2021-09-19 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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AA: OK. Thank you. OK. Moving on to Dr. J. B. Friday from the University of Hawai’i. He going be discussing the Rapid Ohia Death and the widespread with ungulates. Go ahead Mr. Friday… JBF: OK. Thanks for having me and thanks to Councilman Richards – I was up Monday with Parker Ranch to have looking around some of that fire it’s really devastating and it’s really great to see how well the county responded to that, um, yeah – Rapid Ohia Death – what I want to do today is present some fairly recent results – we’ve been seeing it for a couple of years but we’ve wrapped it up and we’ve got some good results and throw it out to you as to what we’re observing happening in the ohia forest – so if I can share my screen and start the presentation – let’s see – are you saying one slide with my name on and some ohia forest on it? AA: Yes… JBF: Thank you. So I’m the Extension Forester – I’m with UH Cooperative Extension Service – I’m based here in Hilo – I work statewide but about half my work for the past 5 or 6 years now has been on Rapid Ohia Death because it is a huge threat to the ohia forest. This is a – and I know I’ve addressed the GMAC before – we’ve had a lot of turnover in those times. This is a picture of an ohia forest down in – below Pahoa that I visited in 2005. Nice canopy ohias, some deep soil – all kinds of interesting native plants underneath it – this is what it looked like 10 years later. So this is the worst case scenario. The Rapid Ohia Death is worse in some places than others but you know when we saw this happening in 2015, I mean, I was afraid that this was going to be like a fire and just keep moving up the mountain and take everything out so – but this is what the disease can do. What is Rapid Ohia Death? You all probably know but I thought I’d review it quickly – it’s a fungal disease – it’s a new fungus – new here to Hawai’i – comes in – so the fungus itself is an invasive species, um, genus of the fungus is Ceratocystis and that genus is a genus of pathogens all around the world – so there’s a Ceratocystis that’s a pathogen of oak in US mainland that causes a lot of damage – there’s one that causes damage on plain trees in Europe, there’s one that kills mangos in India and Pakistan, there’s one that kills acacia trees – so related to our koa in South East Asia – so another potential disease on the horizon. So we know a fair amount about how this fungus works – one of the things is the fungus grows in the sapwood – it is not – it doesn’t attack the leaves – it can’t get through bark – but it grows up in the sapwood and in this photo these black streaks that you’re seeing here and here – that’s the fungus killing the tree – killing the sapwood and then what happens is when it kills the sapwood there’s no sap going up to the leaves and the leaves turn brown and that’s the thing that you see – the external symptom of it is the leaves all turn brown. We gave it the nickname Rapid Ohia Death because to the outside observer the tree goes down really fast. Subsequently, we’ve learned that the fungus will grow in the tree for months or even years and then suddenly it collapses – it’s like a guy getting a heart attack. You may not know it – and then boom, it hits. So externally what you see is the whole crown of the tree will turn brown and then when you cut into the tree you see this staining 15