2016-06-20 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes — June 20, 2016 the ten years is to really see if they can make a strong recovery in this area. NP: Are you completely blaming the fishermen for this, I mean, you know, the run-off of nitrogen from those golf courses — that causes algae blooms — that's a whole different ecosystem, can't you be blaming nitrogen run-off, mean, can't you be banning, fertilizer on golf courses just in case that could be a problem in the eco -system? Why are just the fishermen being targeted? CY: You know, the first thing I want to say is that I don't, I'm not blaming anybody, I mean, I used to fish a lot. NP: The fishermen are the ones who are paying, yeah... CY: People who go fishing — they enjoy it. I enjoy it — I enjoyed it, you know, I don't really do it very much anymore, but I enjoyed it when I did it. I'm not blaming anybody... NP: But isn't it true, though, that the hotels do put a lot fertilizer in their vegetation — water heavily — all our fish water running off in the ocean and isn't it true that, that does cause algae blooms. CY: You know, that has not been established in West Hawaii, and I know something about this — I was Planning Director for Hawaii County for 8 years and we did, an extensive study — their monitoring of — there's monitoring of the ocean water in West Hawaii off of all the resorts — there are ups and downs — but there's really not any documented evidence that - of harm from... NP: Has really been studied like the fishing target the fishermen, I mean, have you targeted these things as equally in your studies? CY: What I can say is that the effects of golf course fertilization have been watched, you can, there — the kinds of problems — say the algae blooms that have occurred off of Maui — we have not seen anything like that on the Kona Coast fortunately, ah, we haven't, and the — basically, the message that the people who work on this say is that what you see is within the range of natural variability — when you see rises and falls in ocean nutrients there. The other thing I'd like to mention, though, is that, ah, and then this is in the materials that were submitted on this, ah, there is a greater decline in the fish species that are sought after by fishermen in these areas in Kona than fish that's nobody is interested in catching. So if it were an eco -system problem, you wouldn't expect that — this tends to make you think that you're seeing a problem from, people trying to harvest too many fish of certain types. 11