2015-07-20 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —July 20, 2015 United States government— the federals — is so heavy handed in this now — and they are not in touch with the people. They're not in touch with the people here. You say you like listen to the hunters and that's true you have to listen to the hunters because the people don't have a voice in America now. It's not—the people don't have a voice — not only in this hunting situation here but to me generally in society at large the people don't have a voice but I'm concerned and I — like you say — you want to put watering things — you want us to buy in —yeah, we'd like to buy in too —we really would like to buy into this but we're concerned because, like I said, the flip-flop. Who is gonna be the next colonel? And what are they gonna say? Are they gonna say there's not hunting club, you know, the heck with that— are we gonna just burn —we're gonna burn everything down. You understand what I'm saying, you know? And Fish &Wildlife, Fish & Game, the United States Army — they have to listen to the people. Like one well, long time Fish &Wildlife official said — Fish &Game in Hawaii said — the animals have been there for over 100 years. They've fed people for a long time. Yeah, they have damaged the land but it can be managed and one of my questions I've asked many officials and never got an answer is — what is the carrying capacity — if you work with Fish &Wildlife you talk to any biologist in Ohio or California he's gonna — if you asked him what is the carrying capacity of that area — how many deer can you have in there without causing habitat damage and he's gonna more-or-less give you a number— a ball park number—what they want to see —that's their target. In Hawaii we have the hunters who want to see 10,000 sheep there which is not good and the Fish & Wildlife Service they want to see zero sheep there and that's not good. You want a sustainable program — that's fine — that's great— I like that. But you have to get all of these people together and these people have to listen to the public, because that's the public's land. We don't want the ire that you get— that's why you have people doing things — is that you disenfranchise the people by taking their land away from them saying this federal land. That's not Army land that's State land and when the lease —we loaned —we the people loaned it to the military for them to use. I mean I'm x-military— I'm proud of the military too — I have nothing against the military people, you know, I've been there, but the people up higher forgot what it was there for... Chair Lodge offered an opportunity for PTA to respond directly to W. Matthew's statements. BM: Thanks a lot, Wayne. History will repeat itself if we don't take certain measures and one thing about the Army and contractors for the Army is they take good notes and that's the first thing I did when John came on board in March was, "Hey, John, glad that you're here because there's 11