2015-06-22 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes—June 22, 2015 commitment to trying to move forward, you know, and find those wins in areas that we can, you know, work together. TL: I'm gonna give this to Mark and then to Ryan. But Scott today suggested, you know, a collaboration of, you know, hunter resources, you know, in working in some of these areas which I think that's something that this group here and those gentlemen in the audience would certainly like to see going forward. Mark? MB: Thanks, Tom. Eh, Susan, I really appreciate the fact that you're here with staff I think a really important step for us — collectively—for collaboration reasons. You know, Tom asked a question —you didn't answer it. I mean the question was — if we had the money—would the fences go up? Right? So, I mean, part of our premise in Ryan's presentation was, I mean, today we can hunt but the reason we're all sitting on this commission is it's our kids and our grandkids and their grandkids, right, are they going to have the opportunity to hunt? And as The Rain Follows the Forest Plan is laid out, Priority 1 and 2 are meant to be fenced. Tom asked the question, if you had the money today is it the Governor's plan to fence it? Right, we understand you don't have the money today, but if you did, would Governor Ige and yourself fence that area? SC: As of right now the plan is to fence the areas outlined on this map. And so there is no plan right now to fence more than that. MB: More than that? Right now. Is that a monetary reason or is that you? The plan has changed... SC: The plan hasn't changed that I know of. These are — but these are the areas to be in the plan to be fenced now. So, I mean, I think, you know, you're thinking about it like a hundred-year timeline and, you know, what you, the answer to your question, if your question is do we want to fence all public hunting areas and get rid of all the animals and stop game mammal hunting the answer is no. Man: Um... MB: So hang on, hang on, I'm not done. Hang on. Hang on. [Unclear] follow- up. So what I find a little bit intellectually dishonest about The Rain Follows the Forest plan, right, is in some way, shape or form, when you read it, and I've read it a hundred times and I've read the UH kinda background on it all — is it leads the people of the State to believe this is necessary for water. Right? So by erecting a fence and removing ungulates there has to be a cause and effect, otherwise this is crazy to do this, right, so Rain Follows the Forest says erect a fence, remove the ungulates and we the people of the State will have more water. And 12