2017-08-22 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – August 22, 2017 KS: Yeah, I think it was six convicted – one we didn’t get the guy – but seven instances where we got guys hunting in the closed area. WC: I believe that when word gets out that’s the biggest deterrent and pretty much, I mean, just like, I was talking about earlier with Kipuka Ainahou, I mean, the word is out that there’s not law so everybody’s doing what they want to do and it would probably be beneficial for Puuwaawaa that word does get out that convictions are being made and eyes are there cause I have never heard of it and but I hear of the other side of that so... KS: OK. Yeah. All right. WC: Probably more than seven... KS: Yeah, it’s probably more than seven. That’s only the stuff that we saw on our cameras and we only have like, I mean, now we have 100 cameras but before we put those out we only had maybe twenty cameras out there and so obviously there’s other stuff going on that we’re not catching, um, so, yeah, I’ll work on that. NP: You were saying that animals travel and you have the sensors and you thought some of it was from stress from hunters – all the reasons that they’re fleeing or whatever and Tony was talking about good game management provides refuge areas and sanctuaries for the animals to rest and breed and be protected from all of the above. Is there any kind of plan where somehow you could create that in these areas? KS: I think we would manage for that using seasons and we already have seasons there. The season in Puuanahulu is pretty long, but it’s only weekends. We can’t make more area over there – we have what we have, right, so it’s not – I think it would just be using seasons and using and maybe limiting hunter pressure but that would be how we would try to address that. I mean in Puuwaawaa right now there’s a four week – makai – there’s a four week archery season where this is the last weekend coming up right now, actually, and then there’s a three-week mussel over season – so there’s seven weeks out of the year where those animals are hunted legally, yeah, and weekends and state holiday only for seven weeks. And, so, the rest of the year they shouldn’t be hunted legally, so, reduced, yeah, and so in that area we’re probably OK even in Puuanahulu we’re probably OK. I just – the daily movement was more of a – the stresses from their environment not necessarily hunting, sure, but more how much they have to work to get the forage that they need to. NP: On the cattle hunt we learned that the cattle were breaking through the fence or, they created the fences to protect the forest and, you know, why were they 22