2015-11-16 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii County Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes - November 16, 2015 super technical but for every plant what we've done is gone out and done surveys. We figured out how many plants are being impacted by these operations and then what we do - what we do from there is re-create a net recovery benefit based on the amount of take. This HCP is not responsible for all-out recovery of all these species. It's responsible for a net benefit based on the amount of take and collateral to that we have to make sure that in the process we - these populations were making as a net benefit are stable. Based on the assumption that 800 animals or 1,000 animals are a historic number, I realize that animals move around and you know they do all these things but, there is a number of people who have hunted there that have seen a lot of animals in those area at one time. So the animals have declined as well and whether that's from hunting or from dogs or whatever it might be I don't know, but the fact that there were a lot more sheep there in the past and that you still have these plants that are in there - this net gain that you're talking about is from what you see there now, is that correct? SF: Yes. It's based on take estimates and, it's, the take estimates are done by surveying actual areas and then modeling suitable habitat to determine the additional numbers that were not actually counted and then you come up with an amount of plants that are being impacted. • The difference between avoidance and minimization versus mitigation. I know it's the exclosures are labeled differently - would it be safe to say that the mitigation exclosures are particularly areas where you think you can out -plant `ern but they may not exist in those areas? SF: Most of the units contain some in-situ population, so that's what they're designed for, but some of them may only have a few - a handful of individuals so those are kind of going in later on - they're later in the priority list as the units that are going in, which is why the avoidance and minimization is sooner but most of them are multi -function. We maybe have one unit we don't have documented species in there but they're modeled to be in there and highly likely to be in there. • When, you, say 75% is inside of the actual fences so considering take - say it's all done - you'd be considering 25% as well kind of unprotected in a sense, when out -planning and considering the net benefit in value is that 25% - are you held to some number that you have to out -plant or, some measure of success on that is maybe you can clarify that. EA: Two things, the first thing - the 25% that are not fenced - those are known plants, because we can't completely census the entire area we've had them model what is not in surveyed areas and that's all based on habitat