2014-02-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – February 24, 2014 kind of pahoehoe or a’a situation – but when you have a lot of goats out there, the goats will girdle the trees and then you have less and less forest. But one of the biggest impacts and areas of concern and I think maybe several of you have participated in the cattle hunt going on right now – is the feral cattle situation in the upper Hilo forest – Hilo watershed. And those cattle, if you look out through that forest – it kind of looks like a golf course. \[Discussion\] L. Hadway: And I do believe that there is room for a multitude of uses across DOFAW’s lands and the reason, like I said, I really felt that it was important to show you guys the whole suite of the projects regardless of whether they fell in the watershed priority or not. With that you can understand where this stuff actually is on the landscape. Because when you aren’t looking at these maps, you know, it becomes, if it’s – it’s difficult to really get a sense of where the activity is happening. So I wanted to show this and you know one of the things that really has come up and that was Jordan (Jokiel) was working on is that there’s a lot of land that’s difficult to access that’s still would be good hunting. So improving access is one of our priorities as well and we’re seeing that as one of the things that we would like to use watershed funding for. Man: \[Can’t hear question\] L. Hadway: Access. It protects forests as well. And when we have planting going on for example down in the pastures on the north slope of Mauna Kea there’s a lot of funding going toward re-establishing forest there. Man: \[Can’t hear question\] Chair Sylvester: OK. I will do that at the end. A few more items we can get through and then we get your questions if possible. Move to F now. I think you answered D & E. Any more questions on. The 480,000 acres that’s across boundaries, that’s not just DOFAW land, Kamehameha Schools, Hawaiian Homes land and… L. Hadway: It’s not and I want you to know that that’s not 480 acres of fenced ungulate removed activity. That’s the whole suite of forest management activities. Chair Sylvester: OK. L. Hadway: And so that’s why the acreage is high. The current goal statewide is 90,000 acres is what it is and the goal is 180. Chair Sylvester: OK, that’s… L. Hadway: That’s priority watershed. 17