2017-07-25 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawai’i Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – July 25, 2017 has been taken off the endangered species list and that’s for good reason because they shouldn’t be taken off just yet. The nene’s kinda getting closer and closer – it’ll probably make it – you could maybe make a case ‘io. WJC: What does the alala eat? PB: According to the old timers that wrote down the notes in the 1890s – they said ‘ie’ie fruit was number one – it wasn’t the only thing – but ‘ie’ie was really important – and other things too. They’re largely a fruit eater but they rob bird’s nests, they take eggs – chicks – of other bird species. They even take a little bit of nectar. They eat just about everything. So one of the fruits they eat is hoawa, -it’s a large fruit. One of the most impressive things I ever saw was an alala pick one and he flew to a perch and he’s holding it with one foot and he’s just using his beak to hammer, hammer, hammer and it took him – minutes to hammer this thing open. The little oily seeds was what he was after – so these guys work for a living. WJC: Right. There’s probably a lot of stuff that they used to eat that’s not here anymore. PB: It’s declined. I think is a real key thing. In reintroducing alala to the wild is like, OK, where you gonna put ‘em? And it’s like, OK, you got to build up the habitat – but that is a very long term proposition. What’s interesting about today’s effort is you have these birds in captivity – it’s very expensive to maintain them in captivity – you’ve got to build aviaries and the more successful you are in breeding them in cages the more cages you need and at some point – we gotta get ‘em out in the wild – where are they gonna go? WJC: Is there native food there? PB: There’s fruit – it’s not the best, it’s not the best stuff. Puu Makaala area is just barely on the edge of the historical range of alala – so, you know, my preference would be habitat that’s a little more central to where they were historically because I think the elements of the habitat are better there, however, I think eventually we’ll get there, the birds will go back to some of these areas. Those areas have to be restored too,- it’s like there’s no perfect place right now. That should be the goal is to get some of these other areas that were well within the historical range really good,- really good habitat. WJC: And whose job is that? DLNR? PB: Iit’s federal, state, private, whoever is willing to have alala on their lands... 16