2014-03-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 24, 2014 M. Bartell: You know I… Ike, when you’re done, I got to jump in, sorry… D. Yoshina: OK. So what I’m trying to say is we have to be clear as to where the federal laws are and where their reach goes to and where the state laws are and where those reach to. And I think we have to be very clear as to what we’re going to do about that. But on the other hand we have to be condescend on the fact that the federal laws – the federalization of the state did happen – so we cannot disagree with them… Man: Self-inflicted. D. Yoshina: Yes, but, if you look at the history of this – the federal, yeah, it’s self- inflicted many times. Mauna Kea didn’t happen because the state did something – it happened because the state did nothing. W. Camara: Yeah. M. Bartell: So, Ike (D. Yoshina) great comments. Let me give you two cents, right. There’s people in this room that have actually talked to U.S. Fish and Wildlife – Fish and Wildlife has seen a video of William Aila blaming Fish and Wildlife for no game management program. Fish and Wildlife would openly disagree that Fish and Wildlife is responsible for no game management program. The state owns 90% of the lands in the islands. The feds own only 10%. We’re responsible for managing 90% of all land mass in this state. The state has the responsibility to put together a game management plan for that 90%. The state is openly aware of where the critical habitat is – there is no excuse for the state not to have a game management plan for this – for our island and for every island. Right? The state has continued to use the federal government as an excuse not to do this. And we got to hold them accountable for that. No ifs, ands or buts. Right? W. Camara: Yeah. M. Bartell: This is from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, right? They’re saying I don’t know why you guys don’t have a game management plan, we’re not holding it up. And that’s conversation within the last couple weeks. Right? So it’s not federal issues. It’s the state issue. And that’s why I think we just got to continue to push. The state doesn’t want to declare these game animals as non- invasive species and we’ve got to force them to do that. We need to know where the state stands. Our legislative effort is awesome. We just got to keep it going. Am I accurate? D. DeCoito: So it’s like – more like to me what can we do on the county level. OK. We talked to federal we talked to state. But yet this is a county commission. 11