HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-02-17 Game Management Advisory Commission MinutesHawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting
Minutes — February 13, 2017
Game Management Advisory Commission
County of Hawaii
Minutes
Meeting Date: Monday, February 13, 2017
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: Hawaii County Building — Council Chambers
I. CALL TO ORDER: Thomas Lodge, Chairman, called the meeting to order
at 6:32pm.
II. ROLL CALL: Donna Urban-Higuchi
Willie -Joe Camara, District 1 — absent
Dwayne "Ike" Yoshina, District 2 — here
District 3 — vacant
Naniloa Poglen - here
Thomas H. Lodge, District 5 - here
Kenneth "Kalani" DeCoito, District 6 — here
District 7 - vacant
Teresa Nakama, District 8 — here
Jonathan Bartsch, District 9 - here
Quorum established
ALSO PRESENT: Joseph Kamelamela, Corporation Counsel
Susan Kim, Governor's West Hawai'i Liaison
GUESTS: Corie Yanger, University of Hawai'i Cooperative Extension Services
JB Friday, University of Hawai'i Cooperative Extension Services
Chief Robert J. Farrell, Dept. of Conservation & Resource Enforcement
(DOCARE)
III. ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INTRODUCTIONS:
TL: Chairman Thomas Lodge introduced and welcomed JB Friday, University
of Hawai'i Cooperative Extension Services and Chief Robert J. Farrell,
Dept. of Conservation & Resource Enforcement. Corie Yanger,
University of Hawai'i Cooperative Extension Services is not here.
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IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Chairman Thomas Lodge made a motion to approve the minutes as
submitted. Dwayne D "Ike" Yoshina moved to accept the minutes of
January 17, 2017. Seconded by Naniloa Pogline. Motion carried
unanimously by voice vote.
V. BUDGET REPORT:
TL: Chairman Thomas Lodge moved to file the budget. Naniloa Pogline
moved to file the budge subject to audit. It shows $3,900.00 and we have
about $3,600.00.
VI. PUBLIC TESTIMONY ON AGENDA ITEMS:
TL: Do we have anybody from the public who will be testifying this evening on
any of the topics that we have? None from Hilo or Kona.
VII. DISCUSSION
1. Corie Yanger and JB Friday of the UH Cooperative Extension
Services to bring us an update on Rapid Ohia Death research.
(Time swapped with Chief Farrell — change in agenda)
TL: JB Friday from the University of Hawaii Cooperative Extension is here to
bring us an update on the rapid ohia death. Tell us a little bit about who
you are before you start.
JF: Thank you for having me. I'm JB Friday and I'm the Extension Forester
with the University of Hawaii so I'm actually U.H. Manoa faculty but I work
out of the Cooperative Extension Service here in Hilo. I used to do a lot of
koa reforestation work until rapid ohia death.
2. Chief Robert J. Farrell of DOCARE to introduce himself, his
vision, and the mandates and workload priorities of the
department and ways we can assist.
TL: We have a gentleman here from Honolulu who is probably a little short on
time and if you'd like to swap with him.
RF: Thank you very much. My name is Robert Ferrell, I'm the current Chief of
DOCARE — I just wanted to come in tonight to introduce myself. I've been
on the job a little more than three weeks as the Chief, however, I spent the
previous year here on the Big Island as an officer. More than anything, I
wanted to come in and introduce myself and bring my local Supervisor,
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James Weller and Officer Tamura as your point of contact locally and I
can be contacted in Oahu for any issues. I want to make sure that we
open the lines of communication between my office and your commission.
There is a lot of issues going on statewide and I know one particular issue
on the island — range development. There is no place for shooters to go
and so I want to work closely with you. We have a meeting on
Wednesday with some legislators and other admin staff from DLNR. We
want to make sure that we're moving forward on range development so
that hunters can have a place to go to practice good marksmanship and
make a good, ethical, clean kill when they have an animal.
RF: So that's a big priority for me. I know that's a big priority for you too and
hopefully we can engage your help in moving that forward from all fronts. I
think that's what we need to do is all get together — whether it's the county,
the state or any other entity — we all need to be on the same page so we
can move forward with range development. As far as access and things
like that — those are a case-by-case basis. I know we have to work
through some of the access problems here — I know it's a shrinking
landscape — user conflicts are one of the biggest issues throughout the
Hawaiian Islands. I think, there's 9 million visitors to the islands every
year. There's a lot of user conflicts — whether it's stand up paddle boards
against surfers or hunters against hikers — we all have to try and get
together and make the best of what we have, so that's kind of my vision —
we have a lot of things in DOCARE that need a little help including training
for our officers coming in the door. We've made some significant changes
on how people are hired and how they're going to be initially trained
before they enter into the field. Then also ongoing training for some of our
supervisors and managers. We're gonna try and get our guys up to speed
with modern law enforcement training and techniques and get everybody
on the same page. I'm looking for some consistency in training and among
our troops but knowing that each island has significant issues that may be
individual to that island.
I'm looking forward to it. Our funding is pretty secure right now because
of our vacancy rate — that's the only reason we have a little bit of excess
funding right now, we have about 32 vacancies. That's pretty big for an
agency that only has about 120 sworn officers. We're running at about
twenty percent plus vacancy rate. The good news is, I can get my officers
on the street with a little bit of overtime through salary savings but the bad
news is I should have full time officers out there working. These guys can
only work so much before they start to get burned out a little bit from
working extra hours. Hopefully within the next year, we'll bring about
some hiring changes where we can fill those vacancies. It's difficult, as
you know, our officers make about $20,000.00 less per year, than their
counterparts say at Honolulu Police Department. So a basic recruit
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makes $20,000.00 more than a seasoned officer. Currently, we're only
hiring lateral officers. They have to come from another agency that's
already invested time and money for them to be trained properly. We're
looking at mitigating that but the earliest is probably January 2018. This
would mean running basically a resource oriented police academy so we
can fill those vacancies with some entry level folks who don't have law
enforcement experience and haven't been employed as a police officer
before.
TL: Two years ago we testified on behalf of DOCARE on your retirement plan
and I kinda lost sight of whether or not that had changed — but the issue
there was that they had to work until they were like 70 in order to have a
livable retirement. Is that still the case?
RF: Yeah, so retirement for police officers throughout the nation generally is a
little bit different than other public sector workers — you usually have an
enhanced retirement plan. DOCARE does not have that, however, the
good news is that last year they just got a new bargaining unit so that's
gonna be a little bit easier to negotiate certain things because it's peace
officers and safety personnel only — we're lumped in with a larger group of
non -enforcement, non -regulatory folks before — so now we have a smaller
bargaining unit that has a little bit of more specialized people in it and then
the good news is because of that they did get a little bit of a bump in pay
this last year — so that's a good thing, however, their retirement and some
of the other benefits remain the same as a normal state worker.
TL: Are you folks bringing more officers to the Big Island?
RF: Each island right now has between five and seven vacancies. For the Big
Island, we actually have two in the hiring process right now and I believe
they will be coming here to Hilo. They probably won't be on the street for
at least another three to four months. They have to complete an initial
training. We've never done that before — it's a field training program — all
the police agencies do it here in Hawaii and throughout the nation.
DOCARE hasn't have one for a very long time so we're getting some of
our more experienced officers to go through the training and then when
the new officers come on they'll be riding with them on an individual basis
and doing this field training program — so you'll see some more
knowledgeable guys out before they just get cut loose and start patrolling.
DY: I'm interested in knowing what happened to the volunteer program?
RF: There was a bill that was introduced, I believe it was from Representative
Yamane this year for a half million dollars to outfit and revamp the
volunteer program. It's still in place but understanding that volunteer
officers take the same amount of training as a regular officer. If I'm gonna
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put my money into something, I would probably put my money into trying
to get regular officers on the street. Not saying that volunteer officers
aren't important. We have 32 vacancies so in order for me to spend
training funds and also equipment money on volunteers when we don't
currently have any minimum for them to volunteer with us. Most
organizations have reserves or volunteers mandate like say 16 hours a
month. I would be getting 16 hours a month at an expense to outfit and
train that person when I could be getting 40 hours a week from someone
who was coming in the door as an entry level officer. It's kind of my
priority to fill the vacancies first, but the volunteer officer program is still on
our books — it's still available — but you have to be basically a police officer
trained.
DY: I was a volunteer for over 20 years in Honolulu. When I moved here, I
couldn't volunteer.
RF: Thank you. We'll start again. There's a lot of policy work to be done with
DOCARE. That's one of the areas that certainly needs to be revamped a
little bit to make sure that we have qualified candidates and also make
sure that they get the equipment and the training that they need.
DY: OK...
TL: We recently were part of a conversation about trespass rules where
hunting was a part of it — but just general trespass situations and I'm led to
understand that those are police responsibility as opposed to DOCARE
primarily — is that correct?
RF: There's a couple different angles on that one. For those of you who don't
know — I retired as the assistant chief in California for the Department of
Fish and Game. When I started to work, there's some nuance differences
between the way we dealt with it there and the way we deal with it here.
In my opinion, we need to fix the trespass rules — so appropriate signage
doesn't mean anything to my officers, to the county officers, so that's
really something in the law that needs to be fixed, right?
So in normal trespass — in particular hunter trespass usually have some
pretty solid parameters. It would be signs at ingress and egress and signs
three to a mile — that's something we can enforce. Appropriate signage is
a little bit fuzzier for my guys to enforce. But to answer your other
question, I think what you're asking is — do the wildlife officers enforce
trespass rules? If it's strictly a trespass rule — that's something that's better
left to the county jurisdictions, however, if it's a hunting violation — then
we're there to respond to that. So there's two things that happen in Hawaii
that require our presence on private land. One they need a license and
two they can't hunt at night. Some of the other seasonal issues if there
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were one — are not enforceable on private land, which is really interesting
to me because we don't have those same sorts of differences in
California. So if those two things are occurring — hunting at night and
hunting unlicensed then yes, we would respond.
TL: One of the things that I noticed in going through the wildlife revolving fund
- Is that monies from your officers when they tag somebody for example,
the fines and fees and what are you supposed to go into the Wildlife
Revolving Fund and in the last two years, or last couple of years? Anyway
— that number has been zero or like $100.00 or whatever — yet I can't
believe that you're not catching people that are out there. So I'm just
curious where that money goes.
RF: Another great question — I feel like every one of these questions; I have
deja vu because in California we dealt with the same thing. I saw every
county there and there's in excess of fifty counties in California — they all
have a commission similar to yours and they're all supposed to get county
fines money coat least a portion of it from each Fish and Wildlife for
resource violation — so it's the same sort of thing there — sometimes the
courts aren't aware of it because it's not really DOCARE or DLNR that
would be responsible for getting those funds. It's really the court so we
have to liaison with the prosecutor's office to find out if the commissions
are due any monies and then often times we find out that there is some
account errors or there are some misunderstandings on how the money's
supposed to flow to the local commissions. Also, there's differences in the
way that the laws are applied — a lot of times we may write a ticket for a
fishing or hunting violation but that ticket is plead out as a plea bargain
process to a lesser criminal violation. That way and in that respect a
criminal violation would not result in the fine money coming to the
commission. So you kind of have to make sure that when we're talking to
the prosecutors and understanding the process with the judges and
everything that they can order a certain portion of that fine money. Even
if it's a criminal violation to go to the commissions, we have to try and iron
out some of those things that could cause your lack of funding.
TL: My personal opinion is that if you have a shortage of officers over here, Do
you have to sit down in your room and try and work out a case to go to
court for $25.00 or whatever it might be — fine? I can see it would be
easier just to say, let's be done with this — we have more important things
to do — I can see that.
RF: Yeah, on my end, my guys are more than willing to write tickets, but often
times the breakdown occurs in the prosecution phase. The good news is
Hawaii has an environmental court and so with the push behind that and
the procedure behind that — I think we'll start to see a little bit better
dispositions. We're also looking at the civil fine process and most
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importantly the permitting process because suspensions and revocations
of permits are something that is a very strong deterrent to a lot of folks, a
nominal fine, to someone who's making tens of thousands of dollars a
year doesn't really mean anything, but pulling the permit to affect that
does.
TL: Any questions?
TN: Several years back, there was a strategic plan by DOCARE. Are you
familiar with the strategic planning that was supposed to have been
implemented in 2014?
RF: I believe that was a 2009 strategic plan and I have read it, yes.
TN: And what's to come of it? Is it something you folks will follow? Something
you'll improve? Something you'll go back to the table and look at it again?
RF: I think there's elements of the strategic plan that makes sense. I'm not
sure if you're aware - I believe there was a strategic plan. It was in
reference or in answer to an audit that was done and so many of the
things that the strategic plan addressed were contained in that earlier
audit and I think many of those things are valid still and in terms of training
and accountability. I think we're gonna look at that. But some of those
are also antiquated in terms of modern law enforcement administration so
I think there's certainly elements of that strategic plan that will move
forward but I think it's probably gonna need to be updated.
TN: Thank you.
NP: In the beginning, you talked about the need for a shooting range. I was
wondering what kind of steps would DOCARE take to solve the problem.
RF: Our lands division, partners such as yourselves and other entities at the
county level try and identify the most likely spots and I know there's been
a lot of work done. I think that the major thing is that we're all on the
same page and we're all working together. I've only been here three
weeks so I'm still trying to identify the issues but I've met with some
important constituents and also representatives over at the legislature. I
think they're behind the process as well and so we just need to put our
heads together and chose the best path forward.
NP: Yeah. Have you heard of anyone's vision for that exactly including the
public? The hunters?
RF: I've heard different things. I think right now, we just need to stick to a
baseline range where folks can go and be free. It's being treated now as
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a hunting activity — because these people are shooting — they're not
hunting. It's unreasonable to hold them to the hunting rules when they're
just out target practicing. From an enforcement perspective — that's
kinda my biggest goal at the moment.
NP: Good. It would be great if we could all be on the same page about that.
TL: That actually is really good news. There's no legal place here as you know
so you find people shooting all over the place...
RF: I just came here to basically to introduce myself, open the dialogue, make
sure that you know that these guys are our local folks here to address any
immediate needs you might have. They have my full support — I wanted
you guys to understand that.
TL: I appreciate that part. It's important for us to be working with the people
who are working on our behalf. Your officers over here from my
perspective have a job description.
JB: We have a question from the governor's representative.
SK: Actually it's not a question. Chief Ferrell, I spoke to Kekoa a couple of
days ago. He told me that you would be talking about the shooting range.
Kekoa wanted to say that DLNR is working with Representative Evans to
make initial contact with the county to work collaboratively and that Hawaii
Island GMAC would be consulted. Then after potential locations are
sited, then the next step would be to advocate the legislature for the
funding to do a feasibility study on the identified sites and that would
include community consultation outreach meetings. I just wanted to add
that since the woman who was asking questions [unclear] know what the
process as I understand it would be.
DY: So this is Dwayne over in Hilo. I would ask that you involve the
communities at the very beginning instead of coming to us at a later stage
to tell us what you've decided. It's one of the problems we're having right
now with many of the agencies is we're asked to react rather than be pro-
active. So that's my suggestion to you and the governor and Ms. Evans.
Thank you, And I got no reaction.
JB: OK. Thank you, she said.
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3. Corie Yanger and JB Friday of the UH Cooperative Extension
Services to bring us an update on Rapid Ohia Death research.
(Time swapped with Chief Farrell — change in agenda)
JB: Thanks, on to rapid ohia death. I think most of you have been through at
least one presentation. I'm gonna try to skip through or move fast through
the parts you've seen. We've actually had a really interesting discussion
of most of the scientists working on it for about four hours this morning.
This afternoon, I changed a few slides and added a few points. There's
some new stuff in the presentation. We've got quite a collaborative team
working on this — Tom Harrington — who's the white bearded guy in the
middle. He's the guy that wrote the textbook on Ceratocystis diseases,
He's been out here. It's his fourth trip in the past year. The DOFAW's
been funding him to come out and he's worked on these diseases around
the world to really have a lot of input on this, but we've got people from
every agency, private — all kinds of different working group that phones in
once a month, meets the people that are here. There's over 200 people
now working on this. The background is that since about 2010, we've
noticed a lot of additional mortality above and beyond normal ohia
mortality. Starting in the Puna district, these two pictures are the same
spot — the red spot is the same spot. Couple things to see from this is in
four years you had a lot of dead trees. The dead trees occupy a discreet
area so there's a patch of dead trees. These patches are like one to a
hundred acres and then there's healthy forest beyond that. Not all the
trees in the area are dead so there are alive ones still in the area. I want to
stress that this came to our attention not because agency people were out
in the forest looking for it — it's because landowners were pointing out —
calling us up and saying trees are dying — what's going on?
JB: We gave it the name before we knew what it was — rapid ohia death —
because what people were telling us is trees are dying very quickly and
this is different than what we'd seen with normal ohia mortality. A tree
would go from green to yellow and brown in two weeks. We saw things
that looked like they were always healthy ohia dying — there's no external
— one thing I want to stress there's no external funguses — this turned out
to be a fungal disease, but the fungus is.in the sapwood — there's nothing
on the bark — there's nothing external that you see in this so that's one of
the new things I wanted to stress. This is a forest in lower Puna near
Pahoa that I was fortunate enough to visit 2005 — was pretty much pristine
lowland ohia forest — very few invasives. Some rare plants in the
understory - ohia, lama — over story in the forest in 2005. This is what it
looked like ten years later. We have about 98% of the trees dead — what's
coming in the understory is all weeds and pretty much we've lost that
forest. So this is the worst case scenario of what this disease can do.
Where is the forest going and again I am a forester so I'm not the
pathologist or the entomologist on the program. Where the forest is going
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— as you know a lot of these forests are badly invaded with weeds such as
strawberry guava — some of these forests like in Wao Kele in Puna where
the ohia blinks out it's just gonna get taken over by strawberry guava —
we've pretty much lost that forest — there are other forests — such as —
some of this is up in the Wailuku River about half way up the Wailuku
River where there's gonna be some ohia mortality but other trees are
coming in — you're gonna see more koa, you're gonna see more hapu'u
and some other things so the forest will remain a native Hawaiian forest
but it'll be a different one - changed by the impact of this disease. OK. Two
new points on this map, sadly. This is a map of samples that people have
brought into the lab or that we've collected and analyzed and found
Ceratocystis on them. To retain people's privacy, these dots are two
miles wide so you can't find out exactly who has it. I want to be
confidential for the landowners who have it — but it does give you an idea
of where it initially was found and where it spread to. We initially found it
down in lower Puna below Pahoa — 2013. By 2014, it had spread
throughout lower Puna and it was up as far as Hawaiian Acres,
Orchidland, Hawaiian Paradise Park. By 2015, we found it throughout
South Hilo and up the Kona side. Last year, we found it as far north as
Kaloko Mauka. Then in November, we found one tree with it in
Laupahoehoe. Couple more spots that I just learned about today — the
first spot that was identified positively inside Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park — Kilauea Unit — down Chain of Craters Road — and up in the Kau
Forest Reserve. Those are a couple new spots that I learned about today.
This is a CERT map of an aerial survey that DLNR flew last January
looking at what looked like the disease from the air — so the combination
of the spots that we found and what looks like it from the air to kinda gives
you a picture of where it is on the island. There's a lot of ohia mortality in
the forests of these yellow blurs on here are areas that are dead ohia, but
we can tell from the air that's something else. The red ones could be this
disease and we're proceeding to check. Obviously, you see the lower
Puna stuff, - we know that's it — you see that big outbreak in lower Kona,
and South Kona. When they added up all the areas that looked like were
affected, it came to 47,000 acres affected. Now that's affected — that's not
47,000 acres of dead forest. That' 47,000 acres of forest that you see at
least ten percent mortality. The very worst spots are 98% mortality but a
lot of this is well, we see some scattered dead trees in this area here. The
follow-up and discovery what the disease was — we eventually started
felling the trees. When we felled the trees, we noticed this staining — so if
you look at the two slides on the bottom — you see sort of a radial black
staining. The blues are chalk numbering the slices — but that radial black
staining - see that black staining around the radius of the thing — that we
saw — we felled trees — we took slices out up and down the tree to see
where the fungus is — and identified the fungus from that. The fungus was
cultured — it came out as the genus Ceratocystis. There are many
pathogenic fungi in Ceratocystis — our colleagues at USDA ARS figured
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out how to extract the DNA to match it with a worldwide library of different
Ceratocystis and nailed down what it was. I do want to mention there are a
lot of other things in the world killing ohia. Those of you who know the
forest, there was a huge concern about ohia die back in the 1980s up
Saddle Road — Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, windward sides. There was the
puccinia outbreak — that's that yellow fungus that knocked out the rose
apple about ten years ago. It still here. This is not that — there other
things. We saw some what we thought was this disease in Hawaii
Volcanoes National Park last year — we cut it — we found that bright,
yellow, golden colored stuff so there's some sort of root rot that we haven't
identified and this isn't that. There are a lot of other diseases going on.
When I have a landowner asking me about it — most of the trees that die in
someone's lawn is from too much roundup and weed whacking- so there's
that too. So it turns out — this is back to the genetics of it — that there about
1,000 different samples of Ceratocystis DNA in the global libraries — ours
doesn't match any — so we have — it turns out that we not only have one
new species we have two new species of this fungus Ceratocystis on the
island. Now to make the plot even more interesting — one is related to
ones that are Latin American — one is related to ones that are Asian — so
there are two diseases — two new diseases that are spreading on the
island and they're obviously different introductions — cause they came
from different parts of the world. They're distantly related to a rot sweet
potato — but they're not the same thing — it's not that the sweet potato one
jumped to the ohia or the ohia one is from sweet potato — quite separate —
so how they got here — we don't know. We don't see any other plant -
we're still looking at it — the lab. This work is the USDA ARS lab here in
Hilo is testing our ohia fungus on different plants to see if it can grow and
live and move on something else - Did we get it here that way? Are we
moving it around that way? So far there's nothing else that really grows
on it — so kind of a mystery with that — where they came from. We really
want to know this cause we don't want to keep importing new things.
don't know if you all are testifying in favor of the biosecurity plan that the
governor put forward — but we need better bio security. We get so many
pests and diseases and weeds here that we really need to do a better job
in not letting all this stuff in. How do we know that this fungus caused the
disease, basically what you do is you culture the fungus that you see in
these dying trees or dead trees - inoculate a healthy tree with it and watch
and see if the tree dies and then can you get the fungus back out again.
This was done in 2014 with seedlings and we identified - completed the
cycle — identified this fungus was published early January 2015. — We're
going on two years knowing what this is. On the mainland, there's a
disease — a Ceratocystis wilt of oak. We just had someone out here who
works with that. She spent two weeks out here and she's been working
on that since 1970s — so she's close to 40 years in on knowing about that.
We're close to two years about learning about this so we have a long way
to go. As I present things, you're gonna hear a lot of well, this is what we
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don't know yet. If you look up how they deal with oak wilt on the mainland
— they have a lot more — there are some ways that it's similar. There are
ways we can learn from them — there are ways that are quite different.
For example, the oak wilt mainly moves root by root grafting — so when
one tree gets it — it's roots are grafted on to the next tree and it goes to the
next tree and the next tree and the next tree. So it forms this patch of all
the trees dying, but if you look at that first picture I showed of an ohia
forest — they're scattered — so we don't think it's moving tree to tree — so
just in that — it's moving differently. The biology of an ohia tree is not the
same as an oak tree. We take what we learned from the other diseases of
many other trees: eucalyptus and oak and plain trees and such — but ours
is gonna be different. How the trees get infected? How it moves around
the trees? Does it need a wound? How much spores does it need to
cause disease? These are all things that we are currently setting up or in
the middle of experiments to find out. I hired five people last year. One
way or another working on this, two molecular biologists, a pathologist, an
entomologist, a graduate students and a field tech working on it and that's
just part of the whole team working on this. Earlier his year in January —
we did the first inoculation or larger trees — we did this up Stainback where
there's a lot of disease already, so we're not spreading it around. We
didn't go do it in Hamakua or Pahala. What happens when you inoculate
an adult tree, not just a seedling in a pot. Like I said, we've tested different
hosts to see what else is susceptible to it. We've also started on a small
scale looking at varieties of ohia — now, as you know, ohia's very diverse.
There are five named botanical varieties of metrosideros polymorpha on
the island and there are also several other species in Hawaii — not on this
island — but there are other species on Oahu, Kauai — starting testing
seeing what of these are vulnerable. I suspect — since it's so virulent of
what we see — that there'll be a pretty wide range of viability. There are a
lot of ohia. I'm headed to New Zealand in a couple of weeks — they have
six of their own species of metrosideros there in New Zealand. They're
super worried about this so it's gonna be interesting. A couple of things
that I think are giving me a little bit of hope on it — if it gets too hot it'll kill
the fungus. You don't have to get very hot to kill the fungus — this
experiment is one where they took a culture of the fungus, heated it up
and then tried to plate it out on a plate. I'm sorry, this is the cold — if it got
down to 50 degrees, the fungus in the plate stopped growing, OK? In the
Volcano these days is below 50 degrees so maybe these cooler forests
will be less susceptible to the disease. I know with another - we did
another project on a koa wilt fungus and it was very sensitive to
temperature. The cooler forest was OK, the warmer forest caused a lot of
mortality. So this is the first indication this may have something to do with
it. This is the one I was thinking — temperature survival — how high do you
have to heat something to kill it? Not too high. They heated the culture
and then they cooled it down and plated it out on a plate — if you heated it
up to 122 degrees it killed it — it couldn't grow anymore after that — that's
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not going to help for a seedling but what that tells us is the kiln dried wood
— which you're gonna heat up to like 150 — 160 — is gonna kill the fungus.
Also compost — I'm gonna get to the compost later. How is it moving
around? The fungus is in the sap when it grows up and down the sapwood
of the tree. It's not under the bark, it's not under the cambium, it's not on
the bark, it's not on the surface — this is the way it's different than the oak
wilt — cause the spores for the oak wilt are on the surface of the tree — this
is not — it's all on the inside, but if you cut a dead tree and you move it,
you just moved a lot of spores of that fungus to somewhere else. If you
take logs as firewood and then cut them up with your chain saw in your
driveway — you just blew out all that sawdust with all the spores of that
fungus. We knew that the fungus would last at least a year — I just found
out today someone sampled some trees that have been dead about four
years and was able to recover viable spores of the fungus from those
trees — so these trees died about four years ago — he took some samples
— put 'em in culture and sure enough the fungus can still sprout and grow.
So, moving wood around is a bad idea — please don't do it. The bottom
picture here is a stack of firewood in Leilani — the landowner cut up his
trees cause they died and he burns 'em in his wood stove for firewood —
that's a great use of 'em — use it there. I mean if you give it to your
neighbor next door that's fine — what I don't want to see is people cutting
down trees for firewood in Leilani and bringing that infected wood up to
Paauilo or Waimea — where we don't see the disease — that would spread
the disease — so we're asking people not to do that. The posts — like I said
— they forest products made out of ohia — the biggest one is flooring — the
flooring is kiln dried — that'll kill the fungus — the second one is posts for
building — posts aren't kiln dried — air drying isn't gonna do it — posts are
not kiln dried so posts are potentially infective. With the Department of Ag
quarantine of a year and a half ago now — anybody who wants to move
posts off the island needs to have it inspected by the Department of Ag
and they have been busy inspecting posts — this load of posts here —
someone wanted to build a house with them on Kauai — they were found
to be infected with Ceratocystis and the Department of Ag did not let them
move. So far we haven't found it on any other island — we've not found it in
Hamakua or Kohala on this island. Now, the other way it moves around,
though, is that infected trees get really hit badly by the boring beetles — the
ambrosia beetles that bore into them — there are times when they get
nailed and you can just collect spoonfuls of this sawdust that they create
underneath the trees. If you take that sawdust and you plate it out it's full
of fungal spores — it really grows very well — so that, first of all, is
something that's very infective that's blowing around, second that's
landing on the ground so if you drive on your truck through a stand that's
all infected in this, you get a lot of mud on your wheel wells — you will have
a lot of fungal spores also on the underside of your truck, as it's - moving
that around. We've sampled soil in infected stands and we can recover the
DNA of the fungus in about five percent of the samples. If you drive your
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truck through the mud underneath stuff, you're gonna for sure pick up
fungal spores. The beetles are very small — they make like a pencil lead
hole size — that's a picture of one of the beetles under the ear of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt on a dime — so they're very small beetles doing this. We
all know the directions of the wind on this island — what goes off in Puna
blows south through Kau and then up the Kona side — so we know that's
what happens with the vog. That's also the pattern and the way this
disease is spread. What do you call it when evidence is — circumstantial
evidence — direct evidence is do we pick up actual sawdust with the
spores on it in the air? So we set up last month — we're starting — cause
they're actually using the stuff they used to make pollen counts on the
mainland to see if here we're finding this disease. We're setting up testing
across the island to see is that stuff actually moving. This disease needs
some kind of wound to get into a tree. If it just lands on the bark it's not
gonna do anything — it's not gonna go through the bark — if it lands on a
fork and the dust accumulates on a fork — a fork is kind of a wound — as
the tree grows up the bark gets stuck inside - that kind of is a wound. But
the other kinds of wounds are things that people do. One of the important
things is not wounding trees. These are three trees that were infected — all
which we saw that had some kind of wound in the past — so the one on the
right there you can see — it was on a driveway — someone banged it with
the earth moving equipment. It was just too much weed whacker on the
small one and the one with my axe was some, again some kind of land
clearing operation — took a big piece of bark off and that allowed the tree
to be infected, the beetles...
TL: On the wounding - Yeah, we're hunters in this room and when you're out
hunting use cane knives, machetes, whatever it might be to go through the
forest — you might wound a tree that way — might take a shot at an animal
— might hit a tree. What kind of an effect is that gonna have on you — with
you folks?
JB: OK, shot an animal I'm not worried about it — I don't think you're doing a
quantity of that. I'm a forester so I move around the forest too — it's almost
always chopping some sort of brush underneath the ohia trees — chopping
into an ohia — the one thing that I would suggest that people really avoid
doing is blazing where you are by taking chops out of trees. I used to do
that as a young man — I'd go through if I didn't know where I was. I'd take
a chop of a tree every now and then to find my way back — that's bad. We
really shouldn't be doing that — there other ways to mark your trail — figure
out where you are — than just taking chops as you walk along, cutting
brush. If you're in a forest and there's a little ohia in the way and you chop
it out — then you probably killed that tree anyway. You're not chopping at
trunks of trees — what I think is the thing we don't want to do is take chops
out of trunks of trees. Most of the time I'm chopping raspberry or clidemia
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or melastom or something like that when I'm - uluhe — when I'm trying to
go through the woods — I'm not chopping ohia.
TL: You don't see any danger of DLNR saying, "Your bullets are gonna land in
or some environmental organization" - Your bullets are hitting these trees
so now that's wound that's gonna kill that tree.
JB: I'm much more concerned about is driving vehicles from and infected
forest into a non-infected forest. All of this is a percentage thing, nothing is
gonna be perfect on it. What is gonna move the most amount of an
inoculant? What's gonna do the most amount of wounding? Bullets — not
so much — walking along taking a chop every 100 yards over the course of
the day — then you've infected a lot trees — so that's something we urge
people not to do.
TL: On the vehicles — when we were up on Hawaiian Homes lands up there
going into the back — on a cattle hunt area — when we came out we had to
wash our boots and things with alcohol, I think it was that we sprayed on
and I think they also sprayed the wheels or the tires - Is that gonna be
sufficient?
JB: Again, it's a percentage thing and I don't recommend alcohol on wheels
and tires.
TL: It may not have been alcohol — I don't know what they were spraying...
JB: If they're spraying it would have been alcohol. Let me back up a little bit
and talk about the biology of the fungus. This is a real successful kind of
fungus. It has several different kinds of spores and several ways of
spreading — they have a hard shell spore — that's the kind that lasts for
four, maybe five years - that's what's gonna be in any kind of sawdust.
That's what's in the beetle produced frass that's in the mud there. What
you have to do with that is you just have to wash off the dirt. So I pressure
wash under my truck. If I go off road — say Stainback where there's a lot
of it — and then I go somewhere else like up Hakalau — I pressure wash. I
come back to my base yard here — I pressure wash under the truck to get
the mud out and again, if it's caked with mud and you clean out 99.99% of
the mud you're done. You can try it to clean out more. If you cut wood,
the fungus also has sticky spores. So then your tool becomes infected —
it's got that sticky spores on it- so chain saw, axe, machete — anything
cutting into the wood — in Latin America they have a Ceratocystis disease
of coffee — they call it MolDay Machete — cause the guys pruning coffee
take it from one tree to the next to the next as they go down with their
machete. That's where I use the alcohol — anything that I cut — it I cut the
tree with a chain saw — I take it apart — I take the blade off — take the dust
out and soak the thing — spray it with rubbing alcohol — machetes, hatchet,
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any of that — even going sample to sample within a tree. I use that to
sterilize it. I knock all the dirt off my boots with a brush — I carry a brush
and a spray bottle of alcohol in my truck — I knock all the dirt off when
leave somewhere and I give it a spray of alcohol just a little bit of
insurance on that — but I think the really important thing is getting all the
dirt off and then especially if you go from an area that's badly infected to a
fairly pristine area, like Stainback. Basically anywhere in Puna, but we're
seeing quite a lot of, for example, up House Springs Road in Kau. There
— we see a lot of it down the Kona forests. If you go from any of those to
like Kohala where we don't have any yet — a real thorough cleaning of it
and again the vehicle will carry a hundred times more mud than a pair of
boots will — but it's good to clean your boots off too.
KD: So what about like land clearing like you guys go with their dozers, you
know?
JB: Land clearing is a huge problem. Any injuries — so one of the things we
see...
KD: I mean a lot of times - I see the guys there like just stock pile 'em on their
land, you know what I mean?
JB: Sorry — stock pile what?
KD: They stock pile —they don't bury it - they just pile `em up when they land
clear...
JB: Oh, the ohia trees themselves?
KD: What I'm saying is then this dozers go from property to property right
around the islands, yeah?
JB: Yeah. We're trying to work with the earth moving companies — that's a
huge thing and we're trying to work with it — trying to get some sort of
practical way of doing it. I think steam pressure washers that heat it are
one way that we could work with that but we haven't solved that yet.
We're really trying to work with that — that is certainly — if you cleared land
in Leilani — and then you had another job somewhere else — you loaded
your dozer up. That would be a great way to move the disease — so we've
met with the state and the county road crews about that, we are still
working on.
NP: Is it possible that a healthier ohia tree might be more resistant than say an
ohia tree that's already been compromised from other...
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JB: Sure and one of the things we were talking about just today is you could
get multiple diseases in a tree — but what this is really going on — this is a
new disease that is particularly virulent — one of the things that shocked us
when we first were seeing this in 2013 — is these beautiful trees were
going down. If you go in Puna — you know the Puna forest — you go there
and because it's all on lava you can have one big beautiful tree and Tots of
scrawny ones that are on the rock. But the big trees were going down — so
it's not a stress response — drought response, it's a pretty virulent disease
that is going to take down even the healthiest trees — but certainly there
are — say a tree that's already been compromised by root rot will probably
go down a lot faster than this.
TN: What are you using when you say you inoculate the trees?
JB: The study that we just started up on Stainback — we inoculated the trees,
a culture of the fungus and with the beetle sawdust. Our understanding is
this windblown beetle sawdust if it hits a wound will cause disease — well
we actually went and put it in — so what we're gonna do there is in a few
months cut the trees — cut 'em up and we see the fungus growing in the
tree — are we actually seeing that? And we're not bringing stuff into an
area where it isn't already — we're just moving it from one tree to another
that's in the area. That was one thing we hesitated first because it's not a
pure experiment cause that tree could be infected already — but the point
is by cutting up the tree you're able to see how the fungus was growing in
the tree.
TN: Have you found any other solution that would be an anti -fungal solution?
JB: Vascular wilt fungi usually are not controlled by fungicides or things — the
best that you can do with other diseases of this class are injecting the tree
with the fungicide to stop the growth of the fungus — so if any of you have,
are familiar with the North Eastern United States, the Dutch Elm disease is
a huge problem in the North East killing many thousands of elms through
the forest and ornamental elms. So valuable ornamental trees get
injections of fungicide every two years and the arborist comes, drills holes,
pumps it through with fungicide — it stops the progress of the disease — but
once you're at that point the tree's on life support and it costs money every
year, but if it's your one beautiful tree in front of your town hall — the
county arborist will do that. It's entirely possible that could work here —
I've talked with some folks from Arbor Jet last week about the possibility,
but that is again something else we got to work out the technology — just
because it works for elm trees doesn't mean it's gonna work for ohia.
TN: Have you looked for native knowledge that know about these fungus and
what could possibly be an anti -fungal solution?
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JB: Well, again, this is not a native fungus.
TN: But have you asked for native knowledge — those that may have gone to
you and said that they have certain seaweeds that act like and antifungal
solution.
JB: So my team and I have given something like more than 80 community
talks over the past two year. We've directly spoken to about 1,500 people
and we've had a lot of conversations about different ideas and
discussions, I mean, native Hawaiians and I tell you, I've been to meetings
where I've shown pictures of this — I've had native Hawaiians in tears
seeing what's going on in their forest — the lovely forest.
TN: Have you met with Michael Lee?
JB: I'm sorry?
TN: Have you met with Michael Lee?
JB: Michael Lee... I can't recall...
TN: From Oahu.
JB: I can't recall...
TN: He said he spoke to someone and he had some anti -fungal suggestions
from seaweed that fights fungal infections in trees.
JB: OK. I'm happy to talk to him if he gets in contact with me or if you could
give me contact information and again, I've spoken to many hundreds of
people about this over the past two years — the name doesn't jump out —
I'm sorry.
TN: May I send him your PowerPoint?
JB: You can. My PowerPoints as you see are mostly pictures, so it doesn't
really convey the meaning of a lot of what I say.
TN: Right, but at least he'll have an idea of what you'll be talking about and he
could probably give you some suggestions because he's a la'au lapa'au —
he knows medicine — Hawaiian medicine...
JB: Sure, but if you could also direct him to our website — RapidOhiaDeath.org
— is a lot more information on that.
TN: OK. I will. Thank you so much.
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JB: Sure. Thank you.
KD: For us out in the country — a lot of people make fence posts with these
ohias — enlighten me — is it OK? Is it not OK?
JB: It comes down to moving — so this fungus is not a wood rot fungus — so it
doesn't compromise the structural integrity of the wood — but moving wood
around — so I would say use it where it is. Like if you've got dying trees in
Hawaiian Acres and you want to build a fence in Hawaiian Acres and
Orchidland — fine. But I wouldn't say cut fence posts in Hawaiian Acres
and bring them up to Paauilo, bring 'em to Waimea — I would strongly
suggest not doing that.
KD: So if it's generally in that area it's not a problem.
JB: I don't think it's a problem 'cause you're not moving it from where it is. If it
is where it is then it is, you know, and likewise, if you cut fence posts in
Kohala and, and you make a fence in Kohala — we haven't seen any
disease up there anywhere.
KD: OK. Thank you.
JB: One of the other things that we're starting to look at is, Are there
treatments for logs? The value of some of these posts that are done for
architectural use are a lot, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of dollars that
might be something that we could actually treat, but, again, ohia is not the
same as oak and, and how the wood science works is something we gotta
work out.
DY: If you burn the wood, it's OK. But if you were to take that log from Puna to
Kohala — that's not too good.
JB: That's my recommendation. At that point, you're likely bringing beetles
that are already in the log who are going to fly out — the beetles — and
especially if you're like my father-in-law used to buy all his wood by the log
length and he'd cut it up in his drive with his chain saw then you're blowing
the infected dust out. So burning it will certainly kill it and it's a fine way to
use it. I was reminded by the fire chief to say burn in a fireplace or
something — not just light piles of brush on fire. I mentioned the beetles —
we've got a guy — an entomologist on since February — he's done a lot of
trapping to figure out what kind of beetles there are in both the ohia and in
the ohia forest. They're all one species — a non-native species of
ambrosia — the wood boring beetles that you see, it turns out about 10% of
them. When you squash them and run them through the DNA analysis —
they have the fungus on them. It's not that they're collecting 'em it's just
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that they're dunneling in these trees that are infected and so they get a lot
of fungus on them so about 10% of them are carrying fungal spores.
What we're not sure of is are they hitting healthy trees and moving the
disease that way. Are they just hitting — creating all this frass from the
sawdust from digging into trees? There are other disease — now the new
guy that we got last October — he was just working on a disease on laurel
and avocado in the South Easter U.S. and that disease is carried one
beetle is enough — one of these tiny little beetles into a tree is enough to
infect the tree. He's helping looking at this — Is this moving it. One thing I
do notice is the beetles are attracted to a wound. Again, if you wound a
tree — if you bang it with an axe or a machete — their volatile chemicals will
come out of that. The beetles can smell those so they'll go into it. That
could be another way that wounding causes the things to get disease.
KD: Now a lot of people market this. Now you concerned about like Waimea
and I see a lot of people marketing these logs and basically the market is
in Waimea for their fireplaces. So how you going control that cause they're
actually selling these logs for fireplaces in Waimea, so they transporting
'em with their trucks. And they stackin' 'em all outside their homes.
JB: The Department of Ag in 2015 put on a quarantine to not move ohia off
island. They didn't feel it was practical to do a within -island quarantine and
we were discussing that again today. They didn't think it was practical to
say OK, quarantine — you may not move ohia from Hilo side up to
Waimea. I remember the banana bunchy -top quarantine — you couldn't
bring bananas to Kona. It wasn't successful. Where our approach so far
has been advising people not to do it — but it's still on the table. Should
Department of Ag try to put a legal quarantine and a restriction — you're
not allowed to move ohia wood past this point and there'd be some point
on the Hamakua coast. You cannot move it past here. I hate to have
regulations that nobody enforces. Other people think it would be
worthwhile having that in — that is a quarantine in. Very much a concern.
One of the other things that we're talking about is that there's only a
window when the beetles are gonna infect the trees — so right after they
die, the tree on the left there just died — it's gonna infect it after about a
couple months — maybe three to six months and for about two years —
once the tree's been dead after like three or four years they don't have
any more. We're not seeing any more beetle activity. They've dried out —
so there's trees on the right have been dead five or six years — no more
beetles in there so it's just — it's a moving target between the disease and
the beetles and one of the things that I've been seeing on the landscape
of the island — you see a lot of trees dying and then there's kind of a wave
of mortality and then it slows down and then something breaks out. This is
part of the dynamic we're figuring out for. Management — don't move ohia
wood — don't move plants around. Wood we can test — the way we tested
those logs, you see the blue chalk marks on them, we took a slice off the
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end of each one of those and tested for Ceratocystis and that shipment,
again, was found to be infected and that shipment did not move — it stayed
where it was. Plants that nurserymen wanted to sell those plants off-island
— we would have to cut each one down and test it. Basically, Department
of Ag said, "No, can't move it." Again, I'm with the University so I'm not the
regulatory branch — Department of Ag is the regulatory branch. This is
kind of a new game for them. They're used to looking at bugs — is there a
bug — does it move — no bugs — good. But this is a much more difficult
thing for them to regulate and we've had a lot meetings with them.
They've been really cooperative doing their best to figure out that is
practical and what's gonna be effective: don't wound trees. This tree on
the right again is something you can see — it got banged by sort of earth
moving equipment. It had a big wound you don't see in that picture but
the whole canopy of that was brown — it died on that and we recovered
Ceratocystis from that. This is the washing off your gear. Joel with Big
Island Invasive Species — and they go back and forth between these, you
know, they're working it out — busy outside of Leilani one day and they're
working up in a forest one day so they wash all their gear, boots,
backpacks, rain pants, anything that's gonna get mud and dirt on it. Then
this is what we talked about earlier — easiest disinfectant is rubbing
alcohol. Bleach works but you gotta mix up bleach fresh and the bleach is
caustic and bleach rusts your tools. Rubbing alcohol is pretty easy to use
— 15 seconds and rinse it off. Simple Green doesn't do anything, soap and
water doesn't do anything to kill the fungus and pressure washing under
the vehicles and wash — my inside of my trucks clean for the first time
because I vacuum the thing out after I track mud into it. What to do with an
infected trees? This is where we're really thinking about where to slow —
'cause what we're thinking about — the metaphor of a fire I think is used —
cause we're thinking of an advancing front to the disease — so if you can
hit the advancing front, maybe you can stop it from advancing. If it's in the
middle of Orchidland — cutting down some trees — at that point what
stress is just be careful of hazard trees. Once a tree starts rotting - it's
gonna fall down any which way — worry about your house, your wires, your
car or that kind of stuff. But the tree that's out in the back in the forest
there — where there's thousands of acres around it infected — it's not
gonna matter. But a tree that is in the area or adjacent — like in Volcano
Village — that's adjacent to a lot of pretty nice forests — we're
recommending now that people take it down — take the tree down — I
recommend certified arborists — people do it themselves — I cut trees down
— cutting trees down is dangerous and difficult so I try to advise people not
to do it cause if I don't know you know how to take a tree down I don't
want to advise you to do it — you'll hurt yourself. Take it down, cover it up.
Three to six months it should not be attractive to the beetles anymore and
it should be good to go. Also, the beetles focus on these vertical dead
trees — that's what they see — that's what's gonna get infected — that's
what's gonna generate more of that sawdust that'll move — once it's on the
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ground you've solved part of that problem — then if it's covered up with
tarps — you've solved another part of the problem — so the tree in
Laupahoehoe, which was a six foot diameter — a hundred foot tall tree —
the whole thing was covered with tarps — they cut it up — they wrapped the
whole thing with tarps to try to keep the beetles off it there. Burning and
the ordinances on what you're allowed to burn is complicated and we're
not gonna go into that now — but we tell people, a fireplace a smoke house
— something along that. The County last year budgeted for an arborist to
advise homeowners on what to do with their infected ohia and albezia —
this was something that Councilman Ilagan pushed and Mayor Kenoi
agreed was a good idea and it got dropped with change of administration.
We brought this up last week to the County Council — they're following up
on it now — where is that going. It would be really useful to have someone
at the County being able to advise these hundreds of property owners
what to do with their — especially hazard trees.
NP: I would think you should be really careful about that because there is such
a thing as natural ohia die back and I've seen ohia and I'm sure you have
too where a whole top part of it will die and then it'll start all over again.
People don't realize - they'll just be chopping all the trees down.
JB: I think what we're doing here is we're concentrating on hazard trees — we
want to get trees — they're gonna cause hazards...
NP: People need to know that there's a difference so they won't be just
chopping down every dying ohia tree.
JB: If they're dying — like this tree here — even if it's gonna sprout back from
the bottom, you still have a hazard thing to deal with. Again, I agree...
NP: But I mean if its natural die back — not the fungus.
JB: Well, in any of the dieback there's gonna be some sort of pathogen,
clearing areas, what concerns me more is someone sees two or three
trees in their 20 acres and they say, ah, we're gonna get rid of the whole
twenty acres — call in the bulldozers - people do things like that.
JB: That's a real a concern. OK. On to the County — I've just realized this a
couple weeks ago is I've been reading the newspapers like you all have
about all the pilikia about the composting facility. Well there are two
different things that they're talking about. There's the food waste
composting — they're talking about building a facility that has got the
community all annoyed because of various complaints some of which are
understandable, however, the green waste composting is proceeding and
by the end of this month — what they're doing is you see this top picture —
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there are people dropping off green waste — they grind it up and someone
takes the ground up stuff out again. That was a real good way to spread
the disease. The first thing the County did was put up signs everywhere
saying, "Don't bring in ohia." I went down there asked, "What do you guys
do?" They said, "If we see ohia tell 'em load it back in your truck — don't
put ohia in there." So that's the first filter. But the point was that green
waste ground up went straight out within an hour sometimes. What they're
moving to is grinding it up, wind growing it, letting it heat up, compost,
turning it five times over a period of several weeks — at that point
everything in that pile will have reached a high temperature — killed the fire
ants — killed the coqui frogs — killed the rapid ohia death fungus and then
that mulch will be given out. So that's something I think the County
stepped up and is really closing one of the ways that this pathogen can
move around. And it's not the same as the food composting that's got all
the issues on that. It's working in East Hawaii. The West Hawaii
composting facility — in West Hawaii it's not gonna be a composting
because it's dry. They need the rain here in Hilo to get it moist enough to
decompose. Fortunately, West Hawaii — most of what's going into that is
palm leaves and stuff from the landscaping — it's not stuff from the forest.
So County's done — we talked about the Department of Ag rules — you
can't move stuff off unless it's either treated or inspected. We had a
summit on rapid ohia death for the legislature in the downtown folks on
November 30th. We are having meetings much more aimed at community
people, informational morning long symposia on March 18 at U.H. Hilo
here on this side — April 1 over on Kona side — West Hawaii community —
so I want to invite people to that - it will be all morning long discussing
these topics but having more time to go into depth into various topics and
there are a bunch of other topics that I deleted out — I went back and
revised to make it shorter. There is a website - rapidohiadeath.org we
rebuilt the whole thing in September — all the materials and everything is
on it - photos, maps. We have a Facebook. People use Facebook to ask
questions — we do our best to give an answer the next day when
something shows up on Facebook. Other questions?
NP: During this same period of time — the last five years where this happened
so fast - I've noticed also that the strawberry guava actually are sick and
dying as well and there are a lot of places where you'll see whole hillsides
— like up at Akaka Falls — up Kulaniapia Falls. I've seen it in quite a few
places where whole hillsides of strawberry guava are dying. In my own
yard, I have some that just died for no reason at all. First it's defoliation,
dead branches and then the plant just keeps dying back — the strawberry
guava. I've never seen that before in my life — living in the Islands all my
life. Have you noticed that?
JB: I've seen periodic defoliation of strawberry guava, especially in the winter
— there was quite a bit that we saw — people pointed out. I went up and
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checked it out up Holualoa — last winter it all came back. I've seen it's — it
goes through these periodic leaf -loss periods...
NP: This is really unusual sick strawberry guavas...
JB: I've never seen any strawberry guava die. I had another landowner in
Glenwood...
NP: Are you serious?
JB: I've never seen strawberry guava die.
NP: There's huge areas. Has anybody else noticed that the strawberry guavas
are dying? Nobody noticed that? Look around, check it out...
JB: I went to see — there's a landowner in Kurtistown that I went to see and
what was happening there — is he was on these, real wet, soggy soils up
there — the strawberry had gone so big that it was falling over.
NP: Well, yeah...
JB: But it wasn't dying, it just turned and kept growing.
NP: That behavior happens with them.
This is different — defoliation, dying branches and also where I've seen this
happening there's pilau maile taking over on them because of their
defoliation.
JB: Sure, I see pilau maile coming in all the time. I've never seen strawberry
guava die.
NP: I would sure like somebody else to say they've noticed that too because
it's pretty obvious — course you wouldn't have funds to study the
strawberry guava and anything that happens to them so, maybe that's
tunnel vision.
JB: Well, I see a lot of strawberry guava going around the forest on this island.
NP: Could I take pictures and mail 'em to you?
JB: Absolutely.
NP: I would like to do that because — for several reasons — OK — so you're
saying that there is a heat and cool issue related to the fungus — so in the
cooler forests the ohia are doing better?
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JB: Well, that is a hope - growing something in a petri dish in a frig - there's a
lot of steps between that and the forest...
But what I'm trying to not to be so discouraged and not give discouraging
presentations so I'm thinking well, maybe there's a hope that the disease
won't be as severe in the cooler forests as it is in these warmer forests
down below Pahoa. But there's a lot steps between...
NP: The right ecosystems are all connected, right, and if there's a sickening of
a forest — a particular species — then that opens the door for other
pathogens in the forest, bacteria, fungus...
I'm just wondering if there might be a connection in ecosystem with
encouraging the growth of a fungus.
JB: Yeah, well, there a lot of different weird — we were discussing today about
connections between root rots and the Ceratocystis wilts on ohia.
Certainly you get these insect outbreaks —cause you get a lot of trees
infected with the fungus and then you get insect outbreaks — there are
those connections too.
NP: For example, there is something affecting the strawberry guava — they are
defoliating — maybe not to anyone's notice but all that leafage on the floor
in the soil could be heating up the ground with the breakdown of excess
leafage, composting, could be encouraging a fungus in some way.
JB: Sure, but you'd have to collect the fungus — you'd have to see the dying
trees and collect the fungus from 'em.
NP: Yeah. I'm just saying, you know, it's a comment — well, who am I speaking
to — of course, you know it's really complex.
Yeah, I was just curious if any of those things have been considered by
anyone?
JB: Sure, again, one of the questions that we really are trying to figure out it is
this pathogen affecting anything else and moving on anything else and we
haven't seen it. I mean, there are times when to get to an ohia tree we
felled a half dozen strawberry guava just to get to the base of the tree and
we see there's no disease on any of them even though they are related
and there are related Ceratocystis disease that infect eucalyptus — I don't
think there are any on other guava species — but they do attack eucalyptus
in the same family.
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NP: Obviously you see a lot of healthy ohia trees with a lot of thick strawberry
guava growing all beneath them, right, that wasn't a point but if they were
sick, they certainly would affect the ohia since they're grown so closely
together. I've heard that some people have cleared out their strawberry
guava all around their ohia and then the ohia started digressing from that.
JB: Yeah, I hate it when I see someone sending in the dozer and clearing out
all the strawberry doing circles around the ohia...
NP: Well the root damage, yeah...
JB: Yeah, usually the root damage is gonna damage that from the roots.
NP: But I wonder if the strawberry guava are keeping the ground a
temperature that the ohia likes as well.
JB: You'd be hard to disentangle that from clearing from the root damage.
NP: Right. But it is really cool when you climb into a forest that's strawberry
guava and ohia. It's really cool. I own some land that's under native forest
designation that has strawberry guava and ohia and I climb in those
forests. But I'm concerned as a Game Management Advisory
Commissioner because the baby pigs — the strawberry guava is their baby
food, you know...
JB: Well, the more ohia we lose the more strawberry guava we've got.
That's what we're seeing all through Puna now...
NP: I'd like to send you some pictures and see what you think about 'em.
JB: People send me pictures of sick trees and please identify this tree all the
time...
TL: To see if we can't — at least for some time [unclear — not speaking in mic]
so they become aware of what...
JB: That'd be great...
TL: We can ask others to do the same... But the one thing about ohia that's
sad for me is that I enjoy the forest...
TL: Most of us hunters enjoy the forest, you know, we enjoy the ohia and it's
sad to see a dying forest, you know, so if there's anything that we can do
to help stem this in some way — if there's anything that actually works —
we'd like to be able to contribute.
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JB: I know plenty of people hunt and they love the forest, so I think the
message of trying not to move stuff around — that's really the management
that we're talking about now — is trying not to move stuff around so we
appreciate that.
TL: We'll pin that page for you. Any other questions from anybody 'cause we
do have a couple of topics...
KD: So there's no ties to pigs in this ohia, right, and the moving them around
situation? See, what I'm getting at I know like one time your report comes
and tells that the pigs or the goats or what have you is the reasons why
they transported 'em here and there and then we get the whole
eradication again going crazy.
JB: Well, again, I'll come here and tell you what we find when we go look and
measure stuff. We have done — so this weekend at Puuwaawaa, there
was a pig hunting tournament. They took samples from I think sixty some
pigs — their feet — to see if they're picking up the fungus on their feet.
There was one earlier this year that was done here. They only got about
15 samples — out of those 15 they didn't pick up any fungus of the feet of
those pigs. The Puuwaawaa — they came — the one this weekend at
Puuwaawaa — and did you all know about that cause I wasn't involved in
organizing that.
TL: We lost our video link to Kona... One of the foibles of tethering...
JB: On more and more of these on-line multi -think meetings these days. When
they work they're great...
TL: For us we have to terminate if that — if it goes beyond...
JB: OK...
[VC starts up again]
TL: There we go. OK. Hoorah for Kona.
JB: So out of the samples — we'll let you know what we find out about that
sampling. If animals are moving it around, again, the thing that I'm much
more concerned about is cattle. A cow's gonna do a lot more damage than
a pig. If you look at the upper Hilo watershed — all those trees are
damaged by cattle — so as far as animals doing damage in the forest — my
primary concern would be cattle, you don't have goats down in the ohia
forest very much. Pigs do some damage, so that could be but we don't
have any evidence for that yet. Cattle I'm really concerned with — as a
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forester — foresters have said for 150 years there shouldn't be cattle in the
forest and I still say there shouldn't be cattle in the forest.
KD: OK. I going put one crazy thought in the mind — what about birds?
JB: The fungus is the sapwood — so the birds aren't coming in contact with
that — so these fungi aren't spread by birds. I don't think the birds are a
concern at all.
KD: Because earlier you said one place where lot of times bird goes and nests
right, between two branches and stuff, you know how I mean — how it sits?
So a lot of times you going see birds in there.
JB: Right.
KD: So wouldn't that be one form of getting 'em on them.
JB: No, what I meant was when the two branches grow together the inside the
wood — so when you see a tree that's split open in a storm because the
two branches were too close —they don't fuse because there's bark in
between them and they split open — inside the wood there — that's where
it's getting affected — not up where the bird's having a nest. We're not
concerned about birds as moving it around.
KD: Well... I mean like you get all these birds on the ground too. They're like
chickens, you know, they going start scratching, they going start eating.
And then they going start flying distances, I mean, generally we're not go
look at that either.
JB: No, we haven't looked at that.
KD: A lot of times we are always looking at the pigs and the goats but, we tend
not to look at the birds because that's money-maker in my opinion.
JB: Again, I'm trying to look at primarily what kind of animals are gonna do
damage to trees.
JB: That's the main thing that I'm concerned with. And then animals are going
to move soil around. So next, I'm trying to get a meeting with the
cattleman. That's something I'm much more worried about than feral
animals is herds — people moving a herd of cattle from one — say you're
grazing in Kau and then you want to go graze in Waimea and figure out
what's going on with that. That's something that concerns me a lot more.
think, just again, any of these things is — it's a odds — it's a how much stuff
is gonna be moved on and a cow's gonna do a lot more damage than a
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pig or goat and those are gonna do a lot more damage than a bird — by
the time you get to the birds it's not really a big concern.
KD: Cattle — what do you mean by that — cattle?
JB: The feral cattle that are in the forest...banging on the trees — they take the
bark off — when they get thirsty they rip the bark off the trees — that
damage — those are definitely entryways for the disease of doing all that
damage. I don't know if the cows actually rub and get fungus on them only
if they like actually dinged into trees would they do that but they're doing
significant amount of — you go up in the forest there — you see disease, I'm
sorry, you see damage from the cows on that.
TL: You see dead trees?
JB: You see dead trees — they just plain girdled the whole thing. If you look up
at the forest in the upper Hilo watershed or the DHHL lands up there — full
of dead ohia.
4. Hunting, Fishing, Archery, Outdoor Activity day(s) — this is follow-
up to last year's effort to showcase our resources with an
emphasis on the youth of Hawaii.
TL: OK. Teresa you want to start off and I'II preface this with last year Billy
Kenoi gave us about $7,500 dollars. I believe it was to do an outdoor
family fun day kind of a deal and he wanted to involve kids with that
project. What we ran into was there were no County facilities that were
available to us at that time. We found out that some of these facilities have
a really long lead time as far as us being able to get involved. Teresa
reignited that effort in that she wanted to have a fishing and a hunting kind
of thing and the hunting part probably we won't be able to do — but the
fishing part I think would be good and or tie a hunting -fishing day. We're
looking into that date with the Shooting Sports Foundation has a hunting -
fishing day that we've been doing here in Hawaii periodically so — anyway,
Teresa, go ahead and give us some idea of what you were thinking about
there.
TN: What I was thinking about is holding things simultaneously being that the
island is so large. We pick a weekend that both sides of the island could
enjoy. As far as the hunting would go — it would be about vendors and
education and issues that we would like to put forward to the table like our
range target area — have community involvement in that and bring these
issues to the public. As far as the fishing part tournament would go — it
would be an invasive species fishing tournament - one that we could hold
here in Honokohau Harbor and maybe Hilo could hold theirs somewhere
by the Bay Front area or you know the fishing fights that Hilo could have
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an invasive species tournament simultaneously. With this, we would
need community involvement in joining us so this would be in a year
planning that we could hold these events simultaneously — one in East
Hawaii and one in West Hawaii — but I would need everybody's' thoughts
into this fishing tournament. I would involve all the dive shops that are on
this side of the island and hoping that the dive shops in Hilo would be
involved with the one in Hilo. For the hunting, education and involvement
of the children in both these events would be something that we could be
as an outreach — on GMAC's part — reaching out to the public. Any
thoughts that you may have that you could chime in and help me out
here? Hopefully, we can secure a venue for next year. For here, I could
secure the Makaeo — the Old Airport Pavilion for the Kona side and the
harbor if we do this a year ahead in advance and maybe the civic
auditorium and the Bay Front area. These are just my thoughts. Anything
else you want to add Tom?
TL: Yeah, anybody want to chime in on that? OK. Yeah, the timing of this is
something I think we need to work on.
TN: I think in mid-September I think there's some kind of — is that the date that
you were looking at in September.
TL: I don't have that date firm at this moment — after I talked to you I didn't get
a chance to look into it but it normally is in late summer or early autumn —
September, October — September I think is when we've had them in the
past.
TN: Cause I'm gonna talk to several hunting that already are in progress of
putting on some kind of event and I was hoping that I would find out more
information on what they're planning and maybe we could join forces — but
this is on West Hawaii side — I'm not sure what's happening on the Hilo
side.
TL: Yeah, hunting events...
TN: I'm not talking about actually hunting tournament — I'm talking about the
educational part of hunting - about bringing vendors together — bringing
children down to see what's available in the way of hunting activities — but
not the actual hunting itself.
TL: Right, this hunting -fishing day that they have nationwide — which we might
be able to participate along with here — they do and they do bring out
vendors. They do bring out opportunities for kids like— archery — Ike and I
have been discussing some of the other aspects of it where they'll have a
container that they use for 22 or pellet gun or something. There's lots of
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things that we can involve these kids with and that really is kind of the
focus, I think, that we want to start off on.
TN: I wanted the commission members to chime in on the idea. I want to go
forward with it on the West Hawaii side — I'm hoping that you folks would
want to go along with me and take care of the Hilo. I'm about to meet
with some hunting groups and I've already met with some dive shops and
they're all for it and we're gonna start planning it for it on the West Hawaii
side.
TL: OK. So is there a motion anybody that we should start working on looking
at a fishing -hunting, hunting -fishing day? OK, Teresa?
Would you make a motion that we get started on the process of a hunting -
fishing day?
TN: Sure. I'd like to move that we start planning a year ahead in advance for a
hunting and fishing tournament both on the Hilo and Kona side and I'm
hoping to have a second on this.
TL: OK. Can I just modify that a tiny bit and take the word tournament out...
TN: Sure. I'II call it an event.
TL: OK.
TN: Or you can even call it an educational...
TL: So there's a motion to start work on a hunting -fishing event to incorporate
both the east side and the west side. All in favor?
NP: Second.
5. NRA Range Development conference in Indianapolis, March 11-
13, 2017. Possible attendance of one or two GMAC
commissioners.
TL: OK. All in favor? [The ayes have it] Any nay? No? OK. Moved, seconded
and carried.
Last on our agenda tonight is — let you folks know what has been going on
with the gun range since our last meeting and I'm gonna bring both Ike
and Nani into this discussion. like, Nani, myself and Teresa have been
meeting with all of the council members and of the nine council that we
have talked to we've had some real enthusiasm from at least seven of
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them — six of them for sure. We have a couple that are lukewarm
enthusiastic but they all are in support at this point. There are two things —
one is there's a range development conference that's coming up and
we're working to see on sending somebody to the conference. I've
already taken that class but maybe there should be one or two more that
might take that class. If we go to the conference, we have a little better
understanding of what we need to bring to the county council in the form
of a resolution. Probably no later than when we address the council with
the game management quarterly report that we haven't done for almost a
year now. We want to bring those two either if not concurrently within a
week or so of each one of those events, so I'd like from either Nani or
someone— your thoughts on what you have...
TL: What you have learned in your travels with the county council...
6. Follow-up on where we are at with pursuing the viability of a
County run shooting facility to accommodate the overwhelming
need for Hawaii Island's firearm owners, Police, DOCARE, USDA
and a host of other venues that beg its development.
NP: Right. I missed two of them — but I was there for all the rest — we even
went to Kona and just personally met with all the county council members.
I personally was very encouraged of the support. They see the need.
They're willing to be really helpful and so the subject came up — maybe we
should encourage a resolution for the county council and that would open
the door for public testimonies which I believe they'll be a strong response
from the public. It'll establish that this is a real need and then maybe we
could get the mayor's attention about this. We're just trying to feel our way
of what's one, two, three — what procedure to go forward with it, but I was
a little concerned with DOCARE and their going forward and we don't
even know what they're doing so we need to open up the lines of
communication there — we don't want to re -do what they're already doing
or try to do something...
NP: They are but he said they were taking steps. But in any case I personally
would really like to go forward for a county facility and find a way for that
and so what do you think Ike?
DY: Yes. I agree. I don't have much to say. I think we talked to all of the
council members. They all have given us a sense that they are in favor of
this. Whether there's a political wheel to pull forward — that's the other
thing. I also checked that the Keaukaha Military reservation — about that
situation that was brought up the last meeting and at least at this point
they're saying that there is a safety zone area concern that they have and
they're trying to address that by looking at the possibility of building a
baffled range at which point the commander told me that he would be very
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interested in having a military -civilian kind of share program, I guess. The
other possibility of the range close -in is PTA and they're having a
community meeting next week and I have decided that I'll go and see what
they're doing. So those are two possibilities. You also have a possibility of
the skeet range and doing something down there. Perhaps low hanging
fruit would be an archery range of some type and then followed by
perhaps a small bore range, then maybe perhaps a pistol range, but I
think there is a general perception and recognition that there is a need for
a range. And then to hear that Representative Evans is interested in doing
something is news to me, but it would be good to have a sort of combined
effort to do this rather than having everybody running all over the
waterfront.
NP: Right.
DY: Yeah.
KD: I can add to that — that's what I was kinda wondering. That's why I really
never like press on this until — rather we seek our council members or
what have you because it seems like we doing one section, the training
area — Pohakuloa wants to do one — DOCARE wants to do one — but
nobody would actually collaborate to get together. I thought we settled that
where we was all going get together and plan all this and get this situated.
And now that DOCARE went probably catch wind of it so now they trying
to get involved with this situation. So now it went from one county level to
one state level so I feel we should just press on these guys to keep
everybody on the same loop and not try we going do 'em this way with the
county, but then the state like do one area then the Pohakuloa guys like
do one area. Then you get this vast majority of archery, pistol — it's like
divide and conquer. So nothing going get resolved. That's how I looking at
things. That's why I really don't get involved with a lot of things until we
kinda can get everybody seated in one area — meaning you get the state
guys, you get the federal guys up Pohakuloa, and then you get us and
then we can kinda figure out whose, what, where. If it's county gonna
come up with the labor costs and some other costs — cause they're
looking at money for hire people for go evaluate the situation, research the
situation. All that researches that you guys was doing actually basically
was out the door because now they going hire somebody that is more
capable in their words to do the job of saying all what you guys was doing
all this time. Legislation is up and I could be one county council, I could be
a state senator and I can tell you guys and blow steam and say yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. But we need to get it in writing. We really need to get
them in writing. That's why I really no voice any kinda craziness because —
until I see 'em — we just heard DOCARE tell us that they meeting already
— they doing 'em on their own, why? Why they regulating things on their
own — because they know they catching people shooting and I just was
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telling you out there — they catching guys shooting up the forest? You get
the military guys telling us they waiting for give the land, what more you
need? I feel all these legislators: senate, council — that's all they like — they
like the limelight. Give 'em to them. Give 'em to them — put 'em in the ears
and DOCARE — get a hold of DOCARE — get a hold of Cindy Evans — get
a hold of these guys — this is what it's all about — that's how our report
should be because apparently everybody has that concern but nobody
really wants to play ball but they all like money for it. So that's what we
gotta be careful about — because where that came from — right here — last
week never have room in here — that's what we gotta worry about, you
know, that's just my opinion. I deal with these legislation and once the
public scream and then they want to be the ones taking the pictures,
cutting the maile or untying the maile leis at one brand new facility and
that's all they gripe about — but the footwork you guys was doing.
TN: What is the next step that GMAC wants to take on this target range — to
facilitate — to have the meeting of the minds from county, state and all the
various departments?
TL: If there are any other agencies that are currently involved in this — if
DOCARE — DOCARE is the agency that is responsible for all the federal
money right now that comes through for firing and shooting ranges and
shooting range construction through the hunter -ed program, which is part
of DOCARE. They didn't know what to do with the money that they had
and so now the county has it, fortunately, it's not being given back — but
that money was supposed to have gone to Puuanahulu and so there was
a failure of communication there which led to the number of phone calls
that we all received over here about a county range, which is why we are
moving forward. And we're gonna continue to move forward on this effort
— we're not changing our direction right now. If DOCARE is talking to the
state then we'll ask them — find out exactly what they're doing and if they
want to take the lead on it that's great — at least somebody will be taking
the lead on it...
TN: Clarification please — did you talk to the Pohakuloa representative — is that
the meeting you attended?
DY: That is the meeting that's coming up next week.
TN: Tom you were supposed to give me the information so I can attend the
meeting too.
DY: I sent you an email...
TN: I didn't get one from you, Ike...
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DY: Well, I'll send you a second one.
TN: OK.
DY: But I did send you an email. So I don't know what your email is but I sent it
to the email address that you send me stuff on.
TN: OK. I'll take a look again and I'll...
DY: The day that I wrote to Command Sgt. Major Campbell — I sent you a copy
of that.
TN: OK. I'll recheck my email and then if I didn't get it I'II let you know.
DY: And so, Tom, this is to continue the conversation I heard the governor's
liaison say that she's talking with...
TL: Cindy Evans...
DY: Cindy Evans. Well, maybe, if we could be part of that conversation that
might help us. I don't know if she's still in the audience but maybe we can
get a commitment...
TL: Is governor's liaison still there?
TN: Susan Kim left already but I'm seeing her next week Monday and I can
pass the message on.
TL: I'll give her a call tomorrow...
DUH: Chairman Lodge, may I request that any correspondence to any of the
commissioners — if I also could get a copy or cc me so that we can file it
accordingly.
TL: OK.
DUH: Thank you.
JK: There's two things that I want to comment on right now, actually, if we
gonna conduct any kind of business, it's best to do it like, you know, you
make a motion first. And then a second and then talk about what you guys
gonna do. I didn't realize that maybe somebody didn't talk to you guys
about the procedural...
TL: Can I address that?
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JK: That's just one point, but I got something else too.
TL: We have two or three different committees and myself, Ike and Nani are
on one committee which we're dealing with in this particular case — the
firing range.
JK: Right.
TL: And as a committee, we will go out and seek information and whatever we
find out we will then bring it back to the commission and we've been
operating and just for that very reason that you brought up to have to go
through a motion and get an agreement and move on — it may take us two
or three months since we only meet monthly in order to move a piece of
business which takes a phone call. Two years we actually formed these
committees and the committees have been voted by the commission and
given the power to transact the business of the commission and if
something happens of it — we'll then bring it back to the commission, yeah,
that's what we've been doing.
JK: OK. So I would have to look at your guys practice.
TL: I'm sorry?
JK: I would have to look at that practice, you know, to kind of see if that's the
way that business should be conducted, yeah? The second thing is that
I'm not sure if anybody gave any kind of training for Sunshine Law, you
know, typically whenever a certain kind of business is gonna be conducted
and that's on the agenda we try not to have more than two commissioners
talk about it.
TL: We were told four.
JK: I have to look at you guys practice.
TL: Well, Belinda has all of that information.
All — gone through the rule change for the commission.
JK: I just want to make sure because we're very careful about certain kinds of
things. A lot depends on what's being communicated between the
commissioners so — because generally if you're gonna share information
that's something to kind of look at — so that's something else that I'II
probably be looking at.
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TL: I mean we were advised against doing a gunshot type email where we
have all the commissioners on — where people can just respond back and
forth to each other. So that's not part of our strategy anymore. So right
now if we send out an email — unless it's like something simple — you
know it's just information — then it doesn't — but anything that we're
communicating that has anything to do with commission business then, if
we do share it with everybody, it's done via blind copy.
JK: Yeah, because it has to be done with everybody is, is, you know...
DY: This raises that ongoing issue that for example, if we're going to do this
hunting and fishing day or event, I mean, it will take us three months to get
it done — to come to the agreement that we're going to do it because we
have to bring it up as an information item at one meeting and then we
have to wait until our next meeting to make a motion and then we have to
wait for a third meeting to make a decision. And, you know, there's a
practical reality of doing the business of the commission that we kind of
run up against that — so how do we conduct the business of the
commission if we have that kind of timetable — I mean 90 days is long
time.
JK: Yeah, so, I need to kinda look at that process that you guys been working
under because to honest — when I look at your guys agenda it's different
from other commissions, you know, and I'm not too sure...
TL: We actually, I actually object to this format.
JK: Yeah.
TL: It doesn't make sense for us, you know, we need to have people be able
to ask questions of Mr. Friday, for example...
JK: Right
TL: You know, Liquor Commission, the County Council — all these other — they
have not only the agenda spelled, I mean, they have a booklet that they
give out with every meeting. So people are well advised ahead of time of
what, you know, they're gonna come in and testify again. We don't have
that luxury.
DY: There's something about being an adjudicatory body or some other kind of
body — I don't know the legalese here...
JK: No, like, you're one advisory commission...
DY: Yeah, so we're advisory...
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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting
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JK: So maybe that's the difference. I should check.because I can see that
there are issues, as to how business gets conducted and then I want to
make sure that if there needs to be any changes or guidance then we can
do so. It's just that I'm not used to seeing business conducted this way.
DY: Yeah. I think we're a lot more informal.
JK: Yeah.
DY: And there's an informality here because...
TL: Of Sunshine...
JK: Yeah, so let me just double check some of these things.
NP: It backfires...
JK: OK. But technically right now, there isn't something that I think is too
significant to change what was decided already, you know, it's just that...
DY: So we can make a motion to [unclear]. I'll make a motion to [unclear].
JK: Yeah, yeah
DY: I move that Tom you check with Representative Evans and the governor's
liaison — from that side and perhaps we can coordinate — I don't know if
there's a liaison on this side but, we should have a meeting with them
because we're going after the same thing and we ought to all talk.
TL: Right.
DY: Be talking the same story.
TN: I'II second the motion.
TL: OK. Any discussion? OK? All in favor? [The ayes have it] Any opposed?
OK, all right, moved and carried. I will in fact talk to Miss Kim and also
Mrs. Evans' office. Any other business? Our next meeting...
DY: Well, um, let me add one thing
TL: OK.
DY: I do know that there is a hunting and fishing day put on by I think DLNR
once a year, maybe in August, but it's held in Honolulu and it's held at the
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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting
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Koko Head Range. So in the interests of maybe getting some money from
them to help us sponsor this thing it might be good to maybe have you
Tom — and I know there's already a motion — for somebody to go talk to
them to find out — say can we piggyback...
TL: They're piggybacking on the National Shooting Sports Foundation is what
they're doing — that's what we kind of are trying to also kinda look at. The
hunter -ed program — we could join them, you know, and see if they can't
give — cause they do have a lot of stuff up in Waimea that we might be
able to — and we have a new coordinator on the Big Island who's for the
Big Island from the hunter -ed program. So we're gonna be meeting with
him in March and talking to Darren Ogura, and let him know that we would
like to do that — that might be a possibility up here as well. I won't — OK —
as long as it's less than four...
TN: Remember we also wanted to work with the parks and recreation with our
hunting and fishing event?
TL: Right. Yes, that's correct.
TN: Yeah, I just wanted to put it out there.
VIII. NEW BUSINESS
IX. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
X. COMMISSIONER'S REPORTS BY DISTRICT:
Xl. NEXT MEETING DATE: TBA
TL: Yeah, no, we will touch base with them as well don't... And this is
something that we can also work out via a phone call, anyone else? OK.
We're not sure of the date for our March meeting — probably going to be at
the end of the month on the 27th — I think it was — but we'll confirm that
with you via email. Anybody move to adjourn.
XII. ADJOURNMENT: Meeting adjourn at 8:34 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by:
Donna Urban-Higuchi
ATTEST:
Thomas H. Lodge
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