2017-11-8 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 what’s the causes or mortality when they do die – so we want to use that information so we can understand where the population’s at and so which areas are the most important for us to manage to improve – so it’s predation – is predation the number one cause of mortality for anything – if it is then we need to go in and trap for predators or if it’s harder – but we can get some information on poaching – if they’re sick – if they’re deficient in whatever minerals or anything like that so – so that’s what we’d like to use that information for. WJC: There’s a bunch of animals there that were younger that they didn’t necessarily get a collar but they were all tagged and sampled so, you know, some of them were young lambs – like this year’s lambs so the way I see it is they’ll be able to track these animals – they’re all numbered – they’re all tagged and numbered so it’s a good way to know how long these guys even live, I mean, we don’t even really know, right? TL: In Puuwaawaa and Puuanahulu if they have a tag are they required to give you that information if they shoot them? KS: There’s no law that makes them but I am gonna – at the next season I’m gonna post something on the kiosk there asking that that information. I mean there are animals there but not all of ‘em but if it’s a ram – a legal ram – they can be legally harvested – it doesn’t matter if it has a tag or not. I know Stanley had some questions about that during the Puuwaawaa season – he said he had one ram in site but he didn’t think he could shoot it cause it had a collar on but – so these are legal animals and if you harvest we, I mean, I need to be better at getting the message that if you do harvest one of them if you can return the collar it would be awesome cause then we can reuse it – but then we can use that information as harvest rates and all of that, yeah? KS: So we do take fecal samples – we haven’t analyzed them yet but we have them so I would like to do something like that, yeah, like analyze what they’re eating basically and all of that, yes, but we’re not doing it yet... TL: Would that also give you an idea of the number of animals and what the impact of a particular number of animals is on an area? KS: Yes, density rates. TL: You don’t have any idea of how many animals Puuwaawaa or Puuanahulu will support right now? KS: Yes, that’s correct. 22