2017-11-8 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 any of that enthusiasm as far as whether you’re gonna call it game management or a hunting program or whatever it is – but you don’t get that sense that it’s important from the people over there on Oahu and I don’t know if you got that same feeling or not . KS: I understand what you trying to say. I would say that what we need to do is get this HCP completed and show that we can be successful... Hopefully, my bigger boss that left will read the minutes and he’ll be like, yeah, Kanalu, but he might not be as enthusiastic in support of it I haven’t felt anything from him that he doesn’t want it to happen – so he kinda is gonna let us do our thing as long as we’re following the law. JO: I noticed Elliot does a lot of outreach with public groups they do, you know, their out plantings or field days – things like that – are you availing yourself of any of the community volunteer resources for this program – is it something that we can get the word out and help you with? KS: I have myself and three technicians so I don’t want be like oh I cannot – it’s just me and three guys cover the whole west side for all wildlife – not just game – and Elliot has an outreach program coordinator and that’s her whole job and she’s really good at it – could we be better at it? Yes. We – a couple of years ago we were doing some public – some out plantings for game habitat improvement and that program – we lost our coordinator and so that program is kinda in limbo right now – but could we be better? Yes and so I have two positions in the cue – two biologist positions – that I would hope that they would carry that kind of a project forward but right now it’s just me and three guys. TL: You mentioned Ryan and you have a number of bird hunters here – these people - Wild Turkey Federation and a lot of others who are very willing to get out there – I know that 4-H and some others possibly as well. Work that you’re doing with the collars – I’d like to get back to that for a second. As regards this HCP – what are you gonna do with that data? KS: Some movement stuff and where they’re hanging out, that’s just then we can get some sort of habitat use based on where they are – survival rates – that’s just basic number got \[unclear\] so we can understand how long they live, I mean, that’s pretty simple, right, but we try to model the whole population using – so we also put out cameras right and so we collected all of our cameras and they’re starting that now – it’s just to hopefully get an abundance estimate – so how many sheep we have in the area – cause we don’t really know – and also use that information to get a recruitment estimate – so how many animals are being born and recruit it back into the population – so we’re trying to estimate the demographics of this population and what’s happening – how many are dying – how many are being born and coming in – 21