2014-10-27 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 So like the gentleman talked about Pohakuloa — those are state lands — state lease, I believe, does the military own the animals that are on the land? I don't think so. So these things are — these things belong to all of you in a public resource and you should have the say in whether— I mean, maybe still eradicate them, fine , it's just that you should know. You should be a part of it. [Unclear] departmental collaboration, of course, you know, all these things, we have all these state lands, there's all kinds of departments inside of it doing their work— they're doing hard work but sometimes we don't know what's going on. You know, we can ask our wildlife guys - oh I don't know what's going on here or there and then suddenly we walk into fences that we didn't even know were there. So having some of that— and also to have management of our game mammals is a cost effective method for watersheds and invasive species. You can fence two hundred something thousand acres of watershed — it's gonna be very costly. It's gonna take a lot of work. But right now—we can manage the animals we have, we can also charge for tags — you can also make money on these things — it's a no brainer, Yet, I don't know. Part of the hurdle is, I believe, we have a department— maybe [unclear] the environmental pressures — I don't blame anyone in particular— and a federal department that doesn't publically accept wild pigs, goats and sheep and deer as a resource held in a public trust. So if they could actually do that and make a decision that hey we're gonna keep these animals here as a resource. We're gonna do that. We're find ways to do this — then maybe we'll actually have a chance, but instead, we get, "Oh, we have all these endangered species; we have this and this and this instead." And that becomes more important than anything else, so... Someone needs to make the decision in our management that says, "Eh, we're not going to get rid of these things. These are important to us." And I got some closing thoughts, you know, for the sportsman, for the hunters in my own community because we're facing tough challenges, you know. We have to accept some level of game management. We can't have the good old days — the forty thousand sheep running across Mauna Kea, eating the Hawaiian forest, killing palila birds. That was unacceptable and rightfully so we have eradication today because the ethic then would not— the public probably wouldn't allow for someone to go in aerial shooting to cull the herd. But we needed to accept that a while ago and I think today with the way we are going we can — our community can accept this. We also need to support reasonable forest stewardship. That doesn't mean the forest belongs to only hunters, you know, everyone else is out there as well. We have to care about our native species as well, not just the pig, not just the sheep. We gotta care about mamani trees, ohias, all these things — this environment is as a whole. We need to value conservation and preservation. Value using our resources and also preserving the pristine areas that we can because these are unique and intrinsic valued things that we got. And also protect tradition as a hunter of both the wildlife and land ethic as the largest consumptive users of the forest. So, 16