2017-08-22 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – August 22, 2017 MH: To answer Ike’s question - In the interest of the public, it’s usually – you guys could vote for a 2/3 vote but I would suggest against that because if there’s people that want to come – other hunters that want to hear about that and especially if it’s gonna be informational in the sense of maps and such – then I would encourage putting it on the next agenda so that the public can have notice of it. \[Discussion\] DY: Yeah, for my edification – can you tell us what the requirements are? MH: To put something on the agenda? DY: Yes. MH: At the meeting, you would have to have a 2/3 vote of the commissioners present to have a quorum. KS: Status update for the HCP – November 20, 2015, is when the HCP went to public review – we came and presented here at that time – Edith and myself – in January 2016 the environmental assessment that has to accompany the HCP went for public review as well. So the HCP public review is about a 5 month public review cause it’s a large document and the EA was only a 30 day public review. From April 2016 until now, we’ve been trying to address the public comments. We didn’t have a lot of comments on either the HCP or the EA but most – not all – the vast majority of the comments were supportive, which was good. There were a couple of comments that were made that we thought we needed to spend a little more time to address – I think Jim Cogswell – our State Wildlife Manager came and kinda caught us all by surprise saying that we were going to do an EIS which was after discussing it with him – that’s not how we decided to go – not an EIS – so we decided to do a revised environmental assessment. So we’re basically amending the EA that we already did. The amendment is to include game mammal management. It wasn’t in the EA at first and so we’re now including it. We also made some changes – not much – some small changes to the HCP based on comments. So the HCP went back or just earlier last week we sent the draft of the HCP to the Endangered Species Recovery Committee (ESRC) so they have a month to review it before we’re on their agenda on September 14 so Edith and myself and others from DOFAW will be at the ESRC to discuss the HCP with them. We anticipate – so the HCP has to be approved by the ESRC before the board can see it and then the board can review it and make their decisions based on our comments and the ESRC’s comments. We are drafting a scope of work for that environmental assessment – the revisions of the environmental assessment right now – we hope to have something out in the next couple of weeks to get contractors to bid on it – and hopefully, by the end of the year – beginning of next year – we 10