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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting
<br />Minutes – May 23, 2016
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<br />TL: OK. All right, so we’re gonna move on to our legislative update. We had a
<br />pretty busy year actually, this year, Mark and I spent time in Honolulu
<br />testifying on a bunch of bills. Nani and I were down in Honolulu, ah,
<br />\[unclear\] I had to go on down to help us – we had a lot of help from people
<br />in Honolulu, which is very helpful, um, but we had some failures.
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<br />MB: Tom, speak into your Mike.
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<br />TL: Got it, got it. Sorry, um, my wife keeps telling me I don’t need one, so I
<br />kinda… We had, ah, to the apprentice hunting, um, bill died in
<br />Representative Rhodes’ – the Judiciary, ah, both the house version died in
<br />his committee and the senate, ah, version, ah, died in his committee and
<br />so Judiciary for some reason doesn’t want it – they may have had
<br />influence from both the department and the hunter ed program – who
<br />didn’t want the program either, um, and certainly didn’t want the program
<br />to extend to any adults, but, um, this is something that, ah, I have every
<br />intention of continuing to try and move through and we’ll reintroduce those
<br />again next year. You folks are all familiar with Families Afield, OK, um,
<br />yeah, it’s a shame that that happened.
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<br />` HCR 22, um, there were two of these HCRs that were out there – that
<br />related to supporting game mammals, game birds and fishing resources in
<br />order to promote the sustainability and food security of our resources and
<br />also promote, ah, local and cultural practices as well, um, that HCR 22, in
<br />the senate version was watered down to the point of being irrelevant, I
<br />mean, it wouldn’t have satisfied us, ah, in any way. It would have meant
<br />that they would have recognized the game animal in a game management
<br />area only, um, and as you all know, we don’t have any game
<br />management areas, um, so, ah, but this one HCR 22 – recognizes that
<br />our game animals are an important resource and, ah, and our fishing
<br />resources as well, so, um, we feel that that gives voice to these industries
<br />and I don’t know if and I rarely watch the news but the Hawaii Tourism
<br />Authority has really started to take some gas recently about the fact that
<br />they’re not promoting what they should be promoting, ah, here in Hawaii
<br />and, um, other states make millions of dollars with tourist hunting alone, I
<br />mean, this is just encouraging other people coming to their place to go
<br />hunting. This is something that Hawaii needs to explore, um, you know,
<br />it’s, and tourist hunting could more than likely, in my estimation, with the
<br />amount of money that could be generated in states like Florida, Louisiana,
<br />Georgia, Tennessee or Kentucky, I mean the ocean states, um, they
<br />generate in the hundreds and millions of dollars of tourist revenues, of
<br />which, there’s billions of dollars of total revenues that, um, spin off
<br />revenue that’s there, um, there’s a lot that could be done with a few extra
<br />million dollars here in – especially with DLNR – they wouldn’t have to go
<br />begging for money every year and hunting could be a vibrant industry here
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