2015-06-22 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes—June 22, 2015 1 believe they're got most of the animals out of there. So these are the places — can't keep animals —we can debate that or you can watch my video. So we can see that we cut it down significantly to where I can keep any sheep, goats, pigs or anything like that. So what we got left is basically, you know, the Kau Forest Reserve in this section — Puuanahulu — portions of Puuwaawaa — and all these pieces — portions of Pohakuloa and Keaumoku is missing here — but it's really not the 700,000 acres that everyone's talking about and saying why are we complaining. So... And inside the video I've got a history of things that are happening in those remaining areas and we're not— even those things are facing maybe opposition or sometimes just not getting done. I know, I know I see some familiar faces with HCP and Puuwaawaa here and, yeah, I believe the State's side is gone but maybe the Fed side is a little bit holding up. I don't know— but we — if this is all we're left with — can we find ways to keep our animals here? Just even at the minimum? And right now the answer would be, "no," they kind of exist by accident, I think. Moving on, so... What I wanted to get out of that was looking at that map — at that picture — is that a problem? Is that even a problem? Because when — it depends who you ask, right? If you ask someone that's more preservation oriented and worried about every endangered species or native tree then you [unclear] but that's a huge success. We got all this land to do all this great stuff. But if you look at a person that hunts or maybe kind of wants like a mixed use thing where people are involved and inside of the land instead of perhaps more excluded out of it— it's kind of a loss— so we got to ask— and this is the thing I wanted out of the Department was — should the Big Island even have a sustainable public mammal hunting system? And if we are, where and how, because at this moment we don't have that and people can disagree — but I think my subsequent slides after this will explain that. And I took a picture out of our recent Hilo Hunter Education Class that we did just last week. I believe there sixty, high sixties amount of people taking the class. We usually have classes that big — over sixty all the time —we do six a year— and a lot of folks will say it's because of—they want their firearm permits to acquire hand guns — and we generally ask that question — and we're finding is a lot of them are there to go hunting — and I see a familiar face with the AKW shirt, you know, he was in the class, in fact he's right there — but they're there to go hunting and it's really— as a volunteer instructor—while I'm looking at the map and those things occurring — it's very discouraging for me to look at the children's faces in there that want to go hunting with their fathers, their mothers and their families and knowing in the back of my head, well, they're here for almost nothing. Right? There will be very little place for them left if we don't kind of think of how we're going to keep these things. So I just hope that we can identify that this is a problem because it just depends who you ask. And, now I'm kind of going a little bit more personal side of it — I believe the problem is a bit systemic in that we have this battle— and some people don't think so — but— between this idea of conservation versus preservation. Conservation 5