2017-07-25 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawai’i Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – July 25, 2017 just ohia, then we don’t have any real solution. Let’s say ohelo and pukiawe, olapa, you name it – whatever other hosts there may be for these three important caterpillar types, then that’s the news we’ll take to the managers and say, if you think ohia’s gonna be declining at Hakalau, you may want to be planting these alternative hosts. Now that only goes so far – but right now I think we’re kind of bailing the boat with a teaspoon, cause this is a problem that’s just enormous. If you truly could wipe out most of the ohia in ten or twenty year – thirty years or something like that – they’re just – everybody’s caught short – there’s just no easy answer. TL: You know the Black sphinx moth – does well with the tobacco plant But it survives very well with that particular habitat and out near where Willie- Joe lives there used to be in Keanakolu and Piha and Laupahoehoe. The forest used to be covered, smothered in some cases with banana poka. You also had a forest full of red birds too. If the species itself is important – like the alala – cause we know that if we kept it in captivity or maybe if we were able to give it to zoos on the mainland like they did with the nene – ship them off to England. We have mouflon here and we have animals here that are extinct - or maybe not extinct but not doing well in their home territory but they’re doing great here – so is it the species or is it that we have to have this little terrarium, aquarium or whatever it might be – is that so necessary if really it’s a species – you talk about this caterpillar – maybe some other caterpillar might do the same job that might not a native plant but, you know, some introduced plant. PB: Once you start tinkering with food webs and all the rest of the interactions that are going on out there, you run a risk of going too far in one direction. Or not knowing what the consequences are gonna be and that’s one of the important points that we are constantly talking about to the manager I might say – here’s what might benefit i’iwi, but have to very careful. If I do that what bad consequences might occur that Banko didn’t think about, it’s the whole thing and it adds to the frustration because everything slows down. You’re always looking over your shoulder. Is a manager potentially gonna make a mistake that would be worse than not doing anything at all. A lot of these things are just not knowable. Nature is so complex that our simple way of thinking about things could lead to some serious problems. We don’t know what mistake we’re currently making and we don’t know what mistakes we’re gonna make in the future. The only thing we can do is keep that in mind and say, OK, if you take this action – remember – there could be all kinds of waves rippling out from the pebble you throw in the pond. We take it very seriously, if we say, well, you should eliminate this. You may be eliminating a food resource for another native species that’s had to use that as an alternate food because their preferred food is gone. So all these things are very delicate and difficult to figure out. 18