2017-07-25 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

Home

Hawai’i Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – July 25, 2017 will be done again probably the next day by a different person – different team – and then we’ll pool those results. TN: What are the factors involved in the declining of the bird population? If there are factors – did you have to prioritize those factors that could be causing the declining of these various species of Hawaiian birds? PB: It’s one thing to document or believe that populations are getting smaller, it’s another to understand why and it’s really quite complex. And it kind of depends on what sort of person you are – if you are the kind of person who likes a single answer to a question then a lot of people – if you tell them avian malaria – they’ll say, that’s good – that’s enough of an answer. And that’s an important factor. But if you’re the kind of person that says, simple answers are all right, but I’m more interested in a more complex picture because I know that real life is more messy than just single answers. TN: In the mountain areas that you’ve done your counts and the areas that have been fenced off, have you pinpointed what could be the declining factors? PB: They change from year to year – at least we think they do. In some years – let’s say a drought year – there’s no question that the drought is a really important factor. Very few palila breed during drought and the reason for that is individual mamane trees produce relatively few flowers and relatively few pods. There’s always a few – even in the worst drought – there’s always a few flowers and a few pods, but it’s really not enough to support a population or support breeding. The palila really requires a lot of mamane seeds but mamane is their number one and during drought we’re quite satisfied that the relationship between rainfall and the number of mamane pods produced was pretty good. The less rain the less mamane pods so that’s a really important one during dry years. During normal – wetter years – other things can be important including predation, I mean, what we’re thinking, what we’re talking about now is what is affecting the population right now, you know, this breeding season or this year – so drought and weather conditions, predators – those things have a fairly immediate kind of impact but there are also longer term issues. TN: When you speak of predators – do you name the predators? PB: Of course, mostly on Mauna Kea it’s feral cats. There are rats up there and I think that they have an impact but we’ve never really been able to demonstrate that they have as big an impact as the cats. For example, during the time we were studying – we would put surveillance cameras at nest and we would also just physically go and check nests every few days. But the cameras caught – I think there were four instances, if I recall right – of cats on camera showing palila chicks. During daylight, about ten percent of all palila chicks in that year was eaten by cats. I don’t think that necessarily 10