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JS: Professionally speaking as a hunter – many problems – cats, mongoose, the helicopter <br />itself I have witnessed after they do as sheep eradication – nests on the ground from the <br />actual helicopter trying to protect the bird. The tall grasses, the invasive grasses, <br />invasive weeds. <br /> <br />LT: If there’s one thing that we – that GMAC can do immediately – what is that one thing <br />that we can do to help? <br /> <br />JS: To help the… <br /> <br />LT: To help figure out the extinction event that’s going on with all of our birds. So, I asked <br />that because we’re fencing and then there’s the fire breaks on the base… <br /> <br />JS: Right. <br /> <br />LT: And then the critical habitat just expanded and then contracted and… <br /> <br />JS: Right. <br /> <br />LT: And so, all of these things, I don’t know what to do myself and so I’m just trying to ask <br />other people what is something that we can really do. <br /> <br />JS: I think the fencing is a problem, I think the eradication is a problem, I think there needs <br />to be a – some sort of fair balance and what that balance is – I am also Hawaiian <br />ancestry…I love all the birds, I mean, I wish they could all co-exist, yeah, of course we all <br />know sheep was introduced as a gift over 200 years ago to the King, um, as much as I <br />would love to see the birds perpetuate for eternity I do believe that we should not play <br />God and if this bird’s time is up in its evolutionary time period as 98% of all living <br />animals that have ever stepped foot on the face of the earth are already extinct – at <br />least sheep is kaukau – food, but that fine balance I don’t know. I don’t know what that <br />looks like – animals and the landscape, yeah, so… <br /> <br />LT: Um-hum. For my point of view as a native about the birds, you know, as a scientist I <br />follow the trend and the trend says it’s gonna go extinct and the rest of the birds. And <br />so, my manao, my thoughts are how can I buy some time so that the community, you <br />know, because of the last 100 years and what happened to the Hawaiian community – <br />we don’t really have, um, people like us out there like, eh, we’re all gonna go extinct on <br />our animals and our plants too – what do we do about ‘em. You know, is there <br />something we can do as the Hawaiians to commemorate this in spiritual ways or in <br />traditional practices or do we go up there and, you know, how do we let our people <br />know – oh, all of our birds are gonna go ‘cause that’s my main reason for being here <br />‘cause I saw that just, calculating the numbers and I’m like, well, there’s gonna be an <br />end date in the next five years then, hopefully I’m there to help guide our people… <br /> <br />16 <br /> <br /> <br />