2021-03-23 Game Management Advisory Commission Mintues

Home

AA: Howzit… KS: So I emailed like a 2 slide presentation over there – I don’t know if there’s somebody over there that could just pop it up. If not, I can just present without it. AA: No, I seen it – right there – there it is. KS: OK. So I was asked to kind of give some information about our predator control on Mauna Kea, , so, I’ll just present kinda how many traps we have and what we’re – what our targets are and why we’re doing it – so the predator control is designed to reduce feral cat, mongoose and rat numbers on the mountain with the objective of reducing predation pressure which would increase reproductive success for both native and non-native birds. We are – trapping program is kind of split up into two different parts – I just have one half time DOFAW general laborer so he’s a civil service position and his main responsibility is Puuwaawaa but he does two days a week up on Mauna Kea – we just trapped the water units – our game bird \[unclear\] up there – so we have 13 traps and he checks them like I said about two days a week and for last year he captured 11 cats, 40 mongoose and two Erckel Francolin. So I think the reason I was asked to speak about this was concerns over non-target species that we do sometimes – we do sometimes catch game birds, specifically on Erckels. Next slide – the second portion of our predator control and the main guys that do predator control on the mountain is Mauna Kea Forest Restoration Program – they are contractors through the University of Hawai’i but work under us – so that right there is kind of a good graphic they have of how many traps they have out and their total numbers last year so… They have almost 600 traps between the northern part which is in Puu Mali Mitigation Area and then on the western side of the Island \[unclear\] mitigation – the \[unclear – sounds like kauimigalee\] and a little bit outside of that and then also that – above that park over there – so like I said they have almost 600 traps out and in blue are their total captures for the year – so this is just for last year – last year they had 71 cats, 94 mongoose, 20 rats and 11 Erckel . So we do catch some game birds – but we’re pretty successful at catching the things that we do target and minimizing bi-catch or catching things we’re not intending to. We use mostly conibear body grip traps which are designed to be lethal traps – kill traps – we also have some live traps – Have a Heart Traps – and then also some A24 – those are the resetting traps for rats. We trap from – well traps are closed from September through the end of the fall game bird season so the end of January – and then we also close them during the spring turkey – but other than that they’re open. The live traps we do leave open throughout the year – those ones we’re supposed to check every 24-48 hours. And so if we’re not able to check them that frequently then we will close them or just removed them. So, yeah, that’s kind of rundown of what we do for trapping and why we do it – willing to take any questions. I think we close them during spring turkey just cause we have more users in the area than normal. But that’s just the kill trap. We do leave the live traps open. Any other questions? BL: Brian – District 4 – Are you guys still using bait in the mongoose PVC traps? Is that still being utilized on the mountain? KS: No, we’ve – as long as I’ve been here – I’ve been here 7 years – we’ve never used those traps for – we’ve never put bait in those traps and so actually we just did have a meeting with some of our guys and we’re gonna do a little bit more of a coordinated effort to start removing them – that project was 20 years ago or something – I don’t know – it was long before I was here. 11