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Home My WebLink About2023_02_21 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawai’i Minutes - DRAFT 1 Meeting Date: February 21, 2023 Time: 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm Place: Via Zoom - 25 Aupuni Ctr., Suite 2603, Hilo HI, 96720 nd In-Person Site: West Hawai’i Civic Center, Bldg. C, 2 FL, Conference Rm., 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Hwy., Kailua-Kona, HI 96740 1. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL: The meeting was called to order at 2:05 p.m. District 1- Robert Duerr, present, in person District 2 – Kean Umeda, Absent District 3 – Rhon Leomana Turalde, Via Zoom District 4 – Brian Ley – Present, in person District 5 - Abraham Antonio, Present, in person District 6 – Austin Griffey, Present, via Zoom District 7 – Natalie Reynolds, Present, via Zoom District 8 – Cortney Okumura – Present via Zoom District 9 - Vacant Quorum Established with all seven in attendance. STAFF: Sylvia Wan, Deputy Attorney, Corporation Counsel, in person Barbara Kossow, Administrative Specialist – via Zoom 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Action: Motion made by R. Duerr to approve the January 17, 2023 minutes as circulated. Seconded by B. Ley. Motion carried by poll voice vote with 6 ayes and 1 momentarily off the screen. 3. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: Chair Abraham Antonio, welcomes anyone that may want to say something regarding an agenda item may do so anytime throughout the meeting. None 4. Commissioner Report by District: 1 RD: Um, District – 1, the big thing is the CIP House Bill for Wailoa River ramp and harbor improvements for 4.7 million dollars. Currently, we’re under a petition moving forward with a petition with Mike Tokunaga guys and the petition will be used to build a database of users: fishers, gatherers, and boat users. SW: \[Unclear\] in the House Bill? RD: Yeah, it’s House Bill 1380. AA: That petition that you guys have where is it located at… Abraham, District – 5. RD: It will be in Tokunaga’s and Hara. And then we’re also do an online petition. AA: OK. Thanks. NR: I’m so sorry to interrupt but there’s people that wanted to speak and they’re saying there’s a glitch or a problem for them to raise their hand or to speak on the items – cause I can see the names on here and I know that they wanted to speak and my phone to blow up with items related to things on the agenda. AA: Hold on, because – are they going to speak on the manta ray concerns? NR: Yes… AA: So, we’ll give them a chance to speak on the agenda when we come up to that point. NR: \[Unclear\] will have an opportunity cause they were trying to get on and they could not say that they wanted to speak on the items related to the agenda. AA: Right. SW: Sylvia Wan, Deputy Corporation Counsel. They can either raise their hand through the Zoom feature or they can express their desire in the chat. I am looking at the chat so I see right now Manu Powers has written in the chat to testify. So, if you are going to put it in the chat I would ask if you can not only write your name but write what agenda item you’d like to testify to. I will know that two other individuals have raised their hands, so, um, at this point in the agenda we’re in Commissioners’ Reports so manta ray, OK, and, um, we can call them again when it comes to that particular agenda item. NR: OK. Thank you, I appreciate that. AA: Ah, District – 2, vacant, Abraham, District – 5, Chair. Ah, District – 3, Leomana Turalde – Commissioner Report? LT: E, aloha, this is Leomana Turalde, District – 3. Some of the big things happening in my district is mainly with the pigs – still yet a lot of calls and complaints. One big one in Hilo Town – a lot of the cemeteries they’re fencing in their big cemetery because the cemeteries have all the nice 2 grass so the pigs usually congregate around all the big grassy areas so the big cemeteries right below Ponahawai Street, one other one is the one in Waiakea-uka and across from Honolii, um, there’s huge long fence lines within town and so these big fence lines are gonna divert a lot of the wildlife in the area – the local wildlife. They’re also in Hilo Town – following the rivers – cutting down all of the vegetation around our rivers going up Wailoa Park. Two rivers over in Waiakea-uka and the main river up Kaumana Drive – on both sides going up it seems like there’s a lot of development happening going from Bayfront all the way to hospital and a lot of the animals are being driven out of their natural habitat so – just if you guys are in Hilo Town – be aware there’s a lot more wild animals because their homes here locally around the rivers are being destroyed. I checked also into the last meeting I talked about the raw sewage spill that happened in Keaukaha – every year we get about 2 million gallons of raw sewage spilling into Keaukaha when the waves come up – a couple of the workers at the plant they told me it’s because of the pipes that go out in to the deep ocean – the big swells – they just build up the back pressure and I guess according to whoever is the planner on site – they have to release all the pressure and they have to also release – if they decided it’s a good time to release it while the waves are sweeping out and the currents are strong, one other thing I’d like to mention is if you guys noticed currently on Maui in a marine sanctuary we have a yacht broken down leaking diesel – putting trash in the area – this is one of the things as the wild game commission we got to focus on is how do we manage our own properties and lead with pono leadership? You know, we don’t have a statewide game management plan and so these other counties they’re left to themselves to fend for the animals in the wild. I don’t know who on Maui is calling with the type of representation we have here on the Big Island but as for me, I look at the other islands and I know they don’t have game management. They have one person per island, so it’s kinda like our duty to say something that we see happening across the state because we’re lacking and every island depends on the next. So I just wanted to bring that up that we have the 30 by 30 bill going in, right, we got funding for this this year, and so I’d just like to focus our attention on our protecting marine areas because this isn’t only happening in Maui, this is happening in Kona – this has everything to do with the manta ray dives – with all of the pollution they’re bringing out by bringing so much illegal activity, out in the ocean and these – it’s not only happening to Kona or the Big Island – this is happening to all islands. Anyway, that’s my district report. Mahalo. AA: Thank you, Leomana. District – 4, Brian Ley? BL: Brian Ley, District – 4. The usual – being overrun with pigs. Legislators won’t do anything – pass any bills or move any bills so we’re stuck for another year with being overrun with pigs. I did have a meeting with the Fire Chief for the County and a couple of fire officials about trying to get them on board with writing a letter to the Mayor to write a letter to the Attorney General who overturned the federal mandate on Mauna Kea because of the massive fire hazard we have – like you said we just had a fire from lightning strike which is right adjacent to the palila habitat and like you said, you know, I came in with a binder of scientific studies – one after the other – in Hawaii, on the mainland, the other islands – the statistical things is just overwhelming – so I don’t know why we constantly can’t do this and why we can’t have a game management plan to keep these animals \[unclear\] DLNR lady that says we have a game management – if we had game management we wouldn’t be overrun with pigs, the deer wouldn’t be overrunning Maui, and, you know, it’s just obvious then we would have the game birds wouldn’t be disappearing – we have to game management – and we need to step up and get this game management and get these animals under control, bring the population down and bring ‘em up and do the habitat 3 – we got a bill 1872 DLNR’s not doing anything about it – these animals require habitat – we’re not doing anything – all proceedings are eradication programs, so that’s it for District – 4, thank you. SW: I’m sorry. \[Unclear\] can you clarify a bill 1872 – what is that? BL: That was the bill we got passed last year that says the game animals are a valuable resource and they deserve quality habitat. SW: Oh, OK. So that was from last year… BL: Yeah, last year it was that 1872 that passed. AA: Abraham, District – 5. He is referring to Act 315. SW: Act 315. Thank you. AA: Ah, District – 5, Abraham Antonio, Chair… We’re still busy catching pigs. If anybody else want to be on the State Trappers website – reach out to your local DOFAW office and you can get on the trapper’s list. Again, I just suggest if you want to be a trapper just make sure you know what you’re doing because every pig is different, and it can be a dangerous profession. Norris still fencing up in Kulani, um, that’s about it for District – 5. District – 6, Austin Griffey? AG: Austin Griffey, District – 6, nothing out of normal to report besides the major flooding down in the Kawa flats in the Naalehu area towards Pahala. Drive safe in that area. Um, other than that everything is pretty normal as needs to be, um, been still catching some sick pigs – there’s some parasites – I still doing some – taking some samples and stuff like that and collecting more data to take. Other than that, everything’s going well. AA: Thank you, Austin. District – 7, Natalie Reynolds? NR: Hi, um, I’m District – 7, Natalie Reynolds and we have kind of a busy week this week, especially involving the manta rays because there’s a public hearing on Thursday down at the Civic Center – you can see the attachment that Barbara sent out and it’s on the county website – correct Barbara? Anyways, I believe it’s there. Also, just got off the phone, maybe 15 minutes prior to the meeting with Ed and we’ll go over that in the committee report, but, there is a chance for people to have their voices heard in person at the West Hawaii Civic Center in regards to the rules and regulations – proposed rules and regulations coming up and just for anybody that is on here trying to have their 3 minutes to speak about the manta rays, please look at your screen, either put up the hand or go to the bottom of the screen and click on chat – add your first and last name – and what you would like to talk about as there is manta rays and wild pigs on the meeting chat right now, but, yeah, it’s pretty much it’s just the manta rays this time. That’s it. AA: Thank you, Natalie. District – 8, Cortney Okumura. CO: Aloha everyone. Drawing your attention to Senate bill 770 that’s making its way – I believe it’s in the Ways & Means Committee right now. This would appropriate funds for a grant in aid to the 4 County of Hawaii to hire an engineering firm – the study plan assists and conduct preliminary design and concept work for a 2-phase project to restore the Kahaluu Bay Beach Park in the County of Hawaii. This bill has received a ton of support from around our community in District – 7 and so just wanting to draw your attention to that. Hopefully, we’ll have an update after it comes out of committee, but this is a very important legislation and we’re hoping that it goes through, other than that I have nothing else to report and thank you very much. AA: Cortney, that bill – isn’t it HB or SB? CO: Actually, sorry, so there’s Senate Bill 770 – it does have a complimentary House Bill 169 – if you are tracking it online in the Legislature website. The testimony that I was able to find is actually listed under the SB 770 listing. So if you go to the HB one there isn’t any – you can’t find any of the testimony there so do go to the SB 770, SD 1, if you’d like to review testimony related to that bill. AA: Abraham, District – 5, do you know what committee it’s in right now? th CO: I believe Ways & Means was the last, yes, so as of the 16 it passed the second reading and is referred to the Ways & Means Committee. AA: OK. Thank you, Cortney. CO: Um-hum… AA: Next we’ll move on to Kanalu Sproat. Is there anybody from the public that wants to comment on this agenda item? SW: There’s one individual who was talking about pigs in Waiakea but I’m not sure… AA: That’s not… SW: I don’t think that’s on the agenda so then other than that I do not believe so. AA: Hold on, because – are they going to speak on the manta ray concerns? NR: Yes… AA: So, we’ll give them a chance to speak on the agenda when we come up to that point. SW: Yeah… ‘ NR: \[Unclear\] will have an opportunity cause they were trying to get on and they could not say that they wanted to speak on the items related to the agenda. AA: Right. 5 SW: So Natalie they can either type – sorry – Sylvia Wan, Deputy Corporation Counsel. They can either raise their hand through the Zoom feature or they can express their desire in the chat. I am looking at the chat so I see right now Mr. \[unclear\] Powers has written in the chat that he’d like to testify. So if you are going to put it in the chat I would ask if you can not only write your name but write what agenda item you’d like to testify to. I will know that two other individuals have raised their hands, so, um, at this point in the agenda we’re in Commissioners’ Reports so manta ray, OK, and, um, we can call them again when it comes to that particular agenda item. 5. PRESENTATION: a. Kanalu Sproat, DOFAW West Hawaii Wildlife Biologist present on the Rule Changes from DLNR Rule Change Committee for Pohakuloa Hunting Unit E. AA: OK. We have Kanalu Sproat – West Hawaii Wildlife Biologist. He’s gonna present some rule changes for DLNR Rule Change from the hunting area – Unit E – across from \[unclear\] county park in Pohakuloa. Go ahead Kanalu. KS: Hey, howzit going everybody. Yeah, so I just – I guess I was asked to come and talk story about the area – we call them slice across the street from Gil Kahele’s Recreation Area. That area has been closed since we closed since we closed Mauna Loa Forest Reserve because of the lava flow and it remains closed until we open Mauna Loa again, because of that, or last time I checked I guess they’re still getting ground readings of over 240 degrees Fahrenheit in – near the flow area and for that reason, the area stays closed and just for convenience because it’s on the same side of the road we’ve kept that little slice in Mauna Kea Unit A closed. We are – so I presented a couple – I think couple months ago – kind of some draft, temporary rules changes and part of that rules changes was to change that slice area to archery only. We’re trying to get th that whole package of rules changes before the Board – on their agenda – for the March 24 Board meeting, um, so, if we don’t get it on that one then it’s gonna be the first one in April – I th think it’s April 7, but, so, if do get it on that March 24 meeting and it is approved – there’s a 10- day waiting period before it goes into effect. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about when we’re gonna open that slice, I mean, just open it again for any kind of hunting – when we open Mauna Loa we’ll open the slice. I – the last time I talked to the forester who was in charge of that decision – he thought that by the end of February we should be able to open it but he told me that a month ago for – he thought by the end of January we might open it but like I said those ground readings are still pretty high. So, I guess, keep checking as far as when we’re gonna open it but then like I said – the rules change if it is approved by the Board will not go into effect until 10-days after it is presented to the Board and so sometime in April if it’s – if we get it on th the agenda for the 24. So if it opens before we go to the Board it will open normal you can hunt rifle in there and just the normal hunting rules and then after we go to the Board it’ll be 10- days until that change goes into effect where we change it into just archery. Any questions? RD: Yeah, could you describe on the area – how many acres are we talking? 6 KS: So, about 250 acres maybe a little like 260 or something like that. It’s a – I know one boundary is kinda the Old Saddle Road and then you got Daniel K. Inouye Highway and then PTA on the other side of the small portion of the boundary. It’s just, yeah, it’s just directly across the street from the Gil Kahele Recreation Area. RD: And then do you have any counts on game mammals in that area. KS: We don’t – no – we don’t have any survey information about how many animals are in there, yeah? The area is directly adjacent to PTA which has a lot of sheep and some goats and so the animals, kind of freely flow between the two areas, but, yeah, just for that small area I haven’t known too many animals in there. RD: If you had game surveys would you then be able to narrow in on whether or not you just want to rifle or you wanted just archery? KS: Ah, the reason that we’re going to just archery is because we believe that the number of safe shooting lanes in there, yeah, is very limited for rifle and for that reason we want to go to archery. It doesn’t have to do with the number of animals. It has to do with how small the area is and how many – how limited it is in the way you safely fire a rifle to dispatch an animal. RD: Just one final question – is this area under any game management plan? KS: Under a game management plan? RD: Do you have a game management plan with biology support for this area? KS: Not for – no not for that area – that area is under active eradication because of the palila. RD: Thank you. BL: Brian Ley, District – 4, hey, just a quick question Kanalu. Has there been any report of any firearm offensives or any near misses or cars hit or anything like that – is there anything to – any issues besides just the blatant little too close to the road scenario? KS: No, I haven’t had any direct phone calls from anybody about it. I should – I would guess that that would mostly go to the DOCARE officers if they are. So I would check with them, but I haven’t gotten any direct like, hey, somebody shot him in the head or anything like that. Nothing. It’s always just hypothetical. A lot of guys complaining about what could happen. BL: All right, thank you. AG: Austin Griffey here, District – 6. Um, thanks Kanalu, I’m in full support of swapping this to archery area. I’ve hunted this area before, and actually been sneaking up on animals and gun fire over the distance and sheep run out there – totally shooting them the same direction I was in. The only question I have for you – are you guys gonna put up some boundary markers so that people can tell where the perimeters are so they’re not walking into the PTA area – cause not everybody has that online mapping system that shows you where you are at all times. 7 KS: Yes, yeah, we do plan on doing that. We’ve been in communication with PTA and we’re gonna kinda do a partnership to go put some signs out there. For me, on my end of it, I’m a little concerned about unexploded ordinances and so I was asking if they would give us escorts and just to check where we’re gonna put posts in the ground and so, yes, we will be doing that. AG: Awesome, thank you. LT: E aloha, Leomana, mahalo for that Kanalu. A couple of questions. One, so I was out there last week and when the rain was coming down it was super-hot so I agree that it’s about 200 degrees but, I was thinking is there any biologist in the area or someone planting trees next to the lava flow – this is a perfect time, I know, I was working with what is that haole guy’s name – the one who plants all of the native plants up there – but, right now is the perfect time to actually take seedlings to plant around the current flow because it keeps the seedlings warm during the winter time and right now we have all of that snow and this is like the best opportunity so I was just wondering if you had any guys planting stuff up on the flow and if you guys have room can I get people who do plant native plants to accompany you guys on fencing off that area? KS: Yeah, I sorry, I don’t – I’m not aware of any out-planting happening right now. That would be – you would have to talk to the forester about that, yeah, I don’t… LT: OK… KS: I do put plants in the ground sometimes but that’s not my main job, so… LT: Who manages up there, just Kualii? KS: No, on Mauna Loa side so Jay Hatayama is the head forester for the Island. LT: OK. Do you know that – he has like he has like red short hair and, um, man I forget his name but I think he was leading all the out-planting on like Puunene side, aw, shoots, his name is leaving me right now… KS: Red, short hair… AA: \[Unclear\] LT: Yeah and… AA: You’re going off topic… LT: Oh, eh, oh sorry… Anyway, yeah, so mahalo… AA: Abraham, District – 5. Just one question I get like how much support do you have to change it from archery to rifle and what kind of slack you getting from the rifle guys if any? 8 KS: Well, to go from rifle to archery you mean? I had one suggestion from Brian that we possibly include muzzle loaders and we had a little discussion about it about why I didn’t think why I don’t want to go that route, um, I’ve had like two guys call me and kinda complain about it – mostly the guys that cannot walk very far and it’s kind of a good area for them, that, you know, they don’t need to talk so far to go find something but I just kinda, you know, I feel I’m gonna stick to my guns on this one about safety – I feel safety is more important and I tell everybody they’re welcome to go and present their comments and their testimony to the Board and if the Board tells me no then whatever the Board says but I feel like safety is more important and we should make the change for that. I wanted to make the change several years ago, but our processes are, you know, takes a long time and it’s not so easy as it is now with that 1020 rule change that we’re allowed to do. AA: Thank you… RD: One question, yeah, Duerr, District – 1. Now the guys who can’t walk so far – are they handicapped hunters? KS: Um, one of them is not a handicap, I think the other I spoke to is a handicap up there and he does have a permit to hunt handicap – our disabled permit. LT: Kanalu, Leomana, one more last question, District – 3. Can you give us an update – remember you guys made that – just because we’re talking about that area – you guys made the fire break – on the power line road – can you just give us a short update on that firebreak road if you guys are going to fence it off or what’s the future plans for that to just leave it? KS: No, no, we’re not gonna add a new fencing or anything – they just cleared that fire break because of the lava encroaching and just to protect from another fire – but, no, they’re not gonna add any new fencing or anything like that. AA: OK. Um… Can I have a motion to… SM: (Stan Mendes) Can I ask one question? AA: Ah, you can make a comment. SM: Yeah, comment, OK… I have 2 comments. Kanalu is this only for below the highway or you gonna do the mauka safety zone around the park? KS: Yeah, so we’ve already created across that side a safety zone and so between the highway and the fence around the old State Park is, yeah, is a safety zone already. SM: And that is archery or? KS: No, that’s just safety zone. Cannot hunt inside there. SM: OK. 9 KS: Yeah. SM: And the sliver below the highway on the Mauna Loa side – is there roads that I can go with my 4-wheeler because I’m disabled? KS: I’m not – honestly, I was walking around inside there I never seen any roads the area that I walked – I didn’t see any roads you could jump on – there’s other guys that have been – I know it’s only a small area, but I didn’t see anything. I don’t know if anybody else noticed anything, but I didn’t see anything. SM: Because I haven’t hunted there before so… KS: Mm… SM: OK. Thank you. AA: OK. Thank you. Can I have a motion to draft a letter in support of the rule change of the slice area regarding Unit E. AG: Austin Griffey, District – 6. I second that motion. AA: No, Austin, you got to make a motion… AG: Oh, OK. Can I make a motion to draft a letter in support of rule change on Unit A.? AA: Unit E. \[some confusion\] LT: Leomana – District 3. I’d like to second that motion to draft a letter in support of rules change for Unit A. SW: Kanalu Sproat said Unit A. AA: OK. SW: Is that? KS: Alpha, yes. Action: A motion was made by A. Griffey to draft a letter in support of rule change on Unit A. Seconded by L. Turalde. Motion passed by voice poll vote with 5 ayes, 1 abstain, 1 absent. AA: Open for discussion about the draft letter – about what you guys – in support, not in support? Commissioners – what you guys want to see in this letter. 10 LT: Leomana, District – 3. I know we have a couple of residents in the area – how do they feel about this? AA: Say that again Leomana. LT: Ah, we have a couple of residents in that area, you know, there’s a couple of people who live right around there – I just wanted to know if they are included in these plans or how do they feel – do we let them know about this stuff? SW: I’m sorry Leomana, it’s not – it appears that your question is not directed towards the letter… LT: Oh, kala mai, I thought this was just a discussion about us supporting that. I just as my question is what do we – as a GMAC Commission do we support that? Do we think about the people that live in this area? I don’t know, it’s just a question, cause there’s people that live right around there. Like do we keep them in mind or? AA: There’s no one that lives around there. AG: Yeah, it’s in the middle of nowhere. AA: But if there were people living there – Abraham, District – 5. If there were people living in that area, yes, I’m pretty sure we or like if your District – 3, what? I don’t know what county district that falls in but I’m pretty sure that that district member should go out and talk to those people, you’re right, and I’m pretty sure Kanalu would do his due diligence as DOFAW to go and check with the residents in that area but in that specific area there are no residents besides the community that goes to the County park and the only residents there is the Pohakuloa Military Base. LT: And then right across the street you got the Kanihos, yeah, and then right across, I mean, it’s an intersection, but I mean… KS: Oh, the Kanihos is kinda a lot farther away – they’re more by Mauna Kea – if I’m right – they’re more by the access road, yeah? And that’s… LT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. On the access road, I mean, but what is the boundaries of this. So, this is from Daniel K. Inouye Highway and then the edge of Pohakuloa Training Area and that should be bordering DHHL property going up alongside Mauna Loa Access Road, yeah? KS: So, like the entire Unit A, yeah, they would be neighbors to the entire Unit A, but this small section that’s getting cut up is 250 acres right across the street from the State park. LT: OK. OK. Yeah, cause I don’t… KS: So, they’re not really… LT: Cause when we say Unit A I don’t really – I not too… 11 KS: Yeah… LT: ….familiar with sections – I just know the whole thing, yeah. KS: So, this area that’s getting affected is just small sliver right across the street from the State Park or from Gil Kahale Recreation Area. LT: OK, and then the rule change is just for that tiny section and not any other parts of Unit A. KS: Correct. LT: OK, right on. AA: OK. So, we do get to finish off the discussion with the letter. Ah, we need to get moving forward to finish off the rest of the agenda items. So anymore discussion on the letter that you guys want to see in the letter – in support of the letter – not in support of the letter? AG: Austin Griffey, District – 6. Maybe we just – I can draft up the letter myself too if nobody wants to do it – in support of the rule change and boundary markers. AA: OK. That’s fine, Austin. We’ll make a roll call vote. District – 1, Robert Duerr. SW: OK, so right now it’s to draft a letter… AA: Draft a letter… SW: \[Unclear\] do a motion so \[unclear\] draft a letter in favor, yes? AA: Yeah. SW: Yes, I’m taking that as a motion to amend? AA: Yes… SW: And then you second for appointment. And somebody second to do a letter in favor. RD: \[Unclear\], yeah, I’ll second. SW: OK. Now you can discuss drafting the letter in favor. AA: Any discussion on drafting the letter of in favor – in favor of this rule change? LT: Leomana, District – 3, I support it. SW: OK. AA: OK, so I’ll move to our roll call vote, Abraham, District – 5. District – 1, Robert Duerr. 12 RD: I’m gonna abstain. AA: Yeah, District – 2, vacant. District – 3… LT: Aye. AA: District – 4, absent. District – 5, Abraham support. District – 6, Austin Griffey? AG: Aye. AA: District – 7, Natalie Reynolds? NR: Aye. AA: District – 8, Cortney Okumura? CO: Aye. AA: So, we got 5 ayes, 1 abstain, 1 absent, motion carries. OK, moving down to – the agenda… SW: And just for clarity, Austin to draft. b. Derek Risch, Conservation and Wildlife Planner and Ungulate Program Coordinator for the University of Hawaii, present on the University of Hawai’i Ungulate Program for Hawai’i Island. AA: Yes, Austin will draft up the letter. So, moving on to Derek Risch and we also have Melissa Price – they’re both from the University, they will speak about the ungulate program on the Big Island. Go ahead… DR: Yeah, thanks for that. Thanks for the invitation. Do I have a shared screen I have some slides that I’d like to share. Oh, yeah, hold on a second. All right, is that showing up? SW: Yes. DR: OK, cool, ah, yeah, so thanks for the introduction and thanks for the invitation to present today at the Hawaii County GMAC meeting, ah, today, I’m gonna talk a little bit about the research we’ve done on ungulates over the last six or seven years now. We currently have a project going on Hawaii Island. We’re kinda half way through some field work on that and I’ll share a little bit about that a little later on but just to introduce myself, I’m Derek Risch, I am the research coordinator or a research coordinator in Dr. Melissa Price’s lab at UH Manoa, um, and I’ve been working on this research since 2016 on or off as a tech and now as the research coordinator for it. So just to kind of preface here and kinda introduce the different ungulate species that we have across the Hawaiian Island. I know we’re in a GMAC meeting right now so probably most of 13 you are familiar with the different ungulate species that we have – but we have different assemblages of them on different islands, um, and so I’ll kinda go into a little bit about each – maybe highlighting a few of these – I’m kinda highlighting the maybe problems with them or the issues of managing them and how that species biology might affect the way we manage them. And so, starting off with feral pigs, um, is probably the most easily recognizable ungulate in the Hawaiian Islands, originally brought over by the Polynesians about 1,000 years ago and then there were subsequent introductions of European pigs, um, with the arrival of Captain Cook and post European contact, ah, and now our pig populations are kind of a hybrid between Asiatic pigs, um, European pigs and domesticated swine. They’re present across most of the main Hawaiian Islands, um, being absent from Lanai and Kahoolawe. And then many of you are probably well aware of, you know, they are game species actively hunted throughout the Hawaiian Islands and they have kind of present this challenge in terms of management – because they’re simultaneously considered an invasive species as well as an important game species, um, and one of the reasons they’re considered this invasive species is because of this kind of rooting thing behavior among other impacts that they have on the environment. So here’s just a couple pictures that we picked up over the years in our survey efforts. Are people mentioning Axis deer throughout Maui Nui as we are well aware of the issues that they raise there, um, you know, pretty numerous populations of largely throughout private land and public lands over there which presents a number of challenges in and of itself of being present across those different land boundaries and so there’s a few clips of Axis deer – this is a small herd that we picked up on a private landowner’s property on Maui. And I say a small herd cause here’s a video that was provided to us by Maui Nui Venison – they do these aerial floor surveys using infra-red. And so I’ll play this real quickly here, it plays, um, and so if you look – each one of the white specks here in a minute will be an individual Axis deer and so this is also on a private landowner’s property, um, and you can imagine the difficulty in managing these game species being a single private landowner – having this many animals across your property and from a hunting perspective it’s difficult to access them if they’re largely on private land. This is a couple of minutes, I’ll let it play for 30, 45 seconds just to give you an idea of how many animals there are across this one small area. Yeah, so all of those white dots are each individual Axis deer and this is on Maui. OK. Feral goats, I’m sure most of you are familiar with goats being on the Big Island their presence across most of the main Hawaiian Islands similar to pigs being absent from Lanai, Kahoolawe and Niihau. And same thing here, they occupy different areas than the deer, um, largely high elevation areas, um, in dry areas – here’s a few clips of them browsing some vegetation on Kauai. It’s one the reasons but look at these different ungulate species they occupy different areas – when we look to manage them – I heard people talking about game management and conservation management and removal and things like that – it gets challenging because from a legal and the State’s standpoint they’re bound to manage these animals as both an invasive pest species and a game species and so they’re legally mandated to have, you know, conserve and protest our native ecosystems while at the same time maintain a viable hunting program and you can think that’s pretty challenging because the management intervention that you do for both of those things are very different so if you’re in a game management area your management for these species is very different than, you know, a natural area reserve, for example, and often these areas are right adjacent to each other and so there’s kind of this conflict in terms of management objectives and management interventions. And this was kind of like the driving question around our research that we’ve been for the last 6 or 7 years now – is how, can we look at these challenges and how can we produce data to better achieve or better provide data to inform the decisions surrounding these two different objectives and two different mandates. So, early on we kind of looked at it and we kind of sat 14 down and thought about it and talked and discussed with folks what data we were missing and what data would be important to better manage them across our diverse landscapes and so here’s a fairly simple representation of what a Hawaiian Island might look like we have our conservation areas, we have our Ag and ranchlands, we have our different hunting units and we know where these different areas are. What we don’t know on this map, um, with reasonable certainty is where these ungulates are across that landscape and what we also don’t know is how they move throughout the time and so at one point in time that previous depiction I just showed you guys, maybe that hunting was pretty productive – there were a lot of animals in there – a hunter could go in and reasonably harvest an animal whereas in this point in time maybe it’s an unproductive hunting unit and there isn’t that access to that resource and on the flip side now maybe we have pressure in our Ag lands in Conservation Areas from those ungulates and so our management decisions are going to be very different at these different points in times and these very different spatial representations depending on where these animals are. So we’ve done - since 2016 - really is kind of conducting these Island-wide comprehensive survey efforts where we go out and we survey all these different locations. Here, I’m showing Oahu, Maui, Hawaii, and we’re currently on Hawaii Island right now but basically each one of these survey locations, depicted in gray here – if you can see those, we do two kinds of survey methods. The first survey method we put out game cameras – we put out six in each of those survey locations, and we leave those cameras out for two weeks – they’re spaced at 50 meters apart and kind of this grid array and then if at the end of two weeks we pull those cameras in and look at what animals we picked up on them. At each of those camera locations we also do sign surveys – so we roll out some tape and each of those grids we look for any signs of animal presence whether that’s digging for pigs, scatter droppings, vegetation disturbance – such as browsing – or any of the kind game trail. We do those surveys when we put out the cameras and when we pick ‘em up so we have two kind of data points there and then using that data so we’ve got our camera detections, we’ve got our sign survey detections, we can then kind of put them in this model which is roughly called the species distribution model and essentially we put in these data inputs and we look at how they correlate with environmental variables so we pull in environmental variable like rainfall, vegetation height, vegetation density, all of those kind of environmental features that might be important to that species biology and then we can look at how they correlate with the detections that we have and then we can predict out the distribution of those animals and so I won’t go super in to depth in this – I’ll leave it at that but if anyone has any questions after I finish the presentation feel free to ask me about our methods or how we develop these things but, um, basically the outputs look like this, and so here’s a distribution model of feral pigs on Maui, just to orient you with these maps I’ve got a few coming up in the coming slides, the yellow colors are gonna be the lower abundance of the animals, the deeper red colors are gonna be the higher abundance of the animals, and then the tables on the left are the different environmental variables that went into predicting the distribution so in this case pigs on Maui, you know, annual rainfall is an important predictor, vegetation height, vegetation density. We actually found that distance to the nearest like \[unclear\] or for wet forest was an important predictor in the distribution of pigs there. We’re also have a model of the distribution of Axis deer and so if you’re familiar with the distribution of Axis deer or with Axis deer on Maui this might look pretty familiar, you know, throughout the Saddle mildly abundant in some of the upcountry kind of ranching areas also widely abundant. What I found interesting when we’d done this work back in 2018 they hadn’t really seen Axis deer over on West Maui near Lahaina and then I presented these maps again to – at a conference thing a few months back – I’m sure enough people raised their hands and said that they were seeing deer in Lahaina now – so it kind of – the maps that we produced from the data 15 in 2018 kind of produced a habitat suitability map, if you will, and predicted that deer might be abundant there in the future and, again, rainfall, vegetation height and actually interestingly native vegetative cover were important predictors in the distribution of Axis deer. Goats – slightly different distribution – really prefer, you know, dry arid areas. These areas that show up in the deepest red are kind of the old lava flows on East Maui and, again, predicted to be abundant in the higher elevation areas up Haleakala as well, although that area is fenced so they’re likely not there due to fences. We also have more recently our data from Kauai that we’ve made out distribution maps with – so these are all the hunting units on Kauai and abundance of pigs across there – largely abundant in the wetter valleys in some of the upper reaches of Waimea Canyon and the Alakai Plateau. And then black tailed deer – I found this one pretty interesting that most detections we were seeing out of any of the cameras that we put out throughout that entire study were in Units E2 and E1 and when these animals were introduced to Kauai, fifty some odd years ago they were introduced to mostly non-native mesic dryish forest in Unit A and it seems like from the detections that we were picking up it seems like they have moved in to this wetter, forested area throughout the E2 and E1 units, which is kind of more reminiscent of their habitat from when they were introduced from Oregon – where these animals are. That takes us to kind of current – this is our survey locations across Hawaii Island that we’re trying to get out to so all the little game cameras that you see on this map are the areas that we’ve surveyed so far and so we’re about halfway through our survey on the Big Island right now. All the red areas are the locations that we’re trying to get to over the next few months and get some data there but you can expect similar distribution maps from the work that we’re doing right now and the surveys that we’re doing on island right now so we’ll likely have mouflon, you know, goats, pigs, and sheep, hopefully, if we get enough detections but, yeah, that’s where we are right now in terms of our surveys, I’m happy to answer any questions about it afterwards but in terms of implications from this research. One of our main objectives is just providing a baseline to data set for, you know, for where these animals are and how abundant they are, um, and I heard a few people mention, you know, where they are and these are constant questions that we’re hearing and so if we can provide some kind of data on an island-wide scale to say where they’re most abundant and if that helps, you know, from a game management perspective or a conservation perspective than we’re producing those data projects. Also, we can use this to kind of prioritize where to allocate funds and resources for both game management and conservation. So, if you’re looking at, you know, there’s funding for a new game management area or, something along those lines you can look at this data and say, we can expect a bunch of animals there and so maybe it’s reasonable to designate a new game management area in that area. We’re also looking at minimizing conflict between these different management interventions by identifying low hanging fruit, kind of the no brainers when you look at these maps, and then I hadn’t presented some of the results we’ve gotten in terms of seasonal patterns cause I didn’t think we’d have time today but we’re also looking at this data and trying to address, you know, is there seasonal patterns in the distribution of these animals? Are they in one area at one point in the year – are they moving in different areas at another point in the year – and you can imagine the implications of understanding that kind of species biology when it comes to managing them across these diverse landscapes and so, um, that’s kind of it for today, I’m happy to have a discussion and conversation about our work if anybody has any questions but a huge mahalo to everybody who’s helped out on this project between our DOFAW collaborators, our land partners and all of our UH field techs. But with that, I’ll leave it for discussion or questions. Thanks. 16 AA: The floor is opened up for our Commissioners. RD: Derrick, well done, Robert Duerr, District – 1. Well, well done, you know, congratulations and keep up the good work. A question – do you have any sense of the numbers of animals on islands? DR: Yeah, that’s a great question and a question we get asked often. And fortunately, we have an idea – so I don’t know if you noticed on the maps or whatever, but we used the term “relative abundance” because it’s very difficult to get numbers and density information. Basically, we’ve tried to do it over the last few years but basically what it requires is that you have to mark and individual and recapture that individual on the camera and it works well for species that have unique markings, I know they do it in Africa with giraffes who all have unique markings and zebras and things like that but unfortunately our ungulates here are very difficult to uniquely identify, yeah, one black pig is very hard to tell from a different black pig of similar size and so unfortunately we don’t have that number information but we do have an idea of, you know, if you’re comparing one area to another you can look at the relative abundance of one area in comparison to the other, yeah, great question though. RD: Another question from \[unclear\]. Are you using any kind of acoustic tags, you know, either satellite or \[unclear\] to track migrations and movement? DR: We are not, no, unfortunately, I know a few studies done years ago with radio collars and things like that, but I don’t know of many that have done that, yeah, unfortunately we’re not. BL: Brian, District – 4. Hey, thanks for your presentation and everything. We, there’s always been some controversy and some issues on these things are you figuring, what a good game management would be for these areas or are you guys just going for the point that these ungulates need to be removed from the landscape? That’s the first question. DR: Yeah, so, our goal is to produce data so as UH and as researchers obviously we don’t have the mandate to make decisions about the management of these animals but what we’re trying to do is produce data in a neutral way to say where they are and so that if someone wants to identify what game management actions need to take place or what conservation actions need to take place we’re hopefully producing the data to help make those decisions but we’re not putting that on top of the data, we’re just trying to produce a baseline data set to be used for whatever reason. MP: (Melissa Price) And I’ll jump in on that one real, quick. I think one of the things we think a lot about is how to achieve different goals with the pigs so I appreciate the question and the chat from Chiara and I’ll forward you, or I’ll put into the chat a paper by Pupaalua at Hueo who just finished a masters in my lab looking at the Hawaiian newspapers and the historical relationship of Hawaiians and pigs over time, which is a really beautiful bit of works. I’ll put the link to that in the chat in just a moment but, um, you know there’s two big goals. One is to hopefully make sure that there’s food provisioning and how to make sure that we protect native plants and other things we care about and so it really becomes a matter of thinking about those goals and how we quantify those goals and how can we achieve those goals given where the animals are and the impact they’re having. So we asked a lot what do we think the right number is – well, it 17 depends on your goals for the land, you know, are people getting the animals they want from it from a hunting perspective and are we protecting our fisheries resources – not getting too much sedimentation and that kind of thing – protecting our land resources with our plants and things – so there’s a lot of tradeoffs to think about, so it’s difficult to have a right number, but you gotta monitor for those things if you want to be able to answer those questions and right now I don’t think we’re necessarily doing a good job of monitoring how many animals the land can actually handle and how many animals do you need to have to make sure the hunters are getting the animals that they want. AA: For the record, that was Melissa Price. MP: Sorry about that. SW: Deputy Corporation Counsel, Sylvia Wan. So I just want to let you know that whatever you put in the chat is not gonna be saved so if you do have a link or paper that you want to share with the Commission can you please email that to Barbara Kossow – her email address is on the agenda and that way it can be shared with the members. MP: Absolutely, I’m happy to share those. BL: Brian Ley, District – 4. Another concern is – like we were talking to the property owners, you know, I’ve got some friends on Maui and we’ve talked about this – we’ve got the same thing on the Big Island – they’re putting deer fences up and we’re basically corralling these animals and turning them into livestock like you’ve seen on PTA where the bird hunting and the vegetation has just been decimated by lack of game management and overcrowding because these animals can’t move to more productive areas and like you said, you know, we’ve got these landowners that are crying about the animals but they’re not letting people there and we’ve got hunters that want, you know, more liberal hunting things and we’re not getting what we need, you know, we’ve got these problems and from the hunters’ point of view GMAC – been begging for game management and rules, like you say, you can’t pick these terminal animals – we can’t move ‘em to a different area, we can’t hunt at night, we can’t shoot them, we can’t do this, we can’t, can’t, can’t and then we end up in a situation like you show where we see these bright red for these animals that are out of control cause there’s no effective game management. And that’s my problem is that I have is, we have no game management – you come in – you’re doing pure research – I appreciate that – and you’re looking at the numbers but I see what’s gonna happen is – you come in here with these numbers and say, oh, my God, look what we gotta do – we’ve got to poison, we’ve gotta kill, we gotta do whatever we can for these animals instead of doing sensible legislation – like I said, Act 315 – we’ve got these huge hunting areas and it’s all fountain grass. Nothing wants to eat it and then they wonder why there’s no animals in there. We need vegetative and habitat to attract these animals out of the areas, you know, it’s a web – I’m preaching to the choir with you, but you can see our concerns and stuff like that, let’s put some water for the goats and the deer. Let’s have some controlled burns to get the fountain grass and get some good vegetation in and draw these animals out of these trouble areas – let’s, you know, the \[unclear\] homeowners crying – they need to get the hunters in there – they need to quit crying to the State to fix the problem – it’s your property, I’ve got a fence around my house to keep the crack heads out – put a fence around your property if you don’t want the 18 deer in, so, that’s my two cents worth and I appreciate everything you did and I’m looking forward to seeing the final numbers, so, I appreciate it, mahalo. MP: Yeah, thank you. Melissa Price, UH, the one comment on that is that we’re hopeful that these maps can be a toy you can use for showing, if you say, hey, you’ve got these designated game management areas – they’re not in there – and that shows that they’re not spending their time there and we think it’s due to too much fountain grass and, you know, they need to manage the habitat – the origin of this project was actually because Jason Misaki on Oahu said I need maps I can take to the legislature so I can increase hunting opportunity – that would be her origin of this project – the very first iteration of it, so, hopefully, this will help give you information to be able to back up those requests. Also, mention we have a parallel project taking place that came out of a request from ranchers to help them make better decisions managing ungulates on their land that are impacting their ability to produce sustainable locally grown beef and so we have a parallel project that looks at the \[unclear\] and there’s a number of those, for example, Ulupalakua Ranch on Maui – they said, look we’ve maximized the number of hunters we can have coming on the land – they’re allowed to come on every day but we have it organized so they’re not shooting each other, but we’ve maximized the number we can have come on, you know, breaking it down into management unit areas – and we’re still having to reduce our herd size due to the impacts from the Axis deer. So, they’re looking for other resources, oh, and they’re also paying Maui Venison to come and do targeted shoots at night and it’s still not enough to get the numbers down on their private lands for what their impacts are so, yeah, super challenging issues for private landowners to deal with and we gotta get collaborating better across State/Federal lines to address these issues, so, thank you for your comments. LT: E aloha, Leomana, District – 3. Thank you, guys for all this work. I just have a couple of questions. My first question is because it is data are you guys claiming the leading authority on counting on population? One of the problems I had my whole life over here on the Big Island is to deal with the palila and the counting of the palila and the counting of the sheep and like accurate distribution maps and so I was outside of the authority question – what statistics do you guys use – the last one I was checking was Shelly Keegan – he’s the Nobel Laureate from UCLA and I was researching his counting methods on animals, and, sorry, one more question I wrote down, what is the land management style that you guys draw your plan from – so what, like as a Hawaiian I look back on the ahupuaa system to learn how to – as a foundational tool – to change when coming to land management – what kind of foundational like plans do you guys draw your land management skill from? Mahalo. MP: Yeah, thank you, Leomana, for the questions, personally, I think a lot about connecting values and actions to outcomes so those three things are really important to me. What are the values that are going into our decisions? How do we define success? And then, what is the connection between the actions we can take and the outcomes of those actions and are they actually getting us toward what we say are our values and so I work a lot with different community members to say well what are the goals you’re trying to achieve here, what’s your ultimate definition of success and then how – what information is missing that we can help provide you for better decision making. So, we’re not here to tell you what your values are or how you define success but to listen to what that is. And so, we spent the last six or seven years listening across communities and frankly what you hear is a lot of, finger pointing, right… 19 LT: Um-hum… MP: ….everyone says well so and so’s not doing their job – so and so’s messing this up – so and so’s messing that up – and it goes in all directions and so that’s where we had these different projects from different perspectives to try to help the different communities – one better to communicate but also to provide information that folks can use so and try to hopefully, at the end of the day, avoid our information being used as a weapon but being used for good decisions. So as far as, I mean, there are two parts to your question. That’s kind of an underlying value for me is that at the end of the day I want to improve land management to help different communities achieve their goals, right, and hopefully get people talking and working together – collaboration is a driving value for me. But the other part to your question was, on counting animals and I want to go with the answer that respectfully in that there’s many different methods we could use to actually count animals that’s important to us. We could use density based methods with fly over data like you saw in those videos and we could use that for counting – we could use capture market capture – which would involve capturing animals, putting tags on them and then if the formula based off of how many recaptures you get over time so you go do sequential captures, there’s a number of methods you could use to determine numbers but at the end of the day who’s to say which number is correct. At the end of the day what matters is are the hunters happy, is the land happy, are the fisheries happy, and I don’t know that, it’s the exact number that matters so much as the impact, so when the numbers of animals are getting too high where you’re seeing impacts on fisheries, sedimentation, and hunters are happy they’ve got enough animals to pull from the land, then OK, we need to adjust down. When the numbers are too low, ah, you know, hunters aren’t getting what they need. The land seems to be pretty happy you’re not having sedimentation issues and species impacts to plants and things like that. LT: Can I add one thing? MP: Go for it… LT: I agree that we cannot count on numbers and we gotta depend on the impact so how do we, I guess, from your point of view as an educator and a data researcher how do we convince the politicians to make the policies to see things not in the, you know, because they’re so numbered – how many acres are we managing? How many animals are there? And the politicians who make all of the rules that kinda confine us – that’s how they – cause that’s why I care about numbers cause we gotta take the report and you know I am a scientist as well and so I care about numbers and so when I take it to the politicians they look at numbers so how can we – from your point of view – how can we switch the narrative that the politicians care about impact? Cause that’s really what I’m trying to do – change their minds. MP: Yeah, that’s fantastic. The short answer is I think we have to put numbers to that impact. So one of the things we’re trying to do in the parallel project working with ranchers is we have an economic survey – it actually, I think it’s getting mailed up today – going to all the ranchers so that we can actually quantify the economic impact that they believe the wild ungulates are having on their lands that in parallel with these other efforts to actually we’ll have field studies quantifying the amount of forest lost due to the number correlating that with the number of Axis deer on the lands and so forth so, and the we’re also working with them to identify well 20 what are the actions available to you? Are you actually utilizing your community hunters to help reduce the numbers on your land? You know, is it fencing that needs to happen and what are the potentials – ripple effects – if you fence that area it’s going to change the movement patterns of the animals –how’s that gonna either improve or impact things in other places – so we’re trying to take a really comprehensive approach to that, again, that was funded by USDA so that’s why it’s focused on the rancher’s side of things when we’re thinking about other kinds of numbers I do appreciate – I think the State is working on doing a better reporting system for like as a hunter you’re checking in, you’re reporting the number of animals you got that day and it’s not a paper system so that other people aren’t, you know you don’t have those reporting issues of people not wanting to show everyone else how many animals they got. LT: Do you guys use that hunting data as well for you guys charting and distribution maps other than the, ah, you know cause you guys get the data from Maui Nui – so do you guys also use the DLNR hunter checking data? MP: I think they just started that two years ago – when was that electronic system implemented? Within the last two years, yeah? So, for Maui the project finished in 2018 was it 2018 Derek? So I think the system was implemented after we finished the project, um, Hawaii we just finished data collection in 2021 so, again, there wasn’t good overlap with those data and I know there’s kind of a lag time in hunter uptake for using that system too, so, um, down the road that’s a great idea and that’s something that would be a great point of comparison for our model, so thanks for that suggestion. LT: OK. Right on, mahalo… That’s all my questions. AA: Thank you, Leomana. Any other questions or comments from the Commission? Not seeing any, ah, Abraham, District – 5, it was brought up earlier in a meeting about the Act 315, how do you guys – what is your guys stance on that – it’s just that, you know, because our game animals, you know, they came in as a sustainable resource, as a resource, right, that’s why the Hawaiians brought ‘em in that’s why Captain Cook pretty much brought in a lot of pigs, the goats, the sheep and, you know, they were gifts to the high chiefs, you know, and to the kings and, it just – they then became overpopulated due to lack of game management, right, and then now, last year, we got a sustainable resource bill to get our game animals, our game resource out from that invasive species wording and, just making it a sustainable resource so what is your guys’ take on that – in the research that you guys are using, doing…? MP: Melissa Price UH, so I appreciate that question and I appreciate the work to get things into the legislature so that you have a policy basis for making change. I want to be really forthright, you know, I’m not Hawaiian and so I’m – I can’t speak to those values – I listen to what other people are saying and I try to make sure that I’m supporting and giving good data. The student that worked with me in my lab and I made sure that they had 2 Hawaiian scholar advisors as well so that things were grounded in Hawaiian ways of knowing and perspective to make sure that that was all done appropriately in looking in the Hawaiian newspapers one of the things that was really interesting is that prior to Captain Cook’s arrival and the devastating disease that impacted Hawaiian people and really changed the physiological systems so that you didn’t, the water was diverted, you had all of the things that really impacted the system – \[unclear\] an agricultural resource within the area of management, right, and the \[unclear\] kanaka, right? And 21 so, then you have the release of pigs across the landscape, the introduction of strawberry guava, worms, a lot of other things that increased their abundance and the introduction of guns and metal based knives and other things that increased hunting practices – the practice of hunting with dogs – those kinds of things that are now really common – those are still and we were really cautious in our talking about this in the paper – that doesn’t make it any less Hawaiian to hunt – the fact that it is an evolving practice over time – that’s an indigenous trait – it’s evolving with the times and the resources and the changes over time to persist and thrive, right, and so, um, the, you know, I think the important things is to recognize that pigs being super abundant across the landscape, deer being super abundant across the landscape – it wouldn’t have been that way 200-300 years ago and so those impacts that we’re seeing are kind of result of colonization and the changes to the environment so that’s – those are all things that I’ve been taught from listening to other people, um, and I can’t speak to them as things that I came up with on my own – those are things that I’ve been taught by others who I was listening to. So as far as the bill goes – these are really complex problems in figuring out how to get the deer and the pigs and the goats where we want them so people can access them, eat them, have food provisioning and have them not impacting resources we care about like, you know, causing erosion and impacting fisheries, impacting native plants and stuff. Those are complex issues and I need to take another look at the bill before knowing whether that addresses the problem at the level it needs to be addressed. So, my apologies for a long answer on that. I hope it’s helpful. 6. OLD BUSINESS: a. GMAC Quarterly Report to Mayor Roth and County Council – draft by Commissioner Cortney Okumura. AA: OK. Thank you. Ah, moving on. Thank you for the presentation. Looking forward to working with you guys in the future. Moving on to Old Business – GMAC quarterly report to the Mayor and County Council drafted by Cortney Okumura, so, all the Commissioners I’m pretty sure by now have the quarterly reports emailed to you guys, you guys looked over it. So, at this time can we make a motion to approve the quarterly reports, um, we can go back and forth – these quarterly reports. SW: \[Unclear\] AA: This quarterly report for the third and fourth quarter – July 19, August 16, September 20, October 18 and November 2022. Action: R. Duerr made a motion to accept the GMAC quarterly report as circulated. Seconded by B. Ley. The motion passed unanimously by poll voice vote. 7 Ayes, no nays. RD: I make a motion to accept the report, Duerr, District – 1. BL: Ley - District – 4, I second the motion. AA: Any discussion on our quarterly reports. Not seeing none, oh, not seeing none, I’ll make a roll call vote. District – 1, Robert Duerr. 22 RD: Aye. AA: District – 2, absent. District – 3, Leomana? LT: Aye. AA: District – 4, Brian Ley? BL: Aye. AA: District – 5, Abraham, aye… District – 6, Austin Griffey? AG: Aye. AA: District – 7, Natalie Reynolds? NR: Aye. AA: District – 8, Cortney Okumura? CO: Aye. AA: District – 9, vacant. Ah, 7 ayes, no nays. Motion passes. RD: Ah, Chair, Robert Duerr… I have one question – when we submit these letters to the County – how do – does the County have a log so that we know that they’ve actually been received and accepted by like the County Council. SW: So, this is the quarterly report – this is what’s mandated by the Charter. What would be next in line is to put it on the agenda before County Council so that they can review the quarterly report. RD: OK, great. AA: Abraham, District – 5. So, Barbara’s gonna pass it on to the person who makes the agenda for the County Council. SW: \[Unclear\] Sylvia Wan – yeah, I’ll have to work with Barbara as to the bureaucracy to get it on the agenda before the County Council. AA: OK. Thank you. SW: And they might contact you or some other member to be the representative before Council. b. Discussion on GMAC November 2022 recommendations for Pu’uanahulu/Pu’uwa’a’awa rule change for DLNR Rule Change Committee. 23 AA: Um, Old Business. Section b, discussion on GMAC November 2022 recommendations for Puuwaawaa/Puuanahulu Rule Change or DLNR Rule Change Committee. So, this is the one Cortney was asking about and they didn’t… So, they’re gonna have to pass it… SW: Yeah, so the – so Cortney and or Brian Ley can provide an oral report if they want to, but however that would be without the aid of their written report and/or the rules, so it’s up to them as to how they’d like to proceed, they could also pass it to the next meeting… BL: Cortney brought it up…she wants to say anything… AA: Ah, District – 8, Cortney Okumura, Brian’s passing it on to you since you wrote it up, if not you can pass it on to next month’s – we can put it on next month’s agenda. CO: Yeah, hey, this is Cortney, District – 8. So I’ve already read this to the group, I think it was 2 meetings ago so there’s nothing new – no changes. It just hasn’t been included in the packet to go out so I just wanted to clarify that. Thanks. AA: OK. So, we’re gonna stay with it till next month’s meeting. SW: Was there any actions on that? AA: Just to get it so we can pass it along to DOFAW. ?: Oh, OK. Sure. AA: We just need to finalize it to get… SW: So, because you have your PIG, right? AA: Yeah. SW: And then they do the report… AA: They did the report… SW: And once the report is done then the Commission can decide what they want to do about the report – whether it will be a letter in support or not. AA: That’s pretty much where we’re at. SW: So, then you can have that discussion if you like – if you’re all satisfied that you reviewed the report and know what’s in it. If not… AA: Table SW: OK. 24 AA: I know Kanalu, waiting for us but still have time before the Board – the Board that’s meeting. SW: OK, so was there a motion and a second to table? AA: No. SW: So, let’s do that. Action: R. Duerr motioned to table item “b” under Old Business. Seconded by B. Ley. The motion passed unanimously by poll voice vote. 7 ayes, no nays. RD: I make a motion to table, Duerr. BL: Second, Ley. AA: Discussion? Not seeing any – can we just have a call by, districts – go by district? SW: Sure. District – 1? RD: Aye. SW: District – 2? Vacant. District – 3? LT: E’o. SW: District – 4? BL: Aye. SW: District – 5? AA: Aye. SW: District – 6? AG: Aye. SW: District – 7? CO: Aye. SW: District – 8? NR: Aye. SW: District – 9, vacant. Seven ayes. Motion passes. 25 c. Discussion on draft letter regarding HB53. AA: OK. Moving on to section c – so discussion on draft letter regarding HB 53 – that bill actually died so we don’t have to have a discussion on that anymore, um, we’ll be looking into, oh, I can get to that – OK, moving on to Committee Reports. County of Hawaii Park and Recreation Laupahoehoe Boat Ramp and Seawall Committee, Robert Duerr, Chair. 7. COMMITTEE REPORTS: a. COH Park and Recreation – Laupahoehoe Boat Ramp & Seawall committee. RD: Basically, it’s a holding pattern. Army Corps came and visited. They’re drafting their report and Maurice Messina is still waiting to put his thing together and get it to us. AA: Abraham, District – 5. So do you want to keep this on the agenda rolling or do you want to just table it – like put it on the side till you notify me to say…. RD: Why don’t we have – we can invite Maurice Messina – Department of Parks and Rec and then he could give us an update or he can tell us – maybe he has somebody who wants to organize an update. AA: I think we already brought him in like twice so I… RD: OK. AA: So, I was working, I think, maybe with you or Teresa seeing who you guys could get in from the Army Corps and so we can get, you know, their side of the whole thing. RD: OK. Do we want to try to line up the Army Corps? AA: Yeah, I think that would be better. RD: OK. AA: Yeah. Cause they’re doing their report or whatever they’re doing so and then Maurice going come in – he’s probably just gonna say, oh, we’re waiting Army Corps, right… RD: Right. AA: Better to just have Army Corps and \[unclear\]. SW: Deputy Corporation Counsel Sylvia Wan, I guess that still doesn’t answer the ultimate question because if we have this still as a committee there needs to be a purpose and it sounds like… RD: There is a purpose… The purpose is to follow the progress from Army Corps and the County in what is concerning citizens – a project that has been failed since 2009 and the citizen concern is 26 that if they didn’t get it right at the beginning, why didn’t they get it right at the end? That’s why we’re watching this. That’s like citizens concerned about this. SW: OK. It’s not enough, what was the original purpose of this particular committee was to find out where it’s going. RD: Correct. So, when there’s no word from County and Army then we just defer it to a next meeting or whenever and… SW: OK. I understand. It’s just, we did discuss this a bit more and my understanding is you want to just continue this to next meeting but, um, the Sunshine rules don’t allow an indefinite PIG. AA: So, I’m not saying, my question was not to have an indefinite cause it’s gonna come to an end as soon as the Army Corps come in with their report, right, my question to Mr. Duerr was – do we want to just leave it on the agenda or let’s say we put ‘em on the agenda next month… SW: Yeah… AA: ….and there’s nothing – he’s gonna come in next month – he going to say there’s nothing to report – so I just wait till he calls me or whatever… RD: Chair, I can do that… SW: OK. The motion would be to table and so there’s no \[unclear\] for the Chair to put it back on the agenda. AA: No, we’re not tabling it because it’s not, he already put his report so we’re not tabling it. RD: Report – which next month we’re gonna invite Army Corps. I will look to get with the Chair and Teresa Nakama and Brian was, also on that and then what we’ll do is look to get a statement from Army Corps to bring us up to date. SW: I understand what you’re trying to do – I’m just trying to figure it out procedurally how this is to get done as far \[unclear\] and all of that. But I understand, what you’re trying to say is you’re moving it from agenda for the moment because next month you’re gonna put on a different \[unclear\]. AA: Maybe or maybe he’s gonna say, oh, I have the Army Corps… RD: Chair, Chair, ah, as Chair of the Laupahoehoe – our report’s done \[unclear\]. b. Identification of State Legislative Bills that Effect Hunting, Fishing, and/or Cultural Practices Committee. AA: OK. Thank you. Committee Report – identification of State and Legislative bills and \[unclear\] hunting, fishing and or cultural practices, so, \[unclear\] just mention the bill that we were 27 tracking in that committee was HB 535 – I guess we still looking into other bills now that there’s a CIP HB 1380 \[unclear\] from District – 7, SB 770, HB 165 so, and I’m the Chair of that committee as well so I’ll just get back to you guys next month and see where those bills are going and see how we going move forward with those bills, but probably by that time it’ll probably be too late anyway. RD: Chair, I have a question, Robert Duerr, District – 1. Do we know what, how, what happened to HB 535. Does it help us… AA: Yes. It went through the Water and Land, and it passed Water and Land with some amendments, and I think the only amendment that I’d seen was the date – the start date of it – I think that was the only amendment on it. After that it went to the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, which is chaired by David Tarnas and we got a meeting with him and Todd Yukutake from the Firearms Coalition put it on and he invited me up to David and gave a brief orientation on that bill and he just said didn’t have time so he had many other things he’s concerned about so he wasn’t gonna hear it. RD: This is Representative Tarnas? AA: Yes. RD: From democratic Kona? AA: Yeah, democratic Kawaihae/North Kona, I guess. District 9 – well, that’s county District 9. BL: \[Unclear\] AA: Ah, moving to… LT: E Leomana, District – 3. Sorry I just wanted to make a – I don’t know how to say this but, you know, a lot of the politicians been putting out bills to like the last year we had the pig birth control – this year we have the chicken birth control. How, like, how can we put out something to say like you guys gotta get a letter of recommendation to enact any type of these bills from the proper authorities or someone of expert knowledge cause I don’t, you know, I just see it on top of the news that, oh, that, you know, some of the people on Oahu are introducing these bills having to do with birth control for animals and I never got a call, and I know most of you guys didn’t get a call so how can we kind of, I guess, help manage that or get some respect in that regard? AA: OK, for one, Leomana, I know you know this, so we’re the only County in the State with a game management advisory commission. There is a Hawaii State Game Management Commission that is run by DLNR, under DLNR, and, ah, they need to – the different counties need to reach out to their State GMAC representative because each county has their own State GMAC representative. Like for the East side is ours one is Jason Sanborn. For the West side – the Kona side – it’s still vacant – there’s no position – that position is still open, so, again, if anybody on the Kona side wants to represent the Kona side – go and apply. You go onto the State DLNR’s website and apply for that Game Management Commission vacancy, um, like you say, I never get any phone calls – I rarely get any phone calls about any game management things and 28 everything got to go through Barbara and Barbara sends me a bunch of things and it’s just like notifications that things that already gone by that we didn’t even touch on so… LT: Um-hum… AA: ….that’s ongoing battle that we fight from before and it’s still going and we’ll fight in the future as well, but, you know, we’re reaching out and we’re working with these guys and all we can do is get good communication like we’re working with, ah, having communication with Melissa Price and her team and that’s, that’s the way it goes, you just have that good communication, right? LT: Um-hum. AA: So, I guess if you want you can reach out to… LT: I guess that’s just part of it, yeah, they get, I mean, cause I feel like they utilize all of the wild game to their advantage to use as, like political tools to… AA: Yup. LT: ….you know, and there’s, and to me it’s like we really make the wild game suffer here and hunting for, you know, public hunting is gonna suffer because of this and I’m \[unclear\] I just trying to protect public hunting and all of our wild animals. AA: Correct… LT: Anyway, thank you. NR: Aloha, Natalie, District – 7, as mentioned before at the beginning of the meeting you were gonna give the people an opportunity to speak on manta ray before I do the committee update correct? c. DLNR Boating and Ocean Recreation – Rules & Regulations Related to Manta Ray Tours Committee. AA: Yes, we’ll do that right now, moving forward, ah, moving to DLNR Boating and Ocean Recreation Rules and Regulations related to the Manta Ray Tours. Um, first in line we have… SW: For public testimony… AA: For public testimony, ah, Keller Laros from the Manta Pacific Research Foundation – just remember you have three minutes. KL: Thanks very much for having me today. I appreciate all of you guys’ time. My name is Keller Laros, I’ve been diving with manta rays since 1985. I’ve been teaching a class about manta rays since 1993. I’ve issued over 500 certifications about manta rays, manta ray biology as well as how to responsibly scoop, dive and snorkel with manta rays. In 2003 we got… we founded the – pardon me – 2002 – we founded the Manta Pacific Research Foundation, non-profit 29 organization dedicated to the research, education, conservation concerning manta rays. Two thousand and nine (2009) we were able to get Governor Linda Lingle to sign a bill, Act 092 making it illegal to kill or capture manta rays in Hawaii. Currently, we have a bill in the House and in the Senate which would require commercial ocean operators to have at least one crew member trained on their boat – trained as a lifeguard or as dive master – we feel that this would raise the level of safety on the tours – the commercial operators – as well as – we think there would probably improve the quality of the tours for the guests out there. The most important thing for me is safety, sustainability, the wellbeing of the manta rays and our ocean environment and I’m happy to answer any questions. AA: Thank you. We got Joni May (Balancio). SW: OK. Go ahead… AA: Joni May? JM: Aloha, my name is Joni May Balancio, I wanted to quickly share with you guys why I chose to start a company and its vision on how unfair this all is. These proposed rules – I’m asking you guys to reject it – it’s mainly benefiting the large vessel and scuba companies. These proposed rules are being placed for all manta sites as a whole, but each site is very different – different with ocean conditions, current, location sizes. I also feel adding more moorings are putting more unnecessary debris into our oceans. I am a small company with just one permit. I’m a six passenger vessel. There is only a handful of companies that are six passenger vessels. We do multiple trips a night, which is great because we are keeping the manta viewing areas less crowded all at once. Being a native Hawaiian, born and raised here in Keauhou and having a strong knowledge of the ocean and culture – we chose to start this company about 10 years ago. For a few reasons, number one, obviously for us to support our family but for number two I also wanted to give back to our community, um, we had a testimony that got sent out to you folks that I hope you guys had a chance to read it – but I have been blessed to be able to have our company be part of an organization that helps educate over 8,000 keiki a year, here on our Island. So many have come along with our families to experience a night manta ray snorkel tour with us. These kids are not just experiencing this time in the water at night with the manta rays but they have a chance to connect with their culture – we are able to educate them – not just with the marine life but also that they too can be a native Hawaiian from the Island and become a business owner and be able to afford to stay here on Island and support your family. Losing the manta ray permit will not just affect my family tremendously and everything we scraped up to start our business, but also, so many of our children in our community will be affected by this and lose yet another opportunity for them. I’m asking you to please hear our voice from our small local mom and pop shop. We are the true definition of locally owned and operated and we ask you to please be a voice for us. Thank you for your guys’ time. AA: Thank you, Joni May (Balancio). Next is Manu Powers. MP: Aloha, I’m Manu Powers. I wanted to first just quickly thank the Commission. It’s refreshing to hear that you folks are talking about what’s happening with the pigs, the goats and all of it. Born and raised and to have seen what’s happened over the past, ten, fifteen years, it’s refreshing to know that you guys are there but only got three minutes so I’m gonna move on, there’s four 30 main issues regarding this proposed rule set. One is, I think it’s important to know that most of the operators here don’t oppose regulation but regulation for regulation’s sake is the problem. Where is the data set to support this particular rule set? I’m part of a hui or operators that believe there is a pathway to a reasonable set of rules – that we are happy to work with the DLNR on – we’ve actually drafted a rule set that we would like to submit to the DLNR – I think enforceability, equitability – those should be the main issues and the current draft rule set doesn’t promote any of those things. I mean, you can hear it in Jonie May’s voice, this is a livelihood of local families like us – we’ve been in the best company – our company \[unclear\] West Hawaii for 20 years and it’s possible that half of our income and half of our 45 employees will just have to go. We built businesses of local people and now we’re having to make potentially very, very difficult choices, um, Joanie May touched on a couple of things different Keauhou Bay and \[unclear\] Bay – the rules set is \[unclear\] on both locations \[unclear\] Keauhou Bay is not a harbor, etc., etc. \[Unclear\] Keauhou Bay \[unclear\]. Um, so I’m gonna for the rest of my time but I want to thank you for taking the time to consider this – which has huge implications for local people \[unclear\]. Mahalo. AA: Moving on to (see on screen) I-Pad JoJo. Three minutes. I-Pad JoJo? (No answer) Ok, moving on to Tom Young. TY: Hi, this is Tom Young. I’m speaking today on behalf of Hawaii Oceanic, ah, the DLNR’s proposed rules for manta ray viewing would have massive consequences for local businesses but they really wouldn’t solve any meaningful safety issues, in fact, they would introduce several new safety concerns that I will talk about shortly. These proposed rules should be amended to reduce the impact on local businesses and take into account the safety issues they’re truly addressing. Look, I’m supportive of regulations that save lives and provide clear safety benefits, but the proposed rules wouldn’t provide any meaningful safety benefits despite the perceived safety concerns in manta ray viewing zones – the data is very clear the manta ray tours are a safe activity as millions of guests have safely attended manta ray tours over the years. There’s only been one severe in-water accident – that was recent – and it’s important to note the DLNR’s proposed rules would not have prevented that accident, so, if manta ray tours were dangerous you would think that after millions of participants who’ve been out on the water we have some data to support the idea that it’s truly dangerous but where we’re at is a set of rules that just don’t make sense to proceed with because what they’re gonna do is cut tour revenue by up to 50% for different tour operators – they’re gonna force layoffs in the community and they’re gonna cause business owners to go out of business. So there’s a few safety concerns I’ll touch on today – I don’t have enough time to go through all of them but the first one that’s a really big one is that there’s a proposed ban on live boating and what that means is that all boats are forced to tie up to a mooring ball rather than to be able to sort of drift with their snorkel groups in the water. So this is an area that definitely impacts snorkel boats more than scuba boats and it impacts Keauhou more than it Makako Bay because Keauhou has really strong currents where snorkelers can often drift like 100 yards or more from their vessels. So in that scenario where the vessels can’t remain within earshots of their groups in the water it creates a huge safety concern if there is an in-water incident and the swim guy can’t get the attention of the captain. Another big one is the idea of these 2-hour shifts where basically, you know, each boat can run for 2 hours per night and there’s gonna be a shift change at some point in the night – if we do that that means 48 boats are gonna be coming in and out of manta ray viewing zones at the exact same time and back to its boat position that doesn’t exist today. So 31 there’s quite a few other safety concerns that should be addressed in there but at a high level there’s just not enough data to support the idea that there’s such a big safety risk that we should be shutting down local tour operators, forcing layoffs and causing the kind of impact that this would have on the community, thank you. AA: Thank you, Tom. Next we got Teri Leicher. Teri Leicher? OK. Last one moving to Byron Kay. BK: Aloha, I’m Byron (Kay) with Honu Divers and Kona Snorkel Trips. We run the manta ray tours – we’ve been doing it for 20 years now and, I’d just like add – thank you, Tom, for some of those points – you had some of the great points there and, I would just like to make some comments on your guys’ comments here. You know there’s a permitting system being proposed here for the manta ray and as far as deciding who gets the permits, um, I think the way that the permits are planned to be rolled there could be a lot of not necessarily – they wouldn’t be rolled out in maybe the most fair way where – they’re supposed to – a proposed lottery system and, the way that the lottery system works is anybody who’s had a permit for longer than 4 years could potentially get a permit – the problem is there might be operators that have been doing this for 30, 40 years, ah, like we’ve been doing it for 20 years, though the permit or who gets a permit, um, it’s not based on longevity of whose been doing the tour – it’s just based on a random lottery system so that doesn’t quite seem right, sit right with me, ah, the customer to guide ratio I really do - I like that, I support that – I think it’s great to have a customer to guide ration – my companies have a eight – the one customer guide ratio – ten to one is where you start to end up pushing it, um, is this something that the government should be enforcing or is this something where it’s up to the individual operator to decide what is safe and, how much liability they’re willing to take on – that’s something that we should ask ourselves, are we really gonna prohibit operators from acting in their own best interests or at least, ah, curtail them? One issue with that is that if they do have too many snorkelers per guide, if one of the snorkelers have an issue or multiple snorkelers have an issue then the other guides from the other operators maybe might have to come in and assist and help that operator – the guide from that operator, um, so it’s a matter of personal responsibility and how much responsibility somebody wants to take on so, though, I do support the ratio, um, the vessel lighting and propeller guards: vessel lighting, um, if you’re following the manta ray rules that Keller Laros helped establish, essentially boats shouldn’t be using vessel lighting so that’s a really great idea because it prevents the mantas from getting injured and we really, we want to try to prevent that. As far as propeller guards are concerned, I have prop guards on one of my boats, probably one of the only boats in existence that have them – but some boats – they don’t easily, you can’t easily put a cage around the propeller, it’s very difficult to enact and really by creating a zone where the vessels are forced to slow down… \[Noise\] Am I out of time? AA: Yup. TY: Thank you. AA: Teri Leicher? SW: One second… 32 TL: Hi. OK. Sorry, I was muted before and I couldn’t get out of it. I’m Teri Leicher and I was raised here in Hawaii. I have been part of Jack’s Diving Locker primarily as a managing partner since 1981. We started out with 5 sets of gear and a Volkswagen van and we’ve got children and grandchildren who were born and raised here, um, so it’s a family operation. We also have another family – the Laros family – works with us. First of all, I did my first dive off of what was the Kona Surf back in 1983 and that was with the manta or not my first dive but my first dive with the mantas in 1983 and then, um, it started getting to be very popular. We have probably three boats going there and so we decided that with 3 boats going there it was getting kind of busy and we in 1990 got together with Patty Project Aware and came up with the guidelines for diving and snorkeling with manta rays. In 2012 it started getting really crazy – there were like 20 boats going to the two different sites and there were now two different sites and so we went to DOBOR and started asking for help because we had gentlemen’s agreements and we had our guidelines but everybody had their own idea of how to do things and so we went to DOBOR and said, you know, we think we need some help with this and, you know, they, we thought maybe we should create an ORMA or do something so we could have a little bit stricter guidelines, ah, because there was always somebody that kind of wanted to do their own thing and not really care about the other people around so, um, we just wanted to have some sort of consistency, um, we now have that happening here and I want to say that I agree with Byron from Kona Honu and with some ideas that he has we do support a management plan – they using moorings actually protect the reef – that was the reason why they were put there to protect the coral – the way that we will be installing new ones, I mean, there are a lot of ideas – they’re not necessarily the greatest ideas, but I think DOBOR right not is trying to do the best they can and I would hope that they would work with us as the experts who’ve been doing this from very long time to try to come up with a slightly better management plan but we definitely support some sort of management and I’m available for questions too. We have a long history there. Thank you. AA: Thank you, Teri. RD: I’ve got one question for the last speaker. Are you saying that you’re a contractor to DOBOR? TL: We operate as a dive operation. We have become – we started with 5 sets of gear and Volkswagen van but we did become one of the larger ones and we started – not Jack’s Diving Locker – but via Malama Kai Foundation along with my dad back in the 1980s, ah, the Dave’s Mooring program and that was put out there solely – and it’s statewide now – but that’s to protect the reef from anchor damage, ah, having moorings in certain locations so boats can tie off to ‘em – any boat – commercial or non and not damage the coral reef. RD: Yeah, my question \[unclear\]? TL: Right now, currently, Jack’s Diving Locker does have a contract to put in the moorings that DOBOR would like to put in because it’s something that we’ve been doing for a long time and we’ve decided to bid on it because the original bid we felt was not going – the plan – we wanted to make it safer. RD: Thank you, Teri. AA: Thank you, Teri. Ah, Natalie you want to continue on with your committee report? 33 NR: Yes, Hi. As you can tell that there are a lot of emotions and a lot of businesses and there’s a lot at stuff at stake in regards to the manta rays. It has been a challenge sometimes to get a hold of DOBOR and have communication with them, however, today I did a hail Mary and actually Ed Underwood gave me a call today and he addressed a couple questions cause he said he had a moment for me so I kinda just asked him in regards to the big debate of permits because there’s a lot of gray area when it comes to permits as far who’s gonna get them, who can keep ‘em. There’s a debate of, you know, if you do not have a motor, if you have a small vessel which is like 6 and under, I think that’s how the Coast Guard depicted it and then he had stated that there’s going to be a lottery and there’s not gonna be any separation between like a non- motorized and a unit that carries or a vessel that carries 30 or more people, everybody’s grouped into the same category as well as when you want to bring in and add the mooring – he wants to do that as, I guess, safety, but there’s a lot of debate with adding more boats. There’s issues with people across the board with just having Keauhou and Honokohau slightly separated where you have people pick which kind of permit they want and which like permits for location – that could maybe alleviate some of the issues as far as the overcrowding but the proposed rules and regulations that are coming out are currently not helpful to everyone across the board and we’re hoping that maybe some of the information that is gonna be at the Civic Center on Thursday at 10:30a will get some answers but it’s just frustrating for the general public that has manta ray tours businesses that they feel as if DOBOR kind of side swiped them and didn’t allow them to hear their voices or work with them because it is kind of organized when you go to Honokohau and when you go to Keauhou – I want to say Terry said it there – it’s like a gentlemen’s agreement – everybody has an like an agreement and they do work together but I think that these proposed rules and regulations are 1) freaking people out because as I believe Jonie was mentioning in getting a little… AA: Natalie? NR: Yes. AA: Sorry, Abraham – District 5. Let’s make a motion to table your – this subject till next meeting. NR: Oh, it’s 3:58p. Yeah, yeah, 3:58 so table it for next month. SW: Do you want to say one more time because these rules, my understanding from what you’re saying – is that the rules that you’re talking about right now – they’re gonna have a public hearing on those rules… AA: On Thursday… SW: On Thursday – do you want to state that one more time for everybody’s that’s listening? NR: Yes. So, there’s gonna be a public hearing at West Hawaii Civic Center and that is at 10:30a if you want to do an in person testimony you need to be there 30 minutes prior or you can submit a written testimony up to 11:59 pm on Thursday, or mail it and have the postage be stamp marked for that day on Thursday. But if you guys want to get your voice heard and take with them that’s your opportunity cause we can only do so much as we’re an advisory commission. 34 AA: Correct so… NR: Natalie, District – 7, I make a motion to table this but I want to vote on it next month – so what would be the correct motion. SW: If your report is complete, cause, you did provide your report to everybody… NR: Yeah. SW: ….I don’t think need – I think you just need to be on the agenda for next month and the commission can decide what to do with your report at that point. AA: That’s pretty much what I was gonna say. SW: OK. So, no table is needed. NR: OK. No table… RD: Mr. Chair one suggestion that we put this kind of at the front so we don’t run out of time next month. AA: Yeah, because the report can go in after that meeting anyway. Public hearing for GMAC… SW: Do you want to continue her, d & e…? NR: Oh, thank you. And then can I just state thank you to everybody that came on to talk about the manta rays – I really appreciate you guys taking the time and hanging in there. d. DOFAW – Puuanahulu/Puuwaawaa Administrative Rule Change Committee. – Tabled to next meeting. AA: Thank you, public. I need a motion to table section d – \[unclear\] Puuanahulu/Puuwaawaa Administrative Rules \[unclear\] committee report. SW: \[Unclear\] Action: B. Ley motioned to table items “d” and “e” listed under Committee Reports to the March 21, 2023 meeting. Seconded by, R. Duerr. The motion passed unanimously by poll voice vote. 7 ayes, no nays. BL: I make a motion to move it to next month, Brian… AA: And “e” BL: “D” and “e” \[unclear\] investigative committee \[unclear\]. 35 RD: Seconded. AA: District – 1, Robert Duerr – for discussion – not seeing any… RD: Aye… AA: District – 2, vacant. District – 3, Leomana? LT: Aye. AA: Five, aye. Six, Austin? AG: Aye. AA: Seven, Natalie? NR: Aye. AA: Eight, Cortney? CO: Aye. AA: Nine vacant. Seven ayes, no nays. e. Investigative Committee: DLNR expenditures of Pittman-Robertson grants, Dingle-Johnson grants, Boating Special Fund, and Off Highway Vehicle Fund in the County of Hawai’i. – Tabled to next meeting. 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS: a. Next meeting will be on March 21, 2023, at 9:00 am to 11:00 am at the Puna Conference Room in the Hilo County Building. st AA: Announcement – next meeting is on March 21 so from possibly from no one it’s gonna be in the morning from 9:00 to 11:00a – a same meeting room is here – still allowing Zoom supposedly.. SW: \[Unclear\] guests. b. Public Hearing for the GMAC Draft Rules will be March 21, 2023 at 9:00 am to precede the GMAC monthly meeting. AA: \[Unclear\] guests, um, so, yeah, just a reminder that it’s gonna be moved to the mornings 9-11a. st Public Hearing for GMAC draft rules will be on March 21 2023 9:00a to… SW: It comes before the meeting. 36 c. GMAC vacancies, District 2, (Hilo, portions of South Hilo) and District 9, (Kohala, portions of Waimea). AA: Yeah, it comes before the meeting. Also, a reminder that GMAC vacancies from District – 2 and District – 9. South Hilo \[unclear\] North Hilo portions, District – 9, is Kohala, portions of Waimea stst and also last announcement – turkey season starts March 1 so turkey bird hunters March 1 buy you guys’ tags from your local DOFAW office or you guys can come online at the Hunters special app or just the DLNR website. 9. Adjournment: (4:03 pm) Action: B. Ley moved to adjourn. Seconded by R. Duerr. The motion passed unanimously by poll voice vote. Next Meeting: March 21, 2023 from 9:00 to 11:00 am. Respectfully submitted by, Barbara Kossow Secretary 37