2023_08_15 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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AA: Move on to Section C of Presentation Kanalua Sproat of West Hawaii Wildlife Biologist DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife West Hawaii Feral Ungulate Management Plan Task Force. c. Kanalu Sproat, West Hawai’i Wildlife Biologist DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife - West Hawai’i Feral Ungulate Management Plan Task Force update. AA: So, Courtney asked for an update last month, but it wasn’t on the agenda, so now it’s on agenda for this month. Kanalua can you give us an update, about the West Side Ungulate Management Plan Task Force? Apparently, you guys had a meeting recently last couple of months or something. KS: Yeah, no problem, you guys can hear me, okay? AA: Yeah. KS: Yes. we met – we met twice this year so far we met in February and we met again in May. In our last meeting we selected a chair and it became a co-chair, so Kim Kozuma from Dept of Ag and Regina Sorano from the County are the co-chairs from the task force. We discussed and outline, for the report that we need to present to the legislature. And I was thinking I just could read through some bullet points from the outline that we discussed and and just get you guys comments if you think we’re missing anything or anything like that so the first part of our, I think I discussed some of these things with you guys before. In the report, the first part of the report we’re going to talk about the legislative mandates that dictate what we, what our responsibilities are, as different agencies are involved with this report. And then, sorry, we also going to talk about its’ an ungulates report, it’s supposed to be not just for goats, even if it’s kind of the driving factor. So just kind of give a brief distribution of each species on this side of the Island. And the issues that we’re discussing are, public safety, as the goats are encroaching highways, crop damage, and forage competition of livestock partners, property damage, native forest preservation, conservation and damage to cultural and archeological sites. Those are the kind main issues we are looking at as we present this report. Some of the solutions that we’re already suggesting umm the main one from our agency, the first one is, addressing our short staffing for DOFAW and wildlife section of the Island. So, we are suggesting to create a couple of biologist position and technicians position. Since on this side, it’s only myself, I’m the only biologist and I have two technicians. So were trying to increase that. And also something we have discussed with you guys several times are the rules change. The temporary rules change that we’re working on to increase harvesting of goats specifically, Puwa’awa’a and Punalu’u. some of the other stuff that we are investigating and we will provide are in the report are cost for fencing along the highways. Especially the highways we are responsible for so, between the upper road between Waimea and Kona. Kind of fencing both sides of the road in Punalu’u and Pu’uwa’awa’a. Also, Daniel K Inouye highway pretty much from the upper road from highway 190 junction to kind of to the Mauna Kea access road. Get an estimate for cost for fencing in those areas. That’s’ it’s one solution and we’re going to present this to the legislature hey this is one 20