short of staffing but we’re definitely would like to look at doing those types of things in certain areas. TL: Speaking of money, um, you were going to talk to us about the Wildlife Revolving Fund for a few minutes. How much money is in there right now? 3. Jason Omick – Wildlife Revolving Fund and Outreach improvements. 37 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 JO: Ah, currently there is $317,000 dollars revenue so far this year, ah, we’ve spent this year FY 16 - $221,000 - $222,000 of that and the balance currently is $141, 675. So this is a – the revolving fund – money comes into it from the Hawaiian – the tags and license fees and other things that we charge, um, because it’s a fund that can kind of fluctuate from year to year, um, we’d like to maintain a healthy balance in there so that when we do need state wildlife funds for one reason or another, um, we want to have that option so, so we’re looking to maintain a balance. Last year we made less because we didn’t have the fees that we have available to us this year and, ah, we made revenues of $222,000, expenditures of $170,000, and at the end of the year we had a balance of $56,000, which is a little bit low for emergency funds, so we’d like to pick that up and this year looks like we’re going to, um, but those funds they pay for personnel, as well as, a lot of operations, ah, currently it’s about a 50/50 split. We have four state employees that are on this fund that gets funded. TL: You know, I have a question. One of the questions that I have personally and we hear periodically is how much of that money is spent for the actual game mammal enhancement and can that money be used alongside federal money – in other words – if you have a federal grant where you’re using federal money for a project, for birds or whatever it might be, or for plants or what have you – can you use this Wildlife Revolving Fund Money for enhancing game mammals? ?: Yes, where it’s appropriate. TL: What does that mean? ?: That means as long as we’re not putting at risk endangered plants and animals like with the… TL: Who comes up with that criteria? ?: An, that’s the law… TL: No, well, how does the law tell you what is at risk? If I have a pig at this section of a 40,000 acre parcel how is that gonna affect something, you know, six miles away. ?: Ah, it probably won’t, but if you’ve got 100 pigs in an area of pristine native forest than they’re obviously going to be eating that forest, eating those plants - so, so, what we do – there are places where, where managing for wildlife, manage the game species is appropriate and those funds can be spent on that, but we need to make sure that those places are what we say they are because we’re liable for that. 38 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: You know, the only thing that troubles me about that is that the law isn’t science. ?: True enough, but the law is the law. TL: Well, yeah, but, you know, science is science is too… ?: Yeah… TL: ….and the law has to address, you know, what… ?: But there are ways to use to get around the law and that’s the HCP process that we’re going through in Pu’uwaawaa and on Maui they’re trying… TL: That twelve year process that’s gonna take 8 more years before we \[unclear\] game animal in there… ?: \[Unclear\] better. It will, we’ll find other ways to get around that in Maui we’re trying another slightly different approach but still considering all the variables, considering the impacts of the species, of the game species, on native species – just trying to make a little more – simplify the process – so we’re working with law enforcement and with biologists, with scientists to try and come up with those ideas and implement them. It’s complicated but we can do it and the Wildlife Revolving Fund can be used in those situations where we’re not breaking state law if, ah, federal law is a little more flexible in terms of plant – endangered plants – they don’t have as strict laws as we do, but if we can, so, in places like Pu’uwaawaa if the federal government decides not to give us an OK, ah, a biological opinion that says that we can go ahead and enhance game mammals there – we can use our own state funds if we have this HCP which is approved by our state DLNR and therefore gets around the state environmental species law. TL: Where is this process right now? ?: We have – just had the public hearings for the draft HCP, ah, it went very well, so now we take the comments that we did, we did receive – the few comments that we did receive – we address those and we will present it to the ESRC and I think the ERSC – well they’ll consider it – and hopefully they will accept it and move it on to, ah, suggest to the board that they accept the HCP, so, we’re amazingly close to the end of it – to having the HCP - to be able to implement that. TL: So you would say when? 39 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Six months, I hear… With any luck. No, it’s, that’s moving forward quite nicely at this point. And we had great public hearings that were participated in. TL: You have a gentleman here with a question? Would somebody give him the… Excuse me, ah, state your name so we can get it on record please… NP: On the bottom… JN: My name is Joel Nakamoto, um, so related to that comment that you said what specific areas, ah, you know, where game can be propagated and have sustainable hunting, um, on this island can you give us a list of what areas those are? And if you can’t tonight, you know, could you provide that list to the commission? And I say that because lot of times, you know, we’re looking at these bills that are coming through and I see all these comments from opposing recognizing the game mammals and the game birds and aerial shooting and, um, they’re saying, well, it’s OK to have them in these specially managed area, um, but I don’t know where those are and quite frankly, I don’t think there’s any that exist on the list – if you put one together – and that would be helpful to us – to me anyway – to know where game – sustainable game mammal hunting can happen on this island – so at least when we submit testimony – when we try and, um, you know, give our input to these processes – at least we know where we’re talking about because lot of times you’re looking at – I mean, I have the Chairperson’s commentary on the resource, ah, you know, designation for the game mammals and, ah, it’s always 700,000 acres on Big Island, um, but we all know that it’s not 700,000 acres, um, and, but, you know, it’s hard to write the whole history of hunting in the past 30 years in a one page testimony when you’re trying to be succinct and you’re trying to be convincing so, um, if, if, the DLNR could provide that list to us and, and, you know, we can use it and if it’s zero – then maybe staff when they do comment they can be honest and say actually we got no sustainable hunting, um, we got control of animals, we offer hunting opportunities, but we don’t have a sustainable hunting program, um, but I’m talking too much. Is there anything, any, any, areas of the list that you can tell us now? ?: Well, the Pu’uwa’awa’a HCP will provide that area for mammal game enhancement. The other areas where game mammals exist, um, they’re plenty of them that aren’t scheduled to eradicate. You’re not, we’re not trying to eradicate game mammals on all of Hawaii, so where they exist they can continue to exist. We can promote hunting there, we cannot enhance the population. So as long as what we’re doing – and that’s how we do a lot of what we do – as long as what we’re doing isn’t increasing the mammal population in that area then we can manage – then we can 40 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 allow hunting – we can set bag limits so that it’s not, you know, eradication… DY: Wait. That’s like, ah, I don’t know what you call that, but that’s like double talk, you’re, I mean, if you don’t, if you cannot manage the mammal population you’re not managing. ?: We can manage the mammal population, we just keep it from getting bigger. DY: Well, yeah, but, you, you don’t even, excuse me for taking this tack, but you don’t even do that now. NP: Can you do genetic selecting – trying to improve the genetics – can you, um, target \[unclear\] males and leave the females alone? Can you do that? Is that too enhancing? ?: Ah, we have done that in Pu’uwa’awa’a with our hunts for the sheep and goats. NP: Hawaiian Homes Lands – they say they do that. They’re trying to do that. TL: \[not speaking in mic\] probably a little more thorny, right. ?: Yeah, that provides the water for the Hilo community. TL: Really? I didn’t think we got service for the Hilo community… ?: Well, that is why the watershed was set up originally, because we did collect surface water. TL: Are we doing that now? ?: No. TL: So, um, you know, if you’re not doing something, you know, rules need to be changed… DY: So might I suggest that there be some process that is started that we can participate in to do some of this management – this game management or aquatics resource management? You know, so that I don’t have to say what I just said… ? \[Not speaking in mic\] TL: State your name and turn the thing on. 41 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] thank you. I are an engineer, um, I don’t understand how we talk about managing an animal population. How do we do that when we don’t know what we have? If I gave you a job, Jim, and described what the job was – we said I’ll give you staff to do it, but I didn’t tell you how many people were gonna be on your staff, how could you manage it. So the first order of business before anything can be managed is you have to know what you have – you have to do species surveys. Those, those data do not exist anywhere and if we going back again – the last time this was done was in the 1970s by Giffan. There’s no other surveys been done and no published data. You need to do that. You can talk about game management plans and game this and game that – until you get the resources to go out and find out what you have there is no way on earth you can manage it – so quit using the term “manage,” thank you. ?: So, I think, so, Richard, I think in a lot of cases what we’re doing is just trying to, ah, managing populations, like these are extremely prolific populations and in the \[unclear – sounds like literature\] it’s really difficult to determine the exact densities of pigs and what not and so what we do a lot of times is just look at different parameters instead of just knowing exactly how many animals are there. What are some of the other things that are important to you, so, is the forest in such a condition that it’s acceptable. Are the hunters getting enough animals where, ah, they’re satisfied with that? Are there enough hunting days – so looking at things like – if it’s only open on weekends and state holidays – should we open that up daily, you know, that kind of thing. But a lot of it’s just applying enough pressure where we can keep things in balance, so, Ike was talking about balance, and so that’s, a lot of times that’s it – you’re just regulating pressure to achieve your management goals on the ground, um, and so, sometimes we get a little too fixated, I think, on the exact numbers, but what you’re really looking for is outcomes and what we’re looking for – what I’ve done on Oahu a lot, we’re looking for outcomes, ah, in the hunting community where the hunters are satisfied, so we’ve opened up a lot our areas on Oahu to year around daily cause we were getting a lot of feedback that, you know, why is this area only open on weekends and then these guys are poaching all week too, you know, and there wasn’t enough enforcement – so my thing was like we’re just – we \[unclear\] poachers because poachers can hunt during the week and nobody else kind and all the law abiding guys aren’t doing it so working with DOCARE and working with the hunting community we ended up opening up a lot of areas so it’s, it’s daily, and the other thing that, I think, there, you know, the science is tough. It’s hard to nail down the science on pigs and pig management and densities and all that sort of thing, so, what we’re looking at doing is just trying to provide a level of satisfaction in the hunter community so we started fooling around with some of the seasons and 42 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 maybe fooling around isn’t the right – we experimented with some of the seasons and what we found out is between weekends and, ah, state holidays versus year-around daily – we had the same outcomes – only the hunters are happy because it spread out the hunting effort more, you know, so some guys could only hunt during the week – so we had a lot more hunter satisfaction – so to me that was a measureable – hunter satisfaction – and we increased hunter satisfaction by doing that and so that – in a lot of cases what we’re looking at – in a situation where it’s very difficult to monitor the science is difficult and so we’re trying to look for other things and when to me one of – a really important criteria and I, you know, tell me if you disagree, would be hunter satisfaction, and if hunters are satisfied with the way the situation is now. Some of it, Ike, just to go back to your fishery example, I think, for instance, with fisheries we’d have lots of rules in place but I don’t think we have adequate resources to enforce them properly and, and so, um, that’s another issue, you know, if we – you know, I always say let’s not make new rules if we’re not enforcing the ones we already got – and so let’s try to and so that’s part of my thing too with game management is let’s try to set up rules that are enforceable – so if you’re not able to enforce weekends only – you might as well – and you know guys are hunting all week – you might as well open it up daily, you know, especially in the case where the hunters agree with that approach and so that’s the sort of thing, I think a lot of it’s just regulating pressure and keeping animals at a point where you feel like you get enough animals, you know, the take is good enough. MB: Just a quick comment… Tom, Mark in Kona. TL: Go ahead. MB: Um, I believe it was Dave who just spoke, um… DS: Yes, sir… MB: Ah, you know, I, I, a lot of the comments tonight and I happen to be one of them is, ah, the department’s role is a trustee role, right, so the people in this room are beneficiaries – you’re our trustee, right, um, because your job is to manage the resource. Um, in, in, I think, it is for perpetuity, right, so, um, I’m glad the guys on Oahu who are hunting pigs right now are satisfied, but I think what’s more important are their grandkids gonna have the opportunity to hunt pigs. Now we could sit here and you could say, hey, they breed so fast we’ll never get rid of them, blah, blah, blah. You know, I could argue one way or another but I think, um, you know some of the comments about data recognizing they’re hard to acquire, um, that’s what we – when you come to a crowd like this – it’s, yeah, guys got to feed their family this week but at the same time they recognize that their kids’, kids, kids’ have to have the opportunity to hunt it and be successful 43 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 because it’s a resource and in many communities I got to get two pigs a month to feed my family, right? And if it’s that important for these people – then some form of plan – I think it’s worth putting it together and I recognize that we may be dealing with crappy day to begin with but if we don’t start it will never get better, right? And because we can’t enhance ‘em doesn’t mean we can’t manage ‘em. So I would just say, I’m glad you had the success on Oahu, um, but I think the expectation’s gonna be higher than that for a lot of people, right, because your job is to manage in perpetuity the resource for future generations because you’re the trustee. TL: Is that in fact your mission plan in – for perpetuity? Is that written down anywhere as part of your… ?: Yes, in statute 183D… NP: For wild cattle also? Pipikala… ?: Ah, says game… NP: You consider them game? ?: No… NP: No… So… TL: What 183 has perpetuity – that word perpetuity in it? ?: It says that we are to protect and promote hunting and game… TL: You will protect and preserve… ?: Yeah. Preserve. Perpetuity. TL: That constitutes perpetuity? OK. Then, um, you know these satisfied hunters on Oahu that you were speaking of, um, the governor’s new day in Hawaii doesn’t seem to belie that because it clearly states that all ungulates in most of Oahu and in all of our watershed here – are to be removed. I mean that – is their number one priority – so where does this perpetuity thing actually enter into that, um… ?: Well, ah, just speaking for Oahu, ah, and I know all the islands – the resources are different – the demographics are different – so, I’m not gonna speak for all the island – I’m just trying to tell you that we have had success on Oahu working with hunters and so, you know, hopefully some of those models can translate or, you know, we can just figure out on the 44 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 other islands. Again, it goes back to communication and trying to work together and that’s what we’re trying to foster here. MB: Nah! I appreciate that Dave, I do, I do, I mean, I’m not taking away what you’re done on Oahu, I think that’s an awesome step – I just – forward looking, perpetuity, you know, um, we gotta start someplace, yeah, and I’m glad it went well there, so, I didn’t mean that as a jab in the eye. DS: No, that’s fine and I totally recognize the different islands are different, you know, and the populations are different, the resources are different, you know, all the way across the board, so I’m not saying that, you know, what did on Oahu is gonna translate everywhere, but I’m just trying to say that was an example of how we did work with hunters and we have had success, um, you know, as a biologist I don’t, you know, I’d come at it kinda from a scientific side and that’s why I’m saying – like with some of the surveys and stuff – you could look in the literature and you look at a biological, you know, a book on doing wildlife surveys when you, you know, you can look in there and there’s all kinds of different and how to survey ‘em and all kinds of different methods – when you look under feral pigs they basically say there’s no good methods for feral pigs and so I don’t want to just do things just to get data that really doesn’t really mean anything – I’d rather get – you know, I’d rather have metrics that are important and I and if we can find some metrics that are important to hunters and we can hit those metrics, you know, maybe it isn’t going to be – maybe it doesn’t matter what the density is or what the total population is. Those may not be the things that matter. The things that matter are how much – what’s my catch per unit effort, ah, which is, you know, when I go out in the field can I get pigs, you know, am I getting enough pigs and are there enough areas for me to hunt and so, that’s, you know, some of the things, you know, just changing the metrics is something that’s really important to the hunters rather than density or total population size which maybe doesn’t mean that much, but the question is – can I get a pig when I go out in the field, so I’d rather focus on metrics that are something that really means, you know, what, you know, me bringing pigs home, you know, that’s just the approach – that’s what I’m trying to get to. And the other thing we’ve done and I don’t say on Oahu again – I’m sorry, I’m from Oahu but, you got to forgive me for that, but, um, you know, for instance on Oahu we have fenced a number of areas and we fenced 6,000 acres of forest but we’ve also added 17,000 acres to where, you know, like plus 11,000 acres of areas that are accessible to hunters, so, you know, we are trying to add to the inventory and so that would be a big thing for me – adding to the inventory – looking at land acquisition programs – where we can get more areas and even if, you know, the densities are relatively low or we have to maintain them at a relatively low population, you know, we have a balance going on so we were managing for multiple things but if we can get more areas for more accessibility for hunters providing more 45 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 opportunity, you know, and spreading the load out, ah, so that, you know, people have more areas to hunt. And the other thing to me like, I’m staying on Oahu, is like why are we fixated on the top of the mountain – why do you guys have to walk for two or three hours to get pigs? You know, I got a buddy of mine who lives on my street, he comes home at – he gets off work at 3:30 – comes home he has time to drive 15, 20 minutes down the road and get a quick hunt in and get, you know, go out and get a, you know, a 120 pound pig or something. Hunts some goats just close by – low down – rather than having to drive all the way across the island and make it a full day expedition – so, you know, some guys want to do the expedition and go way out and make it day and some people might want to hunt closer and so part of our focus has been trying to provide more opportunities that are closer and the access is better and they’re down close where the pigs are creating a nuisance too – for instance, in Honolulu we had an area that wasn’t open at all for pigs because it was – for hunting at all – because it was perceived as being too dangerous to hunt in – it was all residential areas all the way around and, and kind of fingers of residential going into the forest and we opened it up for pig hunting – dog and knife – so we have dogs and knife hunters with residential areas in close proximity and we had some issues, you know, like right away we killed somebody’s pet pig, you know, and they actually were both attorneys, you know, so I thought, oh, my God, you know, this program’s dead, we’re doomed, you know, but the people in the community, we had talked to them about it enough where they recognized the value of the hunt – and even though we had some issues and we had actually several incidents where hunting dogs got in and killed people’s pets – whether they were – one was goat, one was a pet pig, one was some chickens or something – you know, and it was bad and that was a problem, a serious problem when we considered, you know, God do we need to shut this down – is this not gonna work – but the community – we’d actually go out and talk to the community and the community at large recognized that the hunters had value in that forest and that without them – those pigs were coming out of the forest, getting into people’s back yards and rototilling causing more problems – so even with those types of issues – which were serious issues, I mean, I don’t want in any way to make light of the fact that, you know, people’s hunting dogs got in and killed somebody’s pet – that’s horrible, um, and we had some altercations with hiking dogs too, but the community still recognized the value and so that’s the kind of thing that I would like to see more of where the value that hunters bring by putting pressure on these populations it’s a win-win, you know, you get rid of some of the nuisance factor from the pigs or whatever animals that you’re going after, but you also have some value – you definitely have some value on the hunting side, you know, and you’re bringing meat home – so that’s the kind of things we’re looking at. 46 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 RS: I got a question on, yeah, it’s Rick Shane again, I just got a question on DLNR’s authority to manage wildlife or game animals, um, on other lands other than state owned. Do you have authority to manage on federal property or is it just state owned lands. I know you don’t on state, ah, excuse me, on private lands, but the wildlife \[unclear\] are not owned by the state, correct? ?: Correct. RS: So, if they’re on - say Hakalau Wildlife Refuge – does the state manage those at all – have anything to do with managing? ?: No. RS: So like up on the national park nothing to say about the management of those? ?: No those – they manage their own wildlife. RS: For game animals, yeah, OK. All right, um, what was the question? What about state lease land? ?: If we lease it we can manage it. It depends on the terms of the lease, though. RS: So like on Lanai – Lanai you have lease land? ?: Like on Lanai… RS: Yeah. ?: Exactly. RS: OK. ?: If we can lease it we can manage it. ?: Yeah. TL: I only have just one question - you’re speaking of leases. What’s happening with Kipuka Aina Hou. ?: Ah, Kipuka Aina Hou that’s an issue that’s been, ah, we’ve been talking about it a lot lately, in fact, just today, Dave Penn and Joey was – we were talking with them, ah, trying to find a solution, ah, actually just, they were more there just to just answer questions for the commission that was 47 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 meeting today and tomorrow, um, and we were talking through – there’s issues – they’re having issues with their beneficiaries who do not want to, ah, allow public hunting on their lands, um, we’re looking at different options to help them manage – manage their lands and DLNR would be happy to help them if they’re willing – to accept our help and hopefully along with that those arrangements \[unclear\] re-open the hunting that we had and we won’t put at risk the hunting on other lands – other DHHL lands that we currently hunt on, which are now at risk. And we’re going to bat with you on that – for that – cause we don’t want you to lose that land, ah? TL: Yeah, no, Tony was lamenting that right now you can’t go anywhere on the island sheep hunting. ?: I gonna add on to Joe’s comment about not having places to go – but I’m not trying to go backwards or anything, I’m just talking about this. Specifically, like some place like Kipuka Aina Hou, Pu’uwa’awa’a, Pu’uanahulu. Pu’uwa’awaa/Pu’uanahulu in particular being someplace people hunt goats and sheep – I’m gonna specifically talk about sheep. We have data like and our harvest data rates go down over the decades – I mean, it is drastically down from what it used to be. Maybe it was too much back then, but it’s definitely hardly anything today, um, when we talk about these places like where you can manage something – when you let harvest rates go down that far to a point where OK now we have nothing but we still have to hold a hunt because the administrative rules mandate it – now, that’s the – the message it gives us is this is an eradication kind of place – this is the place that you cannot have numbers – ACP is supposed to try and address that but, of course, long process. Kipuka Aina Hou would be another example. Now, we got rid of a bag limit because it is – kinda this environmental priority place – although it doesn’t have a very large native forest – it’s only on about a portion of it – but if it comes – this thing we’re OK no bag limit – forget it – oh, if it somehow ends up at zero, say you guys kill ‘em all, no big deal, right, like that’s a – it’s a junk state for the hunters but it’s a good state for kind of the more environmental side of it so, um, the message they’re getting on every – on all of these areas is that there’s no place we can keep any of these things and the rules dictate that so, you know, it’s a really, to really make some headway or some forward way on this – there’s gotta be like some kind of level of confidence that, hey, HCP is one, \[unclear\], but, hey, we actually want to keep ‘em somewhere, just OK we don’t have anywhere – but be truthful or if you do – well, that statement has to come at some point and maybe there’s all kinds of political factors and we’re all aware of those things but, I’m just saying, you know, I’ve seen it over the years – from a kid to what I am today, um, it’s, that’s the message, that’s the message the folks get, is, I mean, I’m just talking about sheep – and Dave was very smart in saying that there are differences between pigs and sheep – we 48 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 talk a lot about pigs and that’s where, you know, the majority of hunters hunt is pigs – I understand that – but if sheep are gonna be some valuable things specifically to people on Big Island then that’s needs to become somewhat of a priority considering that OK we got pigs kind of everywhere and I’m not trying to denigrate one of the other, I’m just saying that – there – we’re gonna lose them faster then we’re gonna lose pigs – so, um, and that’s, I think, you know, I see a lot old hunters here and guys who hunt in these same areas and that’s, that’s definitely where their concerns lie for sure – just a comment. Or I don’t know – you guys can call me back on it – what you guys think but then, OK, you know, I can’t do nothing cause they said, “No, we gotta kill everything.” But, at least, be truthful and then at least, OK, well, folks here got – they got the message, you know, cause right now it’s just kinda like this writing on the wall thing and it’s not official, yeah? TL: Oh, yeah, ah, Danny, I have a question while the microphone is being passed over there, um, you said that you don’t own the mammals, right? You own the birds? D: Yes. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] yes… TL: Is there a reason why you own one and not the other? Other than maybe a car crash or something? ?: \[Unclear – not speaking in mic\] liability issues, but yes… JD: Joe DeMello, Wildlife Manager – Hilo. OK \[tape gap\] answer to that in that one of ‘em is the liability but that came upon – came out because in the, ah, Territorial \[unclear\] Forestry brought in most of the birds for hunting purposes, ah, I think, um, species-wise with the mammal it’s just the Mouflon and deer, right, that we’re, ah, not even the deer – they were actually a gift to the kings – so they were not brought in for management purposes, right, um, and so… TL: You have the white, ah… JD: The black tail, correct. So there – I don’t know – there may be different - we’d have to go look at 183D again, but, ah, but one of the main reasons that it came about was because of the fact that the, um, the Territory and then later the state brought in the birds specifically for hunting purposes. TL: Thank you. Ah, Danny has a question. 49 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 DI: Hi, my name is Danny Idos, um, one of the things I notice that, um, you use the word management a lot but, um, one of the things that wasn’t brought up is the habitat. One of the complaints I always hear – because I do a lot of different hunting. I not only go mammal hunting, but I also go bird hunting. One of the issues I’ve been hearing about a lot is about the habitat – about the grass and the weeds just overtaking places that used to have a lot of mammals and a lot of birds and because of the ungulates not taking care of this grass, I, I, the talk is that – that’s the reason why we don’t have birds and mammals where we used to have it is – so, um, game management – are you guys able to do anything about the weeds and the, um, invasive weeds that are overtaking the place, you know, that would help in the management – that’s just my opinion – I don’t know if anybody else has anything to say about that but, um, that’s one of the concerns that was brought up with a lot of my hunter friends. ?: I would say on Mauna Kea that Kanalu and his, ah, his people have been increasing the amount of area that they’re mowing to help, um, combat the increasing grass because of the sheep being removed, ah, the, ah, fireweed is another problem that I’m not really sure how we can address – there is a biocontrol for that, but I think that’s also having an impact on the number of birds on Mauna Kea. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: Yes. ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] ?: That’s what they’re doing in a lot of states are, you know, instead of running mowers, ah, get some guys got a herd of goats and manage ‘em and hopefully none of ‘em will get loose. ?: Ah, yeah, we did have, I know on Oahu, we have an area that’s, ah, lease area where we – we manage it for cattle – so we do some grazing, but the prescription for the grazing is for the game birds – so it works out pretty good and I’m not sure, you know, you can’t use that everywhere but in a lot of places that works out really well, um, you know, utilizing cattle and, and keeping the like, you know, the cattle guys sometimes will graze it too far down so you gotta have a prescription that keeps enough coverage for birds but, it’s a good way to manage it – it is hard to manage – especially in rough country, you know, hard to mow and what not so, um, but I think game birds are a super important program and something we should really try to focus on cause that’s a, you know, we have a great game bird resource here. 50 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: So my – my question is where do we go from here on the game rules – that’s – to get together with a group of people, I think we were talking about getting – Mark was talking about getting a list of names together so that’s one focus that we’re going, um, we’re also gonna be looking at, um, on the commission, when that comes to fruition, um, different committees and things. What else would you like to see from us right now that would help with this process? ?: Can I answer that real quick? Um, one thing that I found in the past, ah, Tom, is, it’s easier to have a more limited group that we can talk to – like if you go to big meetings everybody’s there and they just want to vent and it, you know, I understand, but it’s not that productive and so like on Oahu when I was working with the Wild Pig Hunter Association – they – I would go and just meet with, ah, once a month I’d go down and just meet with the officers of the club and they’d say, “Don’t come to the general meetings,” they’d go, “it’s not gonna be worth your time. Just come talk to us and then we’ll carry the message.” And, so that was really productive so, if we want to do something like with the rules – it would be good to get, you know, a leadership within the hunting community and, ah, give us a smaller point of contacts – people to talk to, you know, or where you can sit down and have more focus, ah, conversations, and then those people go out to the wider hunter community, you know, get the input and then, and then bring it kind of distill it and bring it down and start – who we can start pushing stuff forward. TL: That actually was what I was actually thinking of – groups like this it’s not hard to – it’s pretty difficult. ?: Yeah, and I understand and I apologize but, ah, you know, that – when we get down to maybe some actual recommendations and also if the islands could, you know, like we had before, you know, we can do an informal hunter advisory, ah, group like we used to do and, and get some leadership on each island so we have a smaller number of people to talk to and they can carry the message and we can start to act on those things, you know, and then, and then if we can get some consensus – cause then a lot of times they’ll take it out and then the hunters are, “Oh, no. Three dogs, twelve dogs…” You know, let’s get some consensus and if it’s easy we go to the meetings and it goes, you know, but if we have to go out and then we have to, you know, referee between just the hunters on, you know, things like that, then it makes – it’s a longer process and somebody feels like they got left out and so, if we could try to figure out how to distill that stuff down to where it comes to us and then we can push some things through, ah, faster and it doesn’t become bogged down in too much – trying to do too much at one time. 51 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: No, I, I agree with you there and I think that we can look, you know, speaking of a small group, um, the Big Island Game Management Plan – where might that be? ?: Um, that is… Um, so, I don’t know how familiar everybody is with it but, ah, it’s basically an eight chapter document with an introduction – it talks a lot about the game resources, um, looks at birds and mammals here on island and goes through the biology and the history of each of those, ah, game birds and mammals – does a good job there – we’ve looked at that – we’ve kind of vetted and added some comments to, ah, to those sections – we looked over the land resource section, where it gives, ah, describes public and private hunting areas here on the island. We looked over that – gave some comments, um, did a little editing, ah, economics of hunting was another chapter and we updated that economics of hunting chapter putting in the last ten years of economic data, um, human resources – we looked at that section as well – took those, ah, um, work charts and re-worked them – made them more to reflect what the structure is now and what we’d like to see, um, we looked at the goals and objectives – kinda left them pretty much as they were, but we rearranged them slightly, cause there was – there’s some state level goals and some more island level goals – we kinda separated those out, um, chapter 7 is issues and management strategies and that took again another look at each species and discussed more locally how, how those species should be managed here on the island and some possible strategies of improving them on the island, um, and the last one is measures of success - where it talked about some recommendations for future – what needs to be done – some, some \[unclear\] references and all the regulations and everything – so we just updated those as well, um, the goals statewide are many things that we’re working on currently, ah, it’s to establish a viable game management program, um, to engage the public in game management, which we’re doing right here and we’ve been doing for the past year that I’ve been at my present job, ah, develop communication and outreach programs – it’s had some great ideas starting a communication, maybe a newsletters – that kind of thing… TL: On the outreach thing – haven’t you, ah, changed the report to the legislature and the Wildlife – out of the Wildlife Revolving Fund? ?: Yeah, yeah, we updated that and we put a lot of effort in change to get to make it more user-friendly and, and reflect more of what the… TL: Richard Hofflinger, ah, had, and which I understand have some of those things have been adopted… ?: Mm… 52 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: ….and incorporated but he was talking about, you know, we don’t know what the data is – we don’t know what, um, what the harvest numbers are, you know, and a lot of these other, ah, things that we give you input but we don’t get any feedback. ?: Uh-huh… TL: And I don’t know if you want to go a little further with that, Richard? ?: \[Unclear\] is from, ah, Kanalu’s response to my inquiry on the game bird stuff that I sent to you, ah, he made some – came back with some data – and I guess my question is – hey, that’s really good stuff. How come we never see any of that? What’s the big secret? We’re the ones that contribute to, to giving you the stuff and we know you have it – why not compile it and, and \[unclear – sounds like puke\] it back to the people that could use it. There’s some good stuff in there that you guys are holding and we’d like to see it. So I will list some specific things that I think would be of good interest to all the hunting community, ah, you might even think in terms of your outreach – you have a way to communicate with every single hunter. You got the data. See you’ve got names and addresses – you could mail it, ah, if, for the ones that bought their license online you’ve got their email address – use that stuff – come on! It’s the Twenty-first th Century. You’re still living in the 17. ?: Yeah… ?: Get with the program. ?: Exactly. ?: Um, so we kinda left all these goals the same, ah, improve hunter recruitment, ah, improve the status that affect game management and hunting – statutes – and that was real interesting. We talked about a lot of those issue tonight, ah, making it easier to change rules, for example, and all these things are on the state level and things that I’m hoping the game commission can help us focus on and put some more pressure on, on the powers that be to get those, ah, to help us move through the legislature what we need to move through, um, and I’ve seen from this leg session how that can happen, if we collaborate, ah, it also mentions the reform of the administrative rules and the refocus the hunter education program so all those things are in there – island-wide goals – it was to quantitatively define the islands’ game species, which is exactly, again, what we were talking about – there’s no population data – you can’t say how many of what species is in a particular area – so this is the suggestion that we focus more on that, um, with the two Wildlife biologists that we have. 53 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] that stuff didn’t come from DLNR. ?: Right, right. ?: That came from hunters. ?: Right. ?: But the only place we could get any kind of information on distribution and abundance of, ah, any species… ?: So… ?: I think you make a – that’s a valid point, Dick, and one thing we’d like to see is, um, people using that check stations more appropriately – a lot of times people go hunting and they don’t check in or out – so that data is really important for us for those reasons and also the number of licenses hunters that we have in the state, so if you could encourage the people you know that do hunt but don’t have a license, um, I think that’s, ah, very important, um, when people look at the number of licenses hunters when maybe – I don’t know what the exact number is, but, for example, maybe there’s ten thousand, but we know that there’s probably five times that many people that utilize the resource and hunt, so, if there’s 50,000 licensed hunters – that’s a lot larger voice that the legislature is gonna listen to as well as the department so I would encourage everyone to encourage their, um, the people that they know that don’t have a license to pay the $20.00 and get a license and have their voice heard. ?: Yeah, there’s 10,000 rough numbers – 10,000 licensed hunters \[unclear\] when the Fish and Wildlife Service or whoever – Census Bureau comes in and does their thing every four years or whatever – their numbers come up at least twice that people say they hunt – now I don’t know what the question is – does that mean I went once or whatever – but they claim they’re a hunter so – something on the order of twice as many people hunting as by licenses. The question should be – why is that? And I think you guys gotta start looking at yourselves. ?: Well, I know there is a bottleneck with the hunter education courses. ?: The reason they don’t buy licenses – they don’t think – what is the point – what do you do? What do you do for me? Why should I give you any money? TL: Well, I, on the Hunter Ed thing, um, a lot of people are taking Hunter Ed because they want to get a pistol permit. See? You have a large number there. Now you’re talking about recruitment also, um, there’s a bill down 54 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 there – Families Afield bill that was an apprentice license bill – the Hunter Ed program is embarking this year on a trial with online classes, which I think is a large step towards, you know, helps especially kids – young kids in doing it. But, you know, recruitment is another one of those things that’s really important and, you know, Dick is talking about the fact that, you know, why should they, ah, it is one and how easy is it is the other, um, you know, we’re getting a lot of pushback from DLNR on this, um, apprentice license thing and if, if we’re after recruitment, why should you try to suppress that, I mean, that doesn’t make sense and, ah, so that’s a big area for us, actually, is, you know, why does DLNR feel that, you know, especially adults – why should they not be able to participate in the apprentice license program. ?: Yeah… ?: Um, well, with that particular bill – it’s something that we as a program amongst our core group of biologists – we hadn’t really discussed it until it came up at this year’s leg session and so we tried to get together – tried to contact as many states as we could – find out their programs – find out and – plenty of states have an apprentice programs and a lot of them say they’re – they work great – but there’s such a variety of those programs. Some of them are restricted – restricting the age limit to just youth – to try to get youth more involved – there’s other ones that restricted, ah, in terms of age, is what species they can hunt – not allowing kids to hunt big game – whatever – and a lot of them have very strict rules and regulations about the mentor – what the mentor needs to be – qualifications of the mentor – how many, ah, sponsors, how many apprentice hunters one mentor can sponsor – these kind of issues and, and there were such a variety out there in, in, over all the state of what they do that we wanted a chance to really consider – we’re very much for it – we need to recruit more hunters – but we need to do it, ah, we need to evaluate and talk amongst our constituents – you the hunters – to see what we’re really getting and what we’re willing to risk – because, you know, if you just give a hunter an apprentice license – no restrictions on it – ah… TL: There’s a lot of restrictions on it… ?: Yeah, but… TL: ….he has to be with a mentor… ?: Right. TL: ….who has to have a Hunter Ed license… ?: But is that mentor allowed to carry a gun while they’re with these… 55 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: Of course, just like most other states… ?: Most other states – but there are states that require a mentor… TL: I think there’s two… ?: … TL: ….that say you cannot… ?: But that… TL: My question to DLNR is… ?: But… TL: ….why are you so intent – so being the most restricted state that we possibly could be on the planet? ?: We are not. What we are doing is… TL: Who’s worse? ?: …we are putting – we are putting off decision – we would like to put off a decision for this leg session so that we can work with the commission and with our biologists in the field who work with their constituent hunter groups to figure out what the best, um, how best to implement this and what rules and regulations we should have, which ones are too restrictive. So that’s what the plan is to postpone this decision for one year and bring it up next leg session where we can go with a united front to the leg and say this is what we want and, and… TL: You know we went into this with the united front, right, and you guys backed out of it. ?: We… We talked about it a lot and the more we talked about it with our constituents and with… TL: Who’s your constituents – nobody said a word to us. ?: ….with the other states and… TL: That’s not a constituent… 56 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: ….the \[unclear\] they took and we talked with a lot of the Hunter Education staff – the, the… TL: They didn’t like the program at all… ?: And… TL: Why? ?: Why is because there wasn’t… TL: Because it’s gonna interfere with their ability to get money – that was their excuse given… ?: No, no. no. TL: Yes, yes, yes… ?: It’s all about money. ?: It’s about the importance of Hunter Education and, and making sure that the people aren’t just avoiding Hunter Education. TL: How are they going to avoid it when they have to get it if they want to be a hunter? If they want to go ahead with hunting – they have to take the Hunter Ed course. How is that avoiding? And statistically, if you read any of that data that was there, ah, those that go through the mentorship program – if they’re turned on by it – they’re excited to go into the Hunter Ed program. So, actually, there’s been an increase in the Hunter Ed program… ?: And… TL: ….participation because of this program… ?: Like I said, DLNR is for this legislation – we’re just not for it right now – we need to consider some more things as the state. NP: Well, then, make a class – a Hunter Education class – that’s more geared towards these young people so they can actually pass it. TL: Well, they’re addressing that I think with this… ?: Yeah, there’s an online course… NP: Good… That was really hard for kids. 57 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 ?: Yeah, but, but, ah, we are absolutely behind the bill – the principle – but we just need another year or – it’d be better six months or three months but legislation only happens now, but, we, we… TL: What’s odd, what’s odd in what you’re saying is that we started off going into this bill holding hands with DLNR. And unbeknownst to us DLNR decided to change your tune without saying a word to us about it – and, you know, you’re trying to encourage, you know, inter-action with the hunting community with our organization – we even tried to get that bill through for four years… NP: Right… TL: ….so this idea that you guys don’t know anything about this bill – I don’t buy it at all and the Hunter Ed program – \[unclear\] in particular, told me he did not want to have apprentice license because it was gonna take away from – it’s the same reason why he didn’t want to have the online course – because it was gonna take money away because we get paid – the hunter instructor – or you get paid, rather, by a volunteer hours – you know $17.00 or whatever the heck it is that you use for your own other programs… ?: But, like you say, they’re gonna have to take that Hunter Ed course anyway… TL: That’s right… ?: So there’s no money out of their pockets. TL: But… ?: So, but, I don’t think – I don’t think that’s the excuse… TL: Why do you think – what is your – why do you think that hunter apprentice hunting – why do you think they have that? ?: The hunter… TL: The apprentice license… Why do you think that… ?: To get people excited about… TL: ….people are so encouraged by the apprentice license… ?: Cause people want to go out and experience hunting to see if they like it… 58 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 TL: Not having to take a fourteen hour course, which, Suzanne Case, who made her testimony said, “Well, that’s a hard course.” So, yeah, exactly right. Well, it’s little things like this that bother me – I don’t know about… ?: Yeah. TL: Ah, the rest, but these are things we’ve talked about recruitment… ?: I understand \[unclear\]. Ah, yeah, DLNR’s uncomfortable with going forward without fully considering all the implications of the nuances of this program. TL: You know, I think you folks have been too – \[unclear\] – I think you folks spend way too much time on nuance rather than actual, you know, like getting something done. Richard? R: Yeah, Jim, you mentioned – you keep referring to the Hunter Education program. The Hunter Education program is one person – so you’re letting one person drive this trade – that’s to me doesn’t seem very logical. J: There’s also the number of educators who run the courses… That’s, that’s who we’re talking to are the educators, the trainers. TL: You’re talking about the Hunter Ed instructors? J: They’re the ones with concerns. TL: Really? ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] TL: Improvement is important and, um, this program, ah, is one of the ways, especially on Oahu – because it’s an urban area – the apprentice license areas in areas that are rural are much more effective – but urban areas it’s very effective and that’s one of the reasons why it’s kind of important in Hawaii because Honolulu is an urban area, so… Anybody else with a comment, question? DY: I’d like to say that I think it’s a good program and it should be passed and it should be passed in this session. It was introduced last session… ?: \[Not speaking in mic\] DY: Yeah, we’ve had it introduced a number of years… 59 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 21, 2016 NP: Yeah… DY: ….and it’s about time that it should get you guys to say OK. NP: Yeah. DY: You know… And sometimes you’ve got to be on the cutting edge. TL: OK. Mark? You got anything? MB: Nope, ah, no, Tom, I think it’s about time to wrap this… XIII. Adjournment TL: Um, we have some unfinished business that we’re gonna – oh, our next th meeting’s gonna be on the 25 of April, um, at which time we will take up the rules, um, and there’s not new business other than that tonight? OK. Wrap it up right? OK. No commission reports. So we are adjourned as on 9:07pm and thank you all for… ?: Joining us this evening…. 60