2017-11-28 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 28, 2017 TL: There’s a Wildlife Revolving Fund amendment that we submitted in 2014 along with the commission bill and it was thought at that time – we’re gonna have a hard enough trouble with the commission bill without throwing this in there as well. Now that we have the commission in place, there are some questions and the last meeting that we had David Smith said that part of the issues that we have with the Hawaii State Endangered Species Act - so that is an issue that we’re gonna have as far as spending money but the federal wildlife funds that we get from the Pittman-Robertson will not do any game enhancement or habitat enhancement for a game mammal. And the Wildlife Revolving Fund as it’s currently structures reads this way, in addition to sub- section C and F, the Department may use monies received in the Wildlife Revolving Fund for the importation and to the management preservation propagation and protection of game, or, I’m sorry, wildlife in the state provided that the department prior to authorizing expenditures or expending funds from the Wildlife Revolving Fund shall first use those funds to maximize the State’s participation to secure federal funds rather than Pittman-Robertson, I mean, under the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act as amended. The problem that I have with that is that Pittman-Robertson – our money – these monies that go into the Wildlife Revolving Fund are your hunter dollars, your license dollars, your tag fees, um, your tag, your stamp fees all go into the Wildlife Revolving Fund – there was an addition of $10,000 dollars last year for a guy that ran over a nene – that money also went into the Wildlife Revolving Fund. One of the disappointing things about that is that enforcement is supposed to be putting all of their fines and things into the Wildlife Revolving Fund as well – they’ve been turning that over to the police department so the police department – we have not been getting monies through the fines having going to the general fund rather than the Wildlife Revolving Fund. That’s kind of unfortunate but we did get that $10,000 dollars so we were grateful for that. But what we would like to do – now that we have a Game Commission – we would like to have the Game Commission involved – and that would be Ryan from this island and Jon Sabati from Kona. We would like to have them involved in the decision making as to where that money goes and that they have a debate about where that money goes and what it does. And so we have asked – we have changed just a couple of words in here – instead of the Department shall, or rather than may, they shall use monies received into the Wildlife Revolving Fund for the preservation, propagation or protection of game or introduced game – that’s words that we have included and struck out wildlife in the state provided that the Department prior to authorizing expenditures or expending funds from the Wildlife Revolving Fund may use those funds to maximize the State’s participation to secure federal funds or the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid with Wildlife Restoration Act as amended provided such funds use – such use of matching funds is appropriate to 183D-21 to preserve, protect and promote public hunting. You know, that’s something that is debatable whether that should be in there or not that last section. But the fact that the Department has taken the position that they do not want to do any sort of game enhancement or 5