2015-03-16 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes—March t 6,2015 you just create this survey— I don't know. I think if you —during a break you went out and talked to these guys about what all is involved here — you might get a different feel. I personally, I thought this was gonna be rather open-ended where you come in and you sit down and you create this reality, but it seems like you might be time-constrained and all of that so — I don't know. I like the concept. I think it's a great concept. And I think it has, possibilities — but I wonder if there could be more active participation by the communities. A.: I don't see why we can't explore that... Q. As far as game— if you can't begin to get water out there it almost seems like it's more of a hunter management program than an actual game management program, What are some of the ideas as far as trying to manage and help some of this game? Tony was suggesting on that 1 thru 4 Area where the sheep are all in the DHHL lands —those sheep are already targeted. They are on the chopping block. How quick is this fence gonna come up to protect some of those sheep before they are all gone? It's already happening —their plan —400 of 3000 sheep that they say is there now—only 400 left. What kind of actual game management are we talking about? Are we only talking about birds? Is there going to be some mammal management? Or, is it even a concern? A.: (JB): I think you're right in terms, yes, it is primarily a hunting management — a hunter management program...Someone told me once that 90% of managing wildlife is managing people. A lot of this is really just addressing how people access PTA. In terms of how we address the mammal issue— I would defer to Brian on the questions simply because he's got much more experience than I do... (BIVI): When John came on board, one of the first things he talked about was getting away from the Range Control Training Area 1 thru 16 and going to these hunting units and when the two of us started looking at the maps we're realizing half of 18 is fenced but we haven't hunted 18 in probably six years, so why aren't we using that area. So let's push that hunting unit all the way back to the fences. So what I'm looking at now is how many acres are we recovering? So we're looking at a number of areas —5 and 6 near the ammunition storage —we've got some room to work with there. I was showing John a map today where we could recover 800 acres in there for possible year- round use. 9