|
mean,there was an EA without knowing it, intimately. I mean, I know with the way these big
<br /> fences work,there's always an EA that goes through, I don't think game birds are part of
<br /> the EA, I imagine? I mean, maybe...well,they might be, because EAs usually touch on a lot
<br /> of things, but Game birds not being well protected species, maybe they might not. I could
<br /> look into that and get you an actual solid answer, but the fence material on the most part
<br /> around the mountain is pretty much the same specs. It's small on the bottom,taller on the
<br /> top. Birds can fly, but yes, it is small. Like you said,they fly, but they are small. On the
<br /> bottom for something like a Franklin. I'm always surprised when we fence these water units,
<br /> how small of a wire that these birds can get through. I mean,we're not using a smaller eye
<br /> fence,wire on to keep pigs out of the fence, these watering units, but I'm always surprised at
<br /> how small of a hole a Franklin can fit his body through, and just their ability to fly back over. I
<br /> mean,they are driven by water. So, I was just saying that I think this year,you know, last year
<br /> was kind of a worse year, and I think this year was a better year than last year. I don't think
<br /> it's better than 20 years ago, I think nobody would say that, but yeah.
<br /> BL: Brian, District 4, back to what we were saying,why is it not the DLNR looking into it? I mean,
<br /> if they know that there's an issue and the populations are crashing,why isn't somebody
<br /> looking into it besides the fact that it's non-native and they don't care?
<br /> JC: Joshua Pang-Ching, here again.Yeah, I mean,we are trying to look into it. It's hard to do it on
<br /> a big...you know, I...we were trying to do some diet stuff last year to see what gamers are
<br /> reading on a landscape,and we had surprisingly,or not surprisingly, pretty poor feedback
<br /> from, like, input from hunters.You know,we did.We were trying to do a crop analysis, kind
<br /> of just look at... and we're not trying to reinvent the wheel,this is not new science, it's stuff
<br /> that,they did in the 90s, looking at crops, and it's,...we'd set it up where hunters could drop
<br /> off their crops at hunting check stations. I had a QR code posted at all the check stations.
<br /> We had the QR code on Outer Spatial for people who could just submit a picture of their
<br /> crop.What bird they shot,where they shot it, and even roughlywhere on the mountain.The
<br /> ability people could drop off, crops,to our office. I even put my phone number on the
<br /> release and said, hey,you got crops? For myself, I clean my birds at home.Throwyour crops
<br /> in the freezer, call me, and I'll come pickyou up after...you know, I'm not going to come and
<br /> pick up one crop, but if you can save for a couple weeks or the whole season, I'll come pick
<br /> it up at the end of the season. I think we had maybe 4 hunters from Kapo Paula and a couple
<br /> from Mauna Kea that turned in.We had less than a dozen. Hunters that turned in their
<br /> crops. So, not that they're to blame, but that was one thing we tried to do, and we didn't
<br /> repeat it this year. I mean,we're kind of doing our own little... I mean, I look at my crops take
<br /> down the information of what I should, but...You know,disease elsewhere, maybe
<br /> sampling,we try to talk to hunters to see if they're seeing anythingweird when they're
<br /> handling the bird,any sort of abnormalities,the external physical features...That might
<br /> indicate some sort of disease. I think I might have mentioned this at the last meeting, but
<br /> we have on the Palila side of what our office is up to.We have some people on the mountain
<br /> looking at the insect population.There's a theory that a lot of these insects that would have,
<br /> 9
<br />
|