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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-11-8 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawaii Minutes Meeting Date: Tuesday, November 8, 2017 Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Hawaii County Building – Council Chambers I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL: Meeting was called to order at 6:30 pm. Willie-Joe Camara, District 1 – here, Dwayne D. “Ike” Yoshina, District 2 – here James O’Keefe, District 3 – here Naniloa Poglen, District 4 - here Thomas H. Lodge, District 5 - here District 6 - vacant Bronsten-Glenn “Kalei” Kossow, District 7 - here Teresa Nakama, District 8 – here District 9 - vacant Quorum established ALSO PRESENT: Donna Urban-Higuchi, Executive Assistant to Mayor Kim Malia Hall, Corporation Counsel GUESTS: Dave Smith, DLNR-DOFAW, Administrator Kanalu Sproat, Wildlife Biologist, DOFAW Steve Bergfeld, Hawaii Branch Manager DOFAQ Also present, Grayson Hashida, GMAC applicant for D6. JO: James O’Keefe moved that the agenda is taken out of order to bring Dave Smith to make his presentation. Willi-Joe Camara seconded. Motion carried unanimously by voice vote. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC – Comments on current agenda items only. Time limited to 3 minutes PRESENTATION 1 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 DS: David Smith, Administrator, Division of Forestry and Wildlife. We basically run a hunting program. The types of areas that we manage it’s gonna depend on how we manage the animals – so it’s species and the condition of the habitat. We can do a lot of really active game enhancement with game birds and game birds are a real important part of our program. We’d like to do anything we can to enhance game birds and for the most part we can manage a game bird program with pretty active enhancement program. I know game birds have been down for the last few years and that’s a concern. We’re really interested in running a top notch game bird program and especially Hawaii Island here is and it’s had a very good game bird resources and so we’d like to make sure that continues. NP: How is game management happening at the Kapapala Ranch? A Game Management Area Unit sign is posted. What game management is happening for the game birds at that ranch? DS: It’s not really a game management area – it’s a boundary sign, leftover boundary signs. They were put in areas that are available for public hunting – that’s not really a game management area. There’s a difference between public hunting and game management. Kapapala’s a really important area for us and we’d like to do more active management there – we’ve been tied up for a few years just trying to get the lease straightened out. There was an attempt to transfer that Kapapala lease to Ag – but we really wanted to keep it with DLNR because we would like to do game management there going forward. We think it’s a really important game bird habitat area. DS: It’s also a good forest management area so it’s a really important area for us and we’d like to be able to manage it going forward. We’d like to work in a cooperative fashion with the rancher and like a lot of these ranch leases – as the leases go out – we’d like to have control of those areas so that we could then manage them for forest resources and public hunting areas. NP: Right. Apparently, this is an important area for bird hunters also. DS: It is a very important area, so we haven’t been able to do as much work as we’d like to there – we would like to do more work there going forward. I would say that calling it a game management area is kind of a misnomer. JM: Joey Mello – East Hawaii Manager – the cooperative game management area name is that we cooperate with land management and Kapapala Ranch owners to open it up for game management. We try to do whatever we can to enhance the game bird population. So the game management area or the cooperative game management area part is more about the cooperation with the ranch and the landowner – which is our land agency in DLNR. 2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TL: I’d like to make that distinction that we have an official designation called game management areas. When I say it’s not a game management area, I mean that it’s not officially designated as a GMA under our rules. In Kapapala or any cooperative game – like Kahua Ranch and Puuwaawaa there may be others on the island also – when you talk about the management part of it – what are you allowed to do on a cooperative management of state land. What can DLNR do or DOFAW do as far as enhancement to the property? Who actually controls that property? JM: It all depends on the agreement between the land agency and the lessee and ourselves – we come to agreement – we can do more on agricultural land than we can on conservation land. We have in the past when there was no question about the lease and we have the ability, we cleared several hundred acres in the past in Kapapala and then the landowner cooperated by putting cattle in the area that we cleared to help keep it cleared but over the years that’s been overgrown. DY: What does Game Management really mean for you guys? Enhancement is one thing but do you have a structured program say for mammals of going in and saying, ah, this parcel is going to carry X number of animals – that’s the carrying capacity. We want this kind of animal on there, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I see very little of that so when I hear reference to or the use of the term game management it all sounds very nice and structured and ordered and controlled but I’m not really certain that I understand what that really means. And over the years I’ve sort of come to the conclusion to my own conclusion – it’s my opinion – that there is very little game management going on. I would like to know how the department sees that whole area called game management. This is in keeping with HCR 22 which came out a year ago. I haven’t seen much of that. Unless we get a definitive statement from the board, I really don’t know what that means. I would like to have that clarified. I’d like to see a plan drawn up. DS: We can do really aggressive game management for game birds – it’s hard for us to do aggressive game management for animals. Our focus is more on maintaining a public hunting program. Now a public hunting program isn’t necessarily the same category as game management. You may, you may not, but it’s gonna be a real active game enhancement program. What we’re trying to do and what my focus is on providing as much area as possible for hunters to access and to provide us as much access as possible for hunters. We have a bunch of resources to manage and our primary focus is actually on managing forests and a lot of these animals are extremely destructive in forests. We just have to be careful how we manage them – so in some ways we’re managing impact and so we’re looking at the resources as they occur on the ground and we’re looking at the animals that are there and we’re 3 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 looking at how much impact we can tolerate in any particular area and. You’re gonna have areas say from real pristine native forest – real important watershed areas, where water’s the primary concern – those areas we don’t want any animals and then there’s gonna be other areas that are really beat up and some areas you’re gonna be able to maintain a fairly numbers of animals. The other thing with a lot of these animals is they range a lot and so they’re moving seasonally up and down the mountain, sideways on the mountain and so quite frankly, in my experience, the hunters do a pretty good job of self-regulating and the animals are moving all the time and so for us to come up with that plan for managing let’s say pigs, you know, pigs don’t read plans and they’re moving all over the place all the time. I think the hunters, quite frankly, in my experience – know more about what’s going on on the mountains and what’s happening with the animals than a lot of the biologists do - they’re up there all the time. I think the hunters are doing their own census so I think a cooperative kind of relationship between hunters and our wildlife management agencies is important. We want to provide as much access as possible. In Oahu, I was a wildlife manager for eighteen years – we’ve opened most of our lands – every bit of land on Oahu that we could – that wasn’t restricted by some other land designation. We opened up to year-round daily hunting to give the hunters as much access as possible. Rather than restricting them artificially to weekends and state holidays or seasonal. We have limited resources for management enforcement. We do the best we can. In my observation, we were having a hard time enforcing and so the guys that were willing to break the rules got a hunt year-round daily and the guys that wanted to follow the rules had to follow seasons. So we opened it up and quite frankly it worked out really well. The hunters are happy with it, I think, when you go from weekends and state holidays to year- round daily you just increase the number of hunting days by 66% so you’ve provided a lot more access to hunters – I don’t think you get more hunters – I don’t think you get more pressure – I think it just spreads it out more. TL: Regarding a statement that was made about the animals range up and down the mountains, Kanalu mentioned that the goat home range was 16.3 square kilometers. Why do you use kilometers and not miles? KS: It is for publication in scientific articles. TL: OK. But you also said that there was a diameter – I understood that to be a 16 square mile radius of animals. Now you said that there’s a diameter of 2.25 miles and I think that should have been radius but assuming it’s the diameter – that’s a circular area – so they’re not really moving far – they may be moving within a circle is what you’re saying. Is that what you’re saying? KS: No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying they have home ranges. 4 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TL: That’s what I’m talking about is a home range... That’s what published \[unclear\]. KS: Home ranges are not necessarily a circle – so we’ve done some radio collaring – we did some on Oahu and we were seeing patterns in the movement – it wasn’t just a complete like whatever one mile circle it was – they usually had patterns and they were going to particular places and utilizing particular resources – they actually have a nice study going right now with the University of Hawaii and they’re doing a lot of home range and, you know, telemetry and GPS collaring and looking at home ranges animals. So that’s what we’d like to do is look at these animals – see where they’re moving – see how they’re utilizing habitat and try to get an idea of the types or areas that they’re using. TL: When you talk about utilizing habitat are you guys doing rumen studies? KS: I don’t think so... TL: How would you know what they’re doing to the habitat then if you don’t know what they’re eating? KS: Cause you can see it. TL: OK. It’s interesting you say that because a rumen study that I have seen that was done by the University of Hawaii shows that about 10% of the animals rumen – maybe on one or two animals there was 20 or 30%. But by and large it was like 10 or 12% was the actual content of native grasses and leaves. We’re hoping to have Colin Onaka who was a part of that study talk to us last meeting and hopefully maybe the next meeting to explain exactly what this rumen study was. But if you look at that Malia Kipapa study it seems pretty thorough done by the University. It doesn’t show an awful lot of emphasis on native by those animals and yet we still hear that these animals are gravitate towards native – endangered plants and DLNR should probably try to correct that statement because it doesn’t seem to be true. KS: There’s lots of studies of impact of animals on vegetation and that’s what we’re looking at – what’s left behind – we don’t need to do a rumen – I’ve done stomach contents – I know how fast things degrade – that’s not an accurate way to figure out what something’s eating and what we do is we look at an area with animals and look at an area with no animals – that’ll tell you what the difference it. \[Discussion\] NP: Yeah, but animals do travel when they can they migrate. They might move through an area – if they’re allowed to keep moving those plants might actually be happier in a few months because they’ve been pruned. Everything just doubly sprouts when it’s been pruned – if those animals are allowed to 5 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 keep moving, maybe it’s an inaccurate statement to say they’ve devastated this area – check it out in a couple of months and see how it looks. KS: There’s plenty of data on that. TL: We’d love to see that. I have not yet – I’ve looked for a study by DLNR in particular... KS: I don’t know if it’s by us. We don’t really have a research arm so a lot of it’s by other researchers. NP: I wanted to go back to the other subject – you said you’re opening- encouraging access for hunters and open season for hunters and actually that’s not proper game management because there needs to be shut down seasons for the animals to have rest – right Kanalu – he knows this and they need to rest – they need to have a time to regroup to reproduce and have their escape from hunters so that’s not good management I would say... DS: It depends on the animal and the habitat. TL: But isn’t that what management is for? DS: Yeah, but again you’re talking \[unclear\] areas and we’re talking about watershed forestry areas, right. TL: That’s right. WJC: He’s saying that we’re not interested in managing anything – that’s the bottom line... DS: We’re interested in managing a public program. WJC: In Puuanahulu, for instance – we can open that 7 days a week – there’s not an animal in there to be shot. How is that gonna benefit anybody, benefit any hunter? How is that gonna make any hunter happy? There’s hardly any animals in there. There’s no water – they get nothing to drink over there it’s a desert. There’s no feed for them. You refuse to open the water units. The watering units fencing up so that the sheep could drink water but yet you grumbling about them barking the trees. They’re barking the trees cause they’re thirsty – they trying to get water – that’s why they barking the trees – so I understand that we don’t want to have the animals there. A lot of times the hunters know the areas better than you guys do – and I’m hundred percent in agreement with you on that because I 6 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 cannot say that I never saw sheep damage on those trees up there in Kaohe but I can guarantee that they was barking at trees because there was no water for them to be drinking and that’s the way they – all animals need water – you cannot tell me that oh, those animals no need water – cause if you take that same animals and you lock ‘em in one corral without any water they’ll be dead in a week and you know that. I want to get back to the game management area designation. There’s a couple that I’m looking at in here – so now I understand your cooperative – Puuwaawaa is a forest reserve – Puuanahulu is still a game management area – still designated as a GMA. Mauna Loa Forest and GMA is that still correct? DS: I’m just trying to tell you that large numbers of animals can have a huge impact on the forest. If you fly by Lanai, I mean, some of those beaches on Lanai are just red dirt beaches. TL: I understand all that. My question to you was, what does game do to decrease the water supply in our forest in our watershed? DS: Well the forests are – the Division of Forestry was Territory of Forestry and Ag – it started out – we were the first in the nation – pre-dated the Forest Service – we started because people saw the animals in the forest were a threat to our forests and a threat to our water supplies. So our Division of Forestry was started primarily to protect watershed forests to sustain water supplies for the islands. TL: Water supply. OK. So how does a game animal impact the water supply? DS: Damaging the forest by browsing, grazing. TL: The DLNR keeps making these statements that our animals are destroying the watershed and our water supply and I’d like to know how they’re destroying the water supply. You don’t have surface water drinking here so how does it destroy the water supply. DS: Cause it impacts the ability to infiltrate. And if you take away the forests then the water runs off. So that’s why I was trying to make... TL: Where has it on this island impacted infiltration of the ocean? DS: You’ve lost hundreds of thousands of acres of forest on this island from animals. OK. TL: I would like to see that data because the 2011 U.S.G.S. Water Budget Model – have you read that? DS: We’re doing a bunch of research on that right now. 7 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TN: I go back to my question from our last meeting – if an area is pristine – the ecology of the area is balanced and when man gets in there they unbalance the area. If an area is pristine before man got there – why do you need to fence it off and save it from animals if the balance of this ecosystem is in balance? See? It doesn’t make sense for a pristine area to be fenced off cause then it becomes unbalanced. You take an area – like Hakalau Forest – it is no longer Hakalau Forest. The canopy’s gone – the forest is not intact and that’s when they got in there – before they got there the area was pristine – so all of your plans and talk of destruction or the animals destroying a forest – have animals destroyed a pristine area? DS: Yes. They do it all the time – that’s what they did to Hakalau... TN: No, the area is pristine. DS: No, Hakalau was not pristine. \[Discussion\] TL: We’re here talking about management and there are principles of game management. Suzanne Case and Governor Ige during his campaign advocated for Game Management. How do you folks view HCR 22 as it relates to managing game for sustainability? We want to see a sustainable future for our game in Hawaii. DS: We’re trying to manage a good public hunting program. TL: What does that mean public hunting program? DS: Opportunities for folks that want to go hunting. TL: What about game to go hunt? WJC: They don’t care about that. DS: I think actually – I think we do and I think we do provide quite a bit of opportunity. We’ve added areas, you know, on Oahu – I did the math and we had added 11,000 acres of hunting area. I would like to add more. We would like to buy more areas. We’re looking at areas on this island where we can get more areas available for hunting. TL: What about working with the areas that you have that are available for hunting? 8 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 SM: Stanley Mendez – hunter. When you talk about getting areas for us – more areas for us to hunt – there was this Kipuka Ainahou, the Hawaiian Homes took it back... DS: Right. SM: Citing that the beneficiaries wanted those lands back. Now that is almost like one desert over there. That’s no good to anybody – cattle ranching or any in Kipuka – but get 50 something thousand acres that is mauka and the state cannot lease those lands for us to hunt because the beneficiaries doesn’t want that but Nature Conservancy can rent those properties for plant trees and whatever they want to do with ‘em but because that is state land how can that happened that the DLNR cannot lease this land for hunting but yet Nature Conservancy can get these lands and another question is when we were told that the game to be – you cannot put any new game from outside of the area until these fences are finished in Puuwaawaa. We can take game from Puuwaawaa and put ‘em in Puuanahulu but we cannot bring game from any other place and put ‘em in Puuanahulu. Why is that? What you’re doing is just you’re taking game away from someplace and putting ‘em into one area that you’re not enhancing the game – you’re not getting more game – you’re just spreading the game around. DS: We don’t control all state lands because DHHL is a separate entity. \[Discussion\] SM: It’s all DHHL. DS: They’ve been taking back their lands. They’re doing it on Kauai too. The beneficiaries want the lands... SM: But it’s not going to the beneficiaries – it’s going to Nature Conservancy. DS: I don’t know the details on that particular one but we do not control DHHL lands. TL: But he does bring up a point. We brought this up with Kanalu and about managing in Puuwaawaa and Puuanahulu and my question there is that that HCP is languishing and yet that is completed degraded land at Puuanahulu in particular and it was actually classified as an area for game production so why aren’t we able to take game from Mauna Kea like they did and had to put ‘em into Keamuku, which is military, because we didn’t have one acre that we could take that animal and our question is what is the sense of that? So what is the point of the HCP in Puuanahulu – covered with endangered species is what you’re saying. 9 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 DS: Right. The point was to try to come up with some balanced program for being able to do game in there. KS: So the HCP is meant to give us an incidental take license which allows for take of endangered species. So right now we cannot take – but if we implement the plan and everything goes into – is in order – that gives us license that allows us to take or kill an endangered species because we’re mitigating for that within the fences. Sorry that just answers that question you have. DY: We have a difference of that definition on what management is so my question has always been how do we work with you guys so that we can satisfy these demands that everybody has, you know, the different interest groups. \[tape goes blank\] DS: The game management advisory commission – a representative from each island working with our people to work on different game issues and, I mean, part of the thing like this – we just start off – I think are probably pretty good – we probably agree on about 95% of things we’re just start off in the 5% that we’re having issues with, you know, I think actually we have a pretty good program and I would like to work with the hunters and work on the things that are positive – come up with a list of things that we can do – not argue about the definition of game management or whether we’re doing quote unquote game management but are we running an effective public hunting program... DY: I think what you’re hearing from people is that it is not and that’s why you have all this emotion. I think hunters here want to have a sustainable hunting program. They want to have mammals in that mix and what has come about or what the perception is that it’s a secondary concern of DOFAW or DLNR for a variety of reasons and what I’m asking is and I’ve asked this for many years is how can we balance that? Because we all live here. DS: I think we are balancing it and I think we do a really good job with balancing it, quite frankly. Same thing with the game management so we talk but it’s just game, game, game. I’m like – we can’t just talk about game we’ve got to talk about all the other things too – we have to talk about native resources... WJC: But you guys only talk about endangered, endangered, endangered. What we are here to talk about is game. We are a game management advisory commission – that’s why we’re here. WJC: That’s why you hear this from us all the time. But all we ever hear is plants this and birds that and plants this and insects here and all of that stuff and bottom line – like I said earlier – the view of the people in DLNR in Honolulu is not to do any game management – that’s what you’re telling me all one 10 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 hour that we’ve been here so far is that game management is not on the plate. It is a hunter da kine. I can guarantee you that if you open Puuwaawaa 24/7 \[unclear\] 99% of the hunters is not gonna appreciate that and we know why that is – you never admit it – but you don’t want the animals there so you’re gonna let us do your job in getting rid of all the animals. I know you’re not going to admit that – that’s fine – we don’t have to go there – but that is why we’re here cause we are here for our game. We’re not here arguing that we don’t want any plants – that’s not the point – I love the forest – I love to be in the forest – I don’t want to see it go away – but I wanna have a decent day of hunting when I go hunting. Right now, you can spend a lot of money on archery equipment and there’s no place to go hunt ‘em – to use it. Oh, sure there is! There’s Puuwaawaa. But there’s not an animal out there for me to shoot. There’s not many in there at all. DS: Well, part of the thing about the year-round daily is it allows us to just open areas up. If you try to do game enhancement in a particular area that’s gonna have a negative impact especially on \[unclear\] species – we can’t do it. So it’s like do you want your year-round daily or do you want nothing. WJC: We have no beef with seasons – there’s just no game there to be had. So why we’re here is we’re wanting to figure out a way to manage the game in our game management areas. Let’s start with Puuwaawaa - the HCP’s been going for what – twelve years and it still hasn’t been done. DS: So you’re talking about game enhancement – put yourself in our shoes – you cannot take endangered species – how are you gonna rectify those two? DY: How do we make sure our interests are in that conservation because right now it doesn’t seem that way and when we are not in that conversation this is the result. I don’t want to go down there because I’ve been down there and all it is is hakaka and it’s not nice. WJC: To get back to Theresa’s question. What you were trying to say is when you chose areas to become a natural area like Puuwaawaa bird sanctuary – Hakalau – it’s because you’re calling it pristine areas – that’s why you’re wanting to preserve that but for hundreds of years animals have been in these areas yet they’re still considered pretty much your pristine areas so why is there such a push to remove them so quickly. DS: Well, a lot of the areas that are in the best condition haven’t had many animals in them and we want to keep it that way – so a lot of these areas you just don’t have that many animals. If you have a lot of animals a lot of times you don’t have any forest at all. WJC: So where on this Big Island would you consider pretty much pristine? 11 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 DS: There’s a bunch of areas – we can get you maps of what we consider the primary conservation zone lands... WJC: Where? Which forests are we talking about? Kau, Puuwaawaa, which mountain? DS: On all the mountains there’s good forest. WJC: And in all the forests what has been there for hundreds of years. DS: A lot of it’s really beat up and some of it’s in good condition. So the stuff that’s in good condition we’re gonna try to protect and other areas that we have more flexibility on how to manage it... WJC: I understand. What I’m getting at is the animals have been there living in conjunction with close to pristine area. Why does the animals always have to be the first target? Why is that just because that’s the easiest thing to get rid of? DS: No, because they’re the biggest negative impacts on native resources. We have more endangered species than any other state in the nation. WJC: I understand. DS: These introduced animals have huge impacts on our native resources and areas have continued to degrade and decline. Relatively a small amount of areas that are still in really good condition and some of those areas we really want to protect. TN: You know, some of our native species were not destroyed by animals – they were destroyed by introduced species – insects – the wiliwili tree... Those are your destruction – not the animals. You have to be clear on this and what species you consider endangered. You’re talking about the uhi uhi, I mean, you keep talking about endangered species of plants – so what plants are you talking about. You’re talking about trees? DS: Yes. TN: Are you talking about the lama, you’re talking about the koki ai \[sic\]? You’re talking about the halapepe? What species are you saying these animals are destroying or being destructive of? Are you talking about the pigs, are you talking the goats, you talking about the sheep, you’re talking about dry land... 12 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 DS: Different animals have different impacts on forest and there’s 411 species, you know, it’s on the federal list of endangered species, threatened and endangered species there’s four hundred and eleven plants on that list. We have a lot... TN: Yeah, but most of them are destroyed by insects not animals. The wiliwili tree and the dryland forest area is because of those tiny insects that bore their eggs into the tiny little buds of the wiliwili tree. DS: We’ve got a lot of issues with invasive species that’s why we spend a lot of money... TN: Yeah, but our invasive species that come in are not the animals that we hunt. DS: Right. TL: Let’s talk about Puuanahulu. There may be areas of severe erosion, former pasture, crop lands, forest plantation would probably relate to Puuanahulu as well. Areas of non-native grass or brush resulting in fires or intensive grazing examples are portions of Kekaha Game Management Kauai, Puuanahulu on the Big Island and it’s put by DOFAW, or I guess DOFAW, and it said, you know, it’s the most popular area in Hawaii to go hunting is Lanai. And the other popular areas to go hunting are all privately owned and they’re not state land. The question is – why don’t we have state lands that are attractive. Why isn’t Puuanahulu or Puuwaawaa or the combination of those two or Kapapala or other areas that are out there – not utilized or used as an attractive hunting area that would actually support itself – make some money for the state on top of that – which is what Mauna Kea would have done – where you wouldn’t have to be begging for money to endangered species and the rest of it – was a hunting program that was robust and, you know, brought people in to go do that. But Puuwaawaa and Puuanahulu are badly degraded so my question is why isn’t it that we can’t do habitat enhancement so that you can bring animals into that area and do you even know how many animals can be supported by that area. DS: We just circled right back again and we’re talking about endangered species again. I already said that OK. We cannot take endangered species. We want to get and do a relationship with the hunters. I worked for many years as wildlife manager on Oahu. I had really good relationship with the hunters. And I think most of the work needs to go on the island between our staff and the hunters on the island. The resources are different on every island, the demographics are different on every island and we need to work together and get a better line of communication going and develop better trust between ourselves so we can work together more effectively and we’ll try to help you out the best we can – there are some things we can do and some things we 13 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 can’t do – but we really want to work with the hunters and we want to be effective – we want to run a really good game management and hunting program. So that is our goal – we want to do those things, OK? We have lots of different things that we have to balance in the mix. There’s lots of resources that we have to take care of and we’re not going to fix this all here tonight... AA: You guys do a pretty good/fair hunting program. DS: Thank you. AA: So that’s a positive note on that part. I agree with Willie-Joe on that part – just the game like my main question will be like you mentioned earlier about access – how can we get better access – not necessarily giving more time for the hunters that open it weekly, Monday, daily or whatever – just the areas that’s already there – how can we get better access like cleaning up the roads or you know just to getting back to better access – just into the forest itself – because a lot of the areas are encroaching \[unclear\] fall down trees, brush growing over on the road. I know get rapid ohia death going on but how can we get better access in the forest itself? DS: A lot of that would just be working with your local – DOFAW group. Try to figure out who’s in charge of management in particular areas – get a good line of communication going – give him a call – hey, there’s a tree down, across the road – we need some help or you know this section of the road’s really bad – so trying to improve that line of communication with us – we really want to do a good job for you – so if there’s things like that that we can work with you on – by all means let us know. You know, we do have – we have a lot of open positions right now – we have 30% vacancies in our division and not for lack of trying, I mean, since I’ve come on this has been my number one priority is to fill positions. Here and Hilo their operations crew – they have two out of eight positions filled right now and we’re just pushing, pushing, pushing trying to get those filled. So some of it’s a capacity issue – we’re trying to do the best we can – we’re spread really thin but we certainly want to run a topnotch program and I think – I drive around with these guys and I tell you what – I am amazed with the resources that they have – how much they get done and how much ground they cover – how long it takes them just to drive to get somewhere to work so they work really hard – I sign a lot of papers and I look at a lot of stuff so I track statewide what these guys are out there doing and working on and man, we got some really good crews in the field working really hard. So we’re trying to do our best – if there’s ways that we can improve you guys need to let us know – we’ll do the best we can for you. TL: It’s a long drive to Puuanahulu and what we would like to see is some game there when we get there. 14 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 DS: OK. Well, we’ll work on that. I want to work with you guys. We want to have a good line of communication so let’s keep working on it. We want to have a really good public hunting program in this state and I think we do have a good program – it you don’t think it’s good enough than let’s work on it. TL: Well, we just want to move from public hunting program to a game management program. DS: We’ll work with that. Call me anytime. Kanalu Sproat report on questions posed during GMAC’s August Meeting a) Forest bird recovery after the removal of animals KS: Here to answer questions from the last time. The first one about forest bird populations. Sorry, I don’t have that information yet. Our statewide forest bird manager – that position has been vacant for almost a year now and so we do have somebody TA to the position but he’s been working on it for me trying to get the information but he’s been kind of frustrated cause he hasn’t been able to find it yet, um, but as soon as I do get an answer I’ll let you guys know and I don’t know if I can just write a letter or I can come back, it’s fine, but so as far as forest repopulation recovery numbers within the forestry sanctuary I don’t know that right now. TL: Palila. Are you supposed to be doing these palila counts every year or every six months? KS: It’s a yearly and kind of February time. TL: And do you know what the count is for the last census up there? KS: I think it’s under 2,000. TL: Yeah, no, he thought that it was close to 2,000 or twenty-two hundred. KS: OK. In that area. TL: But he didn’t give us a number he just... KS: He did the same thing I did. TL: We would like to look into that. You know one of the things that he may have missed is the fact that, it’s probably a management issue that created our problem on Mauna Kea and we would like to not have that mind set move 15 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 forward and I know that you on the HCP and I don’t want to hammer you on the HCP about, you know, some of the things, but he did bring up something tonight that I think is important and that is that you mentioned that that place will never be at carrying capacity when we were here... TL: What’s the definition of carrying capacity if that’s the case cause there’s a new term that I heard about a year or so ago and it’s called impact capacity, which I think is probably a more relevant term for us anyway is, you know, how much game can you have in an area before it does significant damage, you know, to where we have to go in and do something and what I would like to see – I don’t know about we – but what I would like to see too and I know that this is not your kuleana mostly but we’ve been trying to get a project going in a watershed area to see what it is and actually in 1996 we had an agreement to do that, ah, \[unclear\] from the \[unclear\] that we had was to – how much game is in the forest, what is the impact on the forest, and what happens when you bring hunters in and that was never done as far as I know. It’s something that we would like to see in the watershed in particular – or I would like to see in the watershed – but Puuwaawaa is the most popular hunting probably on this island for people who like to hunt sheep and goats and other things – which is why I think this HCP is really important, if we ever get going. Does anybody else have any comments...? KS: Let me just real quick – I do have a couple other things I was gonna share... TL: OK. All right... KS: So we had questions I think from Theresa in Kona about habitat conditions within the forest bird sanctuary and outside of it within fenced units and outside of it, um, so I’m just gonna read what Elliott Parsons – the Puuwaawaa manager – out there – just some of his insights – which is pretty similar to some of the stuff I said – unfortunately we haven’t quantified it so we haven’t gone out and taken measurements and all that – so most of it’s visual – but he said the Waihou fence unit – so below the forest bird sanctuary is 204 acres – the fence was put in in 2004. The condition: forest recovery is progressing fairly rapidly since fencing and ungulate removal. Mamane are coming up everywhere inside the fence on their own so there’s a native seed bank – so they didn’t do any out-planting, right, those mamane came up on their own. Ohia reproduction has increased mostly on logs inside. Kolea are recruiting around parent plants. Koa are coming up in some places but these may be clone off stems from another tree and not new individuals – they’ve planted over 5,000 koa in Waihou and they have grown significantly – some were planted in 2012 and now are over 10’ tall. You can see them coming up from the puu. Issues with excluding cattle, sheep, goats and pigs – banana poka has increased inside the fenced unit cause cattle do like to eat that – so we got some of the good and now we’re gonna go a little bit of the bad, yeah? Also, grasses can be higher inside the fence than outside – 16 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 specifically kikuyu grass but they’re trying to and they are planting taller seedlings that are already above the grass and so those are – having success – but other plant species like aalii aren’t able to recruit within, you know, in that thicker grass. Grass is higher but since \[unclear\] should do better than no grass at all. The main idea here is to use the growth of native trees to eventually shade out the grasses and this is happening on the Puuwaawaa cone – so some areas under that koa forest that’s been planted up there are shading out the grasses and so the understory is starting to recover under that. It’s a long process, right, this is not like five years later – it’s ten, fifteen, twenty years. But eventually, if the forest is able to recover to that degree than we can reduce fire issues within that forest. Henahena is not fenced yet so we haven’t done anything like pre in-post fence – cause the fence isn’t built yet but Henahena borders the forest bird sanctuary and within the sanctuary where it is fenced they do have recruitment and regeneration of mamane, aalii and things like that. And then right outside the fence we’re not seeing that, so, we haven’t quantified it – I can’t come in and say this percentage and this and that but just visually there is a recovery so fences do, I mean, there’s good and bad and I’m not like – I’m not gonna – it is what it is – there’s good and bad. Aalii and mamane are recovering within the forest bird sanctuary and they’re not outside of the sanctuary where it’s not fenced. The cone unit – amazing growth of koa since they were planted as well as many other species: aiea, mau oha, hele, alani, aalii and a large diversity of other species: papala kepau, poola, olopua, some trees are plugged in to the ground without weed control and some do fine – but the ones that do best are the ones that you do have to control around the plant – grass control. And then there was another question... TL: How long would you have to continue doing that? KS: It depends on the species it would depend on what plant species you’re working on. There was a question about monitoring within the fence and without a fence after. This is written into our plan. The thing you’re saying about impact –we want to see how much the animals are having an impact in a fenced area - outside of the fence compared to where they’re not in the fence, but our plan is not implemented as of yet. TL: You’re doing cards and regular telemetry on these animals right now and I have that map that you sent us and I think that I understand it fairly well, but after you’ve carded these animals and after you’ve got your data – and one question on there – are these animals being hunted at all? KS: Yes, in Puuanahulu. In Puuwaawaa we don’t have a season mauka – and so we do have some non-typical rams in that area that are collared so they might be hunted because we just do it not to pick a ram hunt the last few years, but in general in Puuwaawaa no and in Puuanahulu yes. 17 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TL: So in Puuanahulu during the hunting season – what happens to the game when the hunting starts? KS: Haven’t analyzed movements by dates yet, we can – but in general they – Puuanahulu they move already no matter the season they have higher movement rates or larger – you know, they move larger distances in Puuanahulu than they do in Puuwaawaa... TL: Is that because there’s no food? KS: I don’t know why it is I would guess it’s probably something like that. But their home range sizes are actually similar so I would think probably they’ve got to move around within their small home range to find more forage. That’s what I would guess, yes, but I don’t know that. TL: Probably it’s a reasonable assumption. KS: I’ll give you a quick update on that – we actually – in October – we put out 23 more GPS collars – so we have 40 GPS collars between the two areas. Now this is just on sheep, right, thank you to Willie-Joe who helped us and taught us how to draw blood much quicker on the animals. The guys from Utah were pretty impressed and they took it back, so, we’ll see it – I mean, they picked it up and we’ll see if that works out for them up there. So we have 40 collared animals now in the area – we plan on probably doing another 20 next year and so far from the new collars that we put out they have similar movements to the other collar, I mean, they don’t move that much – there are two that are kinda moving crossing the flow quite a bit but mostly they don’t move that much, so, and the survival rates so far are similar – we’re in the mid 90s survival rate. TL: John Giffin I believe in one his studies suggested that when animals are hunted that they have a tendency to scatter and I think he said that sheep in particular – he may have been talking about feral sheep – I don’t know about mouflon but he may have been talking about feral sheep – that it can take them several weeks to get back together into a band once they’re hunted. So why I’m interested in what happened during your hunting is that, you know, if we’re concerned about animals in an area and they’re impacting that area, you know, hunting might be a way to keep them moving and keep the impacts down rather than fence. But we’re not going to be able to try that for five or six years till the HCP – is that correct? KS: To use hunting to move animals? TL: The HCP – under that you couldn’t – you cannot bring animals into the area you’re saying for at least five to eight years if I read that correctly. 18 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 KS: Yes... Bringing animals into the area. TL: That is my question, they are related, right? KS: You’re asking... Bring animals in but use hunting to reduce their pressure on the resource, is that possible? I think it’s possible – so now are we gonna make special seasons to get hunters in there – are we gonna open up 24/7 the way Dave was talking about to get hunters in there to push the animals around more? Either way that’s a rules change and a rules change, I mean, theoretically could be, you know, eight months but it hasn’t happened for us. TL: Eight years you mean... TN: They didn’t come from afar – so didn’t the crow come from afar cause they were left – they did not evolve here – they were brought in here? So they were... KS: Every species of animal came here somehow but that species has evolved to a point that they are only found here – that’s sub-species or whatever is only found here so yes it is endemic. Historically, some ancestor of it did come here from some other place. Every species of animal here came from some other place... TN: So you’re saying they evolved into their own species? \[Discussion\] KS: Evolution is a millions and millions of years process so those sheep, goats and pigs – while adaptation could be have taken - and probably was taking place – evolution – the time frame for evolution is not – those animals did not evolve to something different – evolution is a millions of years process not a hundreds of years or whatever, so, no, sorry. DY: I want to thank you because this is one of the first indications I’ve seen about moving from impact management out towards a more encompassing game management so, my question is – what would be the next step that can move us into that direction? KS: Could you re-state that question – I don’t quite understand what you’re asking? DY: It seems like what Kanalu is doing at Puuwaawaa – moves us from this impact management that Dave talked about – to a more while approach – to wildlife – game management. 19 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 Steve: I would agree with you – I think this is closest thing that I’ve seen to game management in my 28 years here... So Kanalu should be applauded for that. DY: How can we make sure that it continues as the Game Management Advisory Commission for the County – what kinds of things can we do to make sure that this effort continues? KS: I would say the first thing – probably the most simple thing - we need to garner a lot public support for the HCP because it’s not approved yet and so our comments that we had were few but most of them were positive but to continue to show that – especially for our board members and all of that – our last ESR \[unclear\], I mean, I know I’ve explained several times but we went to the ESRC in September and unfortunately we had no hunters there at the ESRC meeting – we did have one Earth Justice lawyer who made comments who not supportive of the plan – although we did have one other member of the public who was supportive – so if we want to start small scale I would say if you want to see the HCP be carried out and start to and progress that – that would be probably the easiest thing we can do – if you guys want to take this on to a larger scale and implement something like it on a statewide – so there’s a reason Dave said he wouldn’t do it is because it’s really hard – we’re fifteen-twenty years into this and, you know, I appreciate Steve saying applaud but I didn’t start this project – many other people started it before me and lucky – I get to pick it up – and I don’t know if it’s lucky cause it’s not going yet but – so there’s a reason Dave said – it’s not because David is not – it’s because it’s not easy – we’re twenty years into this – fifteen years – whatever – and it’s not done yet. So if you want to take that – the general idea that we have with the HCP and try to have more of that across the whole state that’s gonna be a larger thing probably on a political level. TL: You said that you had testimony from Earth Justice – where was that? KS: It was at the Endangered Species Recovery meeting we had in September where we presented our HCP to them again. TL: And if you were looking for support for something like that – I don’t even know what that was all about. I mean, you hear – we might hear that there’s this... KS: I will take responsibility for not getting word out as quickly as I should have – I did – I texted Ryan –but it was last minute. \[Discussion\] WJC: How do we convince the people in Honolulu to approach this HCP with the same enthusiasm as you guys have over here – because you guys over here is obviously trying to get this rolling but I did not get the same – I did not get 20 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 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 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TL: What you’re doing – will create probably an environment where you can actually test some of that – is that correct? KS: Yes. TL: Now is Puuwaawaa and Puuanahulu – I’m not that familiar with all of that area. When you look at it on the broad scale but is that habitat relatively the same on both sides? TN: How large an area of Puuwaawaa and how large a area of Puuanahulu and are we talking mauka-makai – north or south – east or west? KS: The whole area with the two areas combined is about 108,000 acres. Puuanahulu is slightly larger than Puuwaawaa – probably 35 or 40,000 acres on the Puuwaawaa side and so the rest would be on the Puuanahulu side, you know, 55, 60,000 acres on the Puuanahulu side. Puuanahulu is a little complicated but it’s land designated GMA – so game management area but part of that land designation is part a – there’s two hunting units – there’s the Puuwaawaa side of the flow and there’s a large chunk of land up there that is land designated GMA but it’s part of Hunting Unit F – so it’s part of the hunting unit that includes Puuwaawaa and that goes from mauka all the way to makai. Then there’s Puuanahulu – which is only GMA land designation – but that’s everything from the Waimea side of the 1859 flow and then also the road that runs down where the Puuanahulu makai check station is – that is all Hunting Unit E – so part of the March through June hunting season – and that is from mauka to makai. As far as fences or whatever that – I mean, I would guess that’s kind of where you’re going about mauka-makai what’s being – the fences are being put in both mauka and makai – mostly mauka but some makai and mostly on the Puuwaawaa side is where fences will be put. TN: Because the fencing along Puuwaawaa? KS: Because of damage from animals. TN: Damage from animals? Insects? I mean what are the factors besides animals have been doing damage to an area that ecology-wise... KS: We’re fencing 4,000 acres – this is – what is it – four and half – 8% of the 100,000 acres is gonna be fenced and this areas that we consider pristine or close to pristine. I understand your arguments of if it’s pristine why do we need to fence it – we believe that we need to fence it because we don’t want to see a continued degradation of the area. There’s areas outside of it where the habitat is gone to – it’s bad – and that is because of the animals not – and insects – you are correct – insects do cause damage and we do our best to manage for that – but that, I mean, our best is probably not very good when it comes to insects – it might not be very good with... Anyways, they do cause 23 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 damage – the amount of area we’re gonna fence is like I said 8% of the area and already 4 ½ percent is already fenced. So we’re adding 3 ½ more percent. NP: Isn’t it true that those areas that are getting fenced are their prime refuge areas – of favored habitat animals. KS: They’re very nice forests and so the animals do go there. NP: It’s relatively small area but there are the prime areas... KS: We would have to try to mitigate and replace that forest outside of the fence areas to provide cover for animals, yes, we would need to improve habitat for them hopefully using natives if we can. NP: The sheep that you’re exterminating from the Henahena fencing area – that have been in there and they really like being in there and you’re gonna have to kick ‘em all out and lock ‘em all out. I would really like to see the tests on their rump fat and health. Before you take them out of there – just for the data that the facts are there that this action is taking down the quality and health of our game resources. What we’d really like to see is some kind of value placed on the game resources like you have a value placed on the native species. That’s really what we’re trying to say – I know that’s way up from the top Washington, D.C. or whatever and we’re fighting upstream but if we could just see it in the hearts of at least the state and the DLNR and that’s why we’re hurting cause honestly Dave Smith you can tell he hates the game animals – I don’t know. His heart is only for native – his dedication is for the native species – his energies are that way and, you know, my feelings is letting all the hunters hunt he’s hoping they’ll all be eradicated by the hunters – you know, I can’t help but feel that way I’d just like to see in the hearts of all of you who are doing this the same value for this resource – our game resources as for the native species – that’s what I’d really like to see that – just – you gotta do what you gotta do but – I’d like see it in your heart kind of thing. I’m a woman, I’m a woman, OK? DY: I worked with Dave for a number of years and you know he really tries to do his job and do it well and when I worked with him on Oahu he did a bang up job over there so I think we have to acknowledge the administrative environment. I have a great deal of respect and aloha for him. I would like to see this thing move from impact management to continue to go down this path of game management and I for one will continue to work in that area. 24 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TL: This is what I was talking about with Dave, the idea of enhancing the habitat and primarily that was from the conversation that we had when you were here last Kanalu, when you’re kicking these animals out of these areas as they put it – into a degraded habitat – and Tony I think was talking about watering units and some other things and those are the things – I think it should be started now rather than later and you should be planning on having the habitat ready for these animals as they get moved out and that’s when he said, aw, we don’t want any habitat management, you know, improvements – we’ll just open up more areas to game so this is where he and I had a slight disagreement \[unclear\] maybe you could come and educate us about what your thoughts are... DY: Tom – is there anything in Puuanahulu that can be done? I hate to say it this way but surreptitiously to improve that habitat? KS: We have a small program – it’s very small – that Hans started where they were out planting kukui nut as cover. I mean those small out plantings are doing well – like I said I got me and three guys that are covering everything for the West side to keep – to expand that we could try and do some public, you know, get some public enrollment and try to expand it more, I mean, it’s one – it’s maybe a ½ acre and a ½ acre \[unclear\] small and we talking – so I was just talking about we’re gonna fence 4,000 acres which is or 8,000 acres which is 8% or whatever and I’m talking about one acre to expand that into a larger scale would take quite a bit of work. It’s already – like I said – it’s already something that they did start and it’s on the ground and proven successful but those areas that we did out plants with kukui they were fenced – maintained within those fenced units and watered when needed. So if we’re gonna expand that project and do it on thousands of acres – it’s gonna take a lot of work and so can we try – we can start that conversation – I’m fine with that. TL: Is there anything other than trees that you could plant that would encourage animals to stay in area or migrate... KS: Forage? From last year’s data, the areas that they prefer area with cover. I mean, it was the same thing with my master’s research I did – I studied big horn sheep on the mainland and the areas that those sheep preferred was cover. And their cover \[unclear\] escaped rain but like 90% of the time was spent in that. With these sheep most of their time is spent in the forested areas so if we’re gonna fence off forests and where they’re hanging out we probably should try to replace forest which is not easy so and that right there is a 20 plus year venture. 25 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 TL: When we were originally working on the game management plan one of the suggestions was just to plant rubbish trees – these things that grow in a year just to provide some of that cover and I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth before – ah! We can’t do that! Well, my question is why? Why couldn’t you do that? KS: We might be able to it’s written in there we have invasive concerns of what types of trees species we are going to plant but it is written in there that it doesn’t have to be a native species. TL: Well, kukui’s not native... KS: Something that grows faster... I’m not saying we can’t do it – we’re limited on man hours and money. If we fenced, it depends on how large of an area we’re gonna impact cause then we start getting into environmental assessments or EISs. So then there’s regulatory things if you’re going large scale, right, but right now the first thing is gonna be money. TN: Kanalu, you said, if you folks fence off a forest in order to bring up a habitat to keep the game animal around – you’re gonna have to create an environment for them? KS: We should try to replace, they like the forest so if we’re gonna take away – if we’re gonna fence off the forest and we want to have good game population we probably should try to have more forest for them to go into – whether – I mean, maybe there’s some forest there already that they’ll go to that’s not being fenced – cause we’re not fencing all of the forest, right, like I said it’s only 8% that’s getting fenced. TN: The elevation that you folks are fencing and then allowing the animals to thrive – what elevation are you talking about? KS: All elevations within the area? TN: All elevations within the area... Is there a certain elevation that there is a rain belt area up in that area? So water is not a problem at Puuanahulu or Puuwaawaa? KS: I don’t know if water is an issue for the animals I just know that sheep don’t use our water guzzlers. Goats go makai but, I mean, they don’t never use them but they don’t use them very much, very little. TN: And so when people say there’s no game animal in the area would you disagree with that statement? 26 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 KS: I would disagree with that statement. There might be very little but to say that there are no game animals is pretty definitive so I do disagree with that. TN: Do you know what the current population is of these various animals? KS: No. So we’re trying to find that out right now with our research. TN: OK. Thank you. \[Discussion\] TL: In Puuanahulu – the vegetation classification of that shows severely degraded and that document says that that area was suitable for game enhancement and production and if you’re following – and I understand the HCP – I understand the fencing – I understand all of that but what I don’t understand is not being able, you know, to move forward with some of the things that you want to do now and in that light what is it that we might be able to do whether it be politically or, you know, whatever it might be that might improve that environment for you to start doing more of what you’d like to do? KS: So what Dave said is correct – the Endangered Species Act for state and federal pretty much trumps us so if you wanted to work on some way that we can land designate – I don’t know GMAs are exempt from and ESA or, you know, if you guys wanted to try to get that to happen, I mean, maybe that would be good – I don’t know – we could have separate conversations and kind of dig into this a little more but what Dave said is correct, I mean, endangered species and endangered species management runs what we do – or are allowed to do for game – and, so, even though it’s land designated GMA – there are endangered species there and that are affected by sheep and goats and pigs - good luck. TN: Because areas have already been fenced off in Puuanahulu and Puuwaawaa you’ve cut off the food supply of these animals and so they go and find where there’s food and now they’re attacking the endangered species is as you so call these trees, plants, whatever they are and before you folks fenced off I never heard of a cry of these endangered species but I hear it all the time now. So the more areas you fence off of their feeing place they get desperate and desperate so... KS: The areas that we fence off are where the endangered species are. TN: So it’s a balancing act for you folks – for management – for you folks as management – may I suggest – I did a planting project of 19,000 wiliwili trees, oh, excuse me, one thousand nine hundred wiliwili trees with the schools – they did the seedling Department of Forestry Division came and educated the students – it was a science project for several elementary schools in the West 27 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 Hawaii area and at the end of the school year the Department of Forestry Division came and picked up those –out of 1,900 about at least 1,700 seedling survived the planting and they were replanted at mile 19 post marker and then several years after that there was a fire so I don’t know what happened to those wiliwili trees but you could probably propose a project like that. KS: Yes, thank you. DY: Do you guys have like a bibliography of projects that might be an indication of programs that have tried to do mitigation with endangered species? Like, for example, there’s this guy in Africa – Sayres – right? He used to kill elephants, right, I mean that was his job. NP: Alan Avery DY: It was something that was having negative impact and so he got into this whole thing of heavy duty management of grazing animals and he has had much success of a mixed-use of these grazing areas with the wild animals. I’m wondering if there’s any research done in that subject area that would point out that, eh, you know in Hawaii we might want to do some of that. You guys know of any studies. \[Discussion\] DY: I think maybe the University should fund some of these projects, you know, cause most of their projects are all focused on the endangered stuff rather than the including man in that equation, so off hand you don’t know? KS: That was done in Hawaii? DY: No, elsewhere Stan: This is through the grapevine, that you hear stuff like this and I brought this up to many people and nobody told me that it wasn’t happening but my point is – if it is happening – how come the state cannot – whatever the Nature Conservancy is – paying or they gonna pay – why the state cannot match or – because the land is not going to the beneficiaries – that’s for sure so if the Nature Conservancy is gonna take it over – why can’t DLNR – whatever Nature Conservancy is putting into that thing – why can’t DLNR do it. ?: OK. Stanley, we have approached DHHL in the past about Humuula from when their lease first expired and they are not interested at all in leasing us anything. We went before the beneficiaries – I went to Honolulu before the 28 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 commission for – OK – I’m going beyond now – I know there were some questions about Kipuka Ainahou as well in the past, right, went before their commission in Honolulu – went before the commission here – regarding just extending Kipuka Ainahou and we went out three years and we were using it basically by verbal agreement after the license agreement – it’s not a lease – it’s license agreement – had expired and they were not interested at all in leasing DLNR any properties. Stan: I can understand that but if they gonna lease ‘em to Nature Conservancy why not DLNR that’s – I mean, you know, maybe DLNR got to \[unclear\] or something I don’t know. \[Discussion\] TL: I appreciate Kanalu your coming back and helping us with this and I appreciate Dave Smith for coming down here, as well. We do have a difference of opinion as to what game management is – is supposed to be and this is something – I think that what we need to do is to avail ourselves of his offer of working with you folks as closely as we can and to do whatever we can – however we do it – you know, whether it be politically and I don’t want to continue on right now but I do want to get back to HCR 22 and what that means within your department as well – at some point here I think we’d like to have clarification – there’s other questions that we have too – clarification wise as far as critical habitat and some of the areas that you guys were surveying out there in Puuwaawaa and Puuanahulu – I mean, there’s critical habitat, you know, like there is up at Pohakuloa for example which has been ravaged by fire. Is that really still critical or is it just a political designation, you know, an area designation and is there something we can do to work within that framework, you know, saying OK, well, there’s mamane here so it’s critical habitat but, you know, there’s no palila there so it’s or that sort of thing anyway – anybody else have any comments or questions? DY: We have asked for State GMAC minutes and I don’t know if we ever got those? TL: Well, that would have been a Dave Smith question and or a Ryan question. I appreciate your willingness to work with us and as Willie-Joe said at the last meeting – we want to help. Our goal is to see sustainable hunting into the future forever, I mean, you and I have talked about this as well so I don’t want to beat a dead horse... For myself I’m grateful that you folks visit with us and help us here – you give us ideas where we start moving in directions sometimes we’re successful with what we’ve done and it’s only been with your help that we’ve been able to be successful with that stuff so personally I’m really happy that we have this communication. Anyway, I’m not sure how to conclude the rest of this meeting... 29 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 8, 2017 NEXT MEETING: November 28, 2017 will be at the Hilo Chambers – last meeting for the year. Chairman Tom Ledge mentioned that there will be no video conference in Kona. There will be a get together after the meeting possibly at Don’s Grill. Confirmation of place will be mentioned at the next meeting. Willie-Jo Camara moved to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina and carried unanimously by a voice vote. ADJOURNMENT: 8:36 pm Respectfully Submitted: Donna Urban-Higuchi ATTEST: Thomas H. Lodge, Chairman 30