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<br />FB: Sure, and I want to point something out about invasive species. So just because a species has
<br />use or is used it doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause harm, right? So that’s, I think a lot of people
<br />think, oh, invasive species is something that nobody likes – but that’s not the case and a lot of
<br />our invasives were actually and especially even plant like a lot of our plants were brought here
<br />intentionally and became invasive, um, because people liked them either because they use
<br />them or they produce some kind of food or beverage or it’s pretty or for whatever reason
<br />people actually introduced them intentionally and with animals same thing, you know, people
<br />actually introduced them intentionally so part of the definition of invasive species is not that it
<br />doesn’t have any use – so just like that’s not part of it because it can be useful or appreciated
<br />by some folks but it can still be causing harm. So just when you’re thinking about that – that’s
<br />not a – those are two different sort of areas. It’s not a disqualifier for that term.
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<br />BL: OK. I know. But you know what I’m saying when we’re dealing with the general public and when
<br /> I’m talking to people, you know, they all – I get that it’s an invasive species and it needs to be
<br /> wiped out - everybody talks about it. It’s invasive species and it needs to be eradicated off the
<br /> island and..
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<br />FB: You know, I get that a lot too where people talk about things needing to be eradicated but I
<br />think, you know, for most of our game species that we have here, I don’t think that eradication
<br />is anyone’s realistic goal. And I think in the community the word eradication gets tossed around
<br />a lot, I mean, I just had this recently – I’m working with Resilience teams in Puna for the
<br />recovery and, you know, they sort of assigned one of our working groups – the goal of
<br />eradicating invasive species in Puna – and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s an impossible
<br />goal, like there’s no way that these species are gonna be eradicated. We are, for most of these
<br />species, mitigating, so, I think, you know, when people are saying eradicated – it has to be really
<br />clear like you’re not going to be able to eradicate most of those species – that’s just not possible
<br />so I think maybe managing expectations for folks about like OK, maybe there’s some areas
<br />where we want to do that exclusion – or some areas depending on the species where we can do
<br />containment but most of these species are well into that point of no-return space and so there
<br />wouldn’t be an opportunity to eradicate those, unfortunately, for those who want that.
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<br />BL: OK. Like I said, that was our big concern is we’re trying to, we’ve got legislation going trying to
<br />get the State to acknowledge that these game animals have value and are useful resources, the
<br />thing that 400,000 pounds of wild meat are consumed on this Island alone every year, and
<br />we’ve got everyone – we need a fence, we need to eradicate and, like I said, that Puuwaawaa
<br />thing where we got to put fences up, we got to kill everything and drag it in the forest and
<br />they’re nasty and, the one guy, I want to kill all the mynah birds and it was just a hateful thing
<br />and anything that was invasive they wanted to kill it and it was just, we’re just trying to come
<br />with a compromise and, this is why I asked you to come and so we could see if we could work on
<br />terminology and words, cause, like they say, these days everything is a word game.
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<br />FB: I have a request for you folks, if, I don’t know if this is out of line but, um, we do get a lot of
<br />complaints about pigs and the County had at one point provided us with a list of hunters who’d
<br />be willing to do trapping for a fee or whatever, but that list is really defunct and I don’t know if
<br />you guys know a lot of folks that would be willing to be on a list for when we get complaints
<br />from folks from different parts of the Island who have pigs on their private land and want those
<br />trapped, um, if that’s something that would be possible to put together I’d really love to get
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