2015-04-20 Game Management Advisory Commission Mintues

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes—April 20, 2015 For example, when the first set of transect in Kohala was read in 1995 — there was no fireweed on any of the transect. We re-read that five years later in 2000, we had fire weed on one station on one transect. Fast forward another five years and it was on every transect but not every station. So that's a method for us to kind of track things, we see things coming, there's nothing we can do about it, but those are the kinds of things and so that's the first process and then you go through this long process of trying to figure out is this area important, is it worth it, what kinds of resources are in it, obvious things. You guys are all forest users— you know that there's pigs out there. I was finding amazing things like black Franklin and ring-necked pheasants in a place that gets 200 inches of rain a year. That surprises me and blew my mind. We didn't find a lot of them but they were there. Continuing on. So we do our monitoring, we do a baseline transect—then somebody on the staff usually draws up a plan that has been vetted, you know exactly when you put those fence lines or those watershed units in a management plan and they are kind of conceptual. We have a pretty good idea of where they're gonna go, and why they're gonna go there, but until the fence crews actually get out there on the ground, once the fence is actually cut in —taking into account topography so we're not trying to take advantage of any topography that's there. OK fast forward some more — fence is done—we get in there to animal control. The division has a policy that the public is granted first opportunity to go in there and take out as many animals as they want. WC: Can I interrupt you? So NARS definition of hunting is to eradicate... NA: No, NARS does not hunt. We do control. NARS is mandated — NARS is very specific. If you, and that's why I mentioned —when you mentioned Chapter 183 — he (Tom Lodge) only mentioned sub-section one and twelve in his talk and there's several more cause DLNR has, as you guys all know, multiple mandates. Not just the game or not just the watershed. WC: Yeah, but NARS exempt from upholding DLNR obligations to support hunting and game animals? NA: That is not the primary purpose of Natural Area Reserves... MB: Hey, Nick. It's Mark in Kona. Let me ask you — so if I got this right there's 600,000 acres, roughly 700 —20% of that is fenced. What's the plan on the books for the next three, four, five years in terms of fencing? How much more is gonna get fenced and moved over into NARS? NA: Don't quote me on the numbers but I'm gonna guess that there's probably six thousand acres in Kohala that's approved in the Kohala Watershed 15