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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-01-29 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawaii Minutes Meeting Date: Monday, January 29, 2018 Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Hawaii County Building – Council Chambers I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL: Meeting was called to order at 6:32p.m. by Chairperson Tom Lodge. Willie-Joe Camara, District 1 – here, Dwight - District 2 – here James O’Keefe - District 3 – here Naniloa Poglen, District 4 - here Thomas H. Lodge, District 5 - here District 6 - vacant Bronsten-Glen “Kalei” Kossow, District 7 - here Teresa Nakama, District 8 – here District 9 - vacant Quorum established ALSO PRESENT: Malia Hall, Corporation Counsel Donna Urban-Higuchi, Executive Assistant to Mayor Kim II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – deffered to later in the meeting. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS-None IV. COMMUNICATIONS FINANCIAL BUDGET-Report was submitted LEGISLATIVE – COMMITTEE REPORTS PRESENTATION Robert J. Farrell, DOCARE Administrator, and Robert Masuda, Deputy Chair Board of Land and Natural Resources, to update the Commission on efforts to reassign traditionally used shooting areas at 16-mile marker on Saddle Road (Daniel K. Inouye) and areas of the Manuka Natural Area Reserve (NAR), South Kona, to more compatible public use. 1 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 RF: Thank you members of the GMAC for inviting me and allowing me to give you an update on what we talked about almost a year ago in terms of the things that we can do to help shooters and hunters on the Big Island to comply with our laws. My name is Robert Farrell, I’m the DOCARE Chief, I’ve been in there just a little over a year now and previously to that I did spend a little time on the Big Island working and as part of my duties - I patrolled and went up to mile marker 16 in particular and encountered and talking with the other officers we discussed what we’re going up there to enforce. We talked about the hunting rules and the shooting rules and how those were the shooters at these areas. Primarily target practice were being held to hunting rules – so in most cases that’s probably not a bad idea – a hunting license is a good thing to have if you’re gonna go out shooting – wearing orange – I don’t have much of a problem with that but then we got to the caliber issue and so I was told that the officers were writing tickets for people discharging a 22 and actually seizing the firearm, so I didn’t agree with that approach. As a retired game warden from California working my way through the ranks from warden to assistant chief of the California Department of Fish and Game – I had enough experience to call BS on that and so I thought to myself, that’s probably not a good ticket to write but why are we writing it? So we went through the rules, the regulations – talked about it a little bit more – and we found out there was really no legal place for these folks to go who wanted to shoot. Now that I’m the chief I think I can make some headway in that. We’ve identified a couple of areas that are good candidates for a public shooting range – we looked at some of the authorities and it appears to me that DLNR – has the authority – the board has the authority to designate certain areas as public shooting ranges and a couple of the areas are probably well known to a lot of folks here – mile marker 16 in Manuka. So I’ve abbreviated our presentation tonight to only include mile marker 16 and I did that for a particular reason in that Manuka may encompass part of a NARS which may or may not affect how we are able to move forward with that particular site and in addition - I need to do a little bit more research on the land ownership and how it got into DLNR’s possession – who it came from. We’re looking at working with the Land Division to understand how that came to us and what the exact boundaries are so we can identify it better. It may be that we have to delay that site a little bit until we complete that research but I’m hoping we can also designate that site as well as it’s already being used and one of the side benefits of both of these sites being designated as public shooting ranges will be to allow for some good clean up to occur and so both Manuka and mile marker 16 have suffered over the years in terms of people dropping off targets and things and not cleaning up their shells and that sort of thing. I will go through a very brief presentation and talk a little bit about these two sites – in particular mile marker 16 and where our authority comes from – how we can do this in the process that we’re gonna hopefully move forward with in designating at least one, if not both of these sites, as public shooting ranges. You guys ready? 2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 RF: There’s a couple of slides - I’ll work through that really quick and then we’ll have some questions at the end. The authority where it resides is in the HRS. The Department has the ability to construct, operate, and maintain public outdoor and indoor target ranges. That’s in the HRS so that’s grounded in State law. In regard to what the program is – it’s specifically the Hunter Safety Program. So this would be very closely tied with Hunter Safety and one of the main motivations and the main reason that we are able to do this is to support the Hunter Safety Program. And then so within the HARs under definitions – when it talks about a public shooting range it means an area designated by the board – and that would be the Board of Land and Natural Resources – as a location where activities related to target, archery and firearm shooting may be conducted. So, again, the Board has the authority to designate a public shooting range. Once that range has been designated by the Board – physically – then there are certain rules that are already in place that apply. So that’s another good thing – we don’t have to develop a bunch of rules, we already have the authority within the HRS and we already have some HARs that apply and so, as part of that, the Department has the authority to negotiate and enter into agreements, concessions, or leases with an individual, private business, concessionaire and non-profit entity or other public or private organization to manage and operate public shooting ranges as may be authorized under Hawaii HRS – which is the one that we talked about earlier. So basically what this is talking about is our ability to enter into an agreement to have a gun club – almost anybody come to us with proposal – go before the board and look at agreements on how we might be able to develop and/or manage the operation of this public shooting range. Now this doesn’t have to occur – the Department can do management on its own, but we also have this ability which is really important if we want to engage with other entities to try and help us manage the range. It also allows us – the Department or its designated representative – may set criteria for the use of the public shooting range so in terms of setting hours or safety zones or other types of rules that may be needed at the range outside of the rules we’re gonna talk about – a little bit about later – the Department has the ability to enact those as well. This talks a little bit about some of the rules and this is in that same section that are already in place so you can see C is the one that we’re concerned about where it gives us an exception to the caliber but it also talks about some activities that are prohibited so if we designate it as a public shooting range – hunting would no longer be allowed in that specific area which kind of makes sense because you can see that you don’t want hunting to be occurring at the target range as well – that would create some enforcement issues and other things – no camping – possession of alcohol – all standard good things that you don’t want to have happening at a range – so here’s a quick diagram of what mile marker 16 and the site looks like – so the small square that you see at the bottom of the screen is the actual range area – so I wasn’t able to load the video up because it didn’t go over email but we have a good video that kinda shows what the range looks like but in 3 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 general this would be the area that we’re talking about designating. The small square is the actual shooting area so that’s a hundred yard range and I know some folks would like a bigger range but for now I think 100 yards is a good compromise and it gives you a good place to site in your weapons and practice. And then that larger area is our safety zone. So we just took a mile basically behind the area – and if you’ve shot up there you know that there’s structure already there that would prevent a lot of the overshot of bullets but we still allowed a mile back behind the range in the direction of fire. And then here’s just the numbers – the actual numbers we’d be using this to designate the packet should the board decide to designate the area we’re gonna need to obviously have good markers and latitude and longitude for the particular area. That’s basically it – that was the mile marker 16 one. The Manuka one is very similar and then we had a little video kind of overshot of the particular area and the thing that is unfortunate when we can’t see the video is that you’ll see DOFAW has been cleaning up some of the mile marker 16 area and it looks really good. So that would be maintained, of course. Manuka doesn’t get that same treatment right now and you can see there’s a stark difference in the two ranges if you go to both of them in the amount of debris and junk so our hope is that all that would go away and that range would be properly maintained. People would be \[not clear – sounds like policing their brass, you know, removing targets and no longer using it as a dumping ground for old refrigerators and TVs and whatever other makeshift targets folks like to shoot at. TN: Teresa from Kona. We can’t see any map of Manuka area. Are you posting it? RF: No. We took that down because the area that we had initially designated and in consulting with the Attorney General’s Office and internally, some of the area may be not able to be converted as readily as Mile Marker 16. So I deleted that particular portion of the presentation because I want to make sure that we’re able to do what we need to do within that area so the reason you’re not seeing Manuka is because it’s not being presented right now. WJC: This is Willie-Joe. Will there be a staff to oversee the area? Or will the people run it how it is now where you just go and do your own thing. RF: That’s a great question and it is part of the kind of progression of where we want to go. Right now, we want to designate the area as the area – so worst case scenario we put up a couple signs with some operating hours – we put up some trash cans up there – maybe a lua or two and we’ll try and work it that way. Up until such time as we identify where we want to go – what the proper management – if it gets developed into a range with, shooting stations and a range master – a sign-in and sign-out – those are all things that can happen there but for now we want to try and designate the area so that we’re not coming up against this enforcement of the hunting rules... 4 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: When this designation goes into effect – that becomes like a seven day a week sort-of-a-thing rather than just weekends only? RF: Again, that’s something we need to talk about as well because currently when we’re in discussions right now this is a forest reserve and particular watershed and so really it’s only open for permit access only and if you really follow the hunting rules it would only be weekends and holidays. I believe those are all things that we’re working to mitigate so people can use it seven days a week. I would think operational hours would be kinda similar to what the hunting rules are in terms of daylight and sunset because later on if we have further development, of course, night range activity could occur but for now we’d be looking at some simple rule-making to try and keep it open and with hours of operation and so for enforcement wise – those are the rules that we would be starting to enforce so rather than, you know, we’re, you’re shooting the wrong caliber weapon now, you’re shooting after hours or something like that. JO: This is James O’Keefe...Is there a formal process for clubs to apply for an operation agreement with the DLNR? Do you have something you’ve done in other capacities – say with ocean recreation that would give the clubs a blueprint of how to proceed with the DLNR once those decisions are made? RF: Again the first step is to try and designate the area and so we’ve got the HAR – and the rules say that we can enter into those agreements – it’s really silent on what the form of those agreements are but I could look to my colleagues – Dave Smith is here from DOFAW and look at areas or state parks that we have existing concessions or outside management to offer some guidance once we get to that step. JO: That would be very helpful, thank you... DY: So this is Ike. Do you have a timetable? RF: Well, I would like to get this on our Board agenda in probably the second meeting in February. That would be my hope. DY: And, so, I don’t know if it’s appropriate at this point but what kind of facility do you see up there? BM: Bob Masuda, First Deputy at DLNR. I just wanted to come up and respond to the earlier question in terms of how we would arrange a particular curatorship agreement. In fact, several years ago – Richard Hoeflinger and myself, acting as private citizens – went on behalf of On Target, Inc. which is a certified 501 c 3 and spoke to the Board and had a approval from the Board on the 5 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 Puuanahulu project until it was delayed – to have a curatorship agreement – what that is, is where the Board of Land and Natural Resources can grant a 501 c 3 non-profit organization kind of the permission or the authorization ton behalf of the Department to conduct and manage and organize the activity of that particular thing. For example, like at a unused state park for a child care center or something like that – this would be for a shooting range so there is a precedent of the Board having approved such an agreement with On Target for the Puuanahulu thing when it is developed so that’s kind of what we would look for and have in mind with any other things like the Mile Marker 16. Sorry to interrupt. JO: No, that sounds like a good road map for the clubs to pursue. BM: Thank you. RF: And so to go back to your question of what do we envision up there? It’s really up to folks that have more experience – physically, you can look at the location and say you’re not gonna put 100 shooting stations in there – but certainly maybe 10-15 shooting stations – a little bit of cover – a little comfort stations for folks – certainly some trash cans to police the area... DY: So you’re saying you’re looking at a private – I hate to use this term but a private-public partnership? RF: That’s one option... DY: And what’s another option? Or could it be totally public? BM: Sure. That’s another option but I think we need to keep in mind our intention here is this is a work in progress – progressively set-up thing for development – it’s not gonna open as a full-on first class shooting range because that’s not possible at this point – but shooting has been going on – there are complications when certain caliber weapons that are not authorized for hunting are used and we get all kinds of issues – we don’t want to put our enforcement officers in a position of having to police something that we feel may not be necessarily reasonable but this is a hunting area – this activity has been going on so how our best shot at this point in consultation with people like Tom and others was why don’t we go ahead and see if we can get something started on this island that resembles a safe, public shooting range and so the Department felt like we’d want to support an effort to have something started rather than delay everything again. And that’s our intention. Now if that intention is ill-advised on your part – feel free to let us know and we can back off and dump this too. Thank you. TL: When you talk about calibers – when we went to the governor four years ago when he first got elected –we asked him about mile marker 16 and one of the 6 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 things that we had asked about were to remove both the caliber and propellant restrictions. So if somebody wanted to take an air gun up there, for example, they could do that – would that be a possibility with this as well? RF: I think within the rule making, we could certainly look at that, again, we’re trying to use this for its intended purpose which is 1) a target range and 2) to support legal hunting activity, right, and include better marksmanship for cleaner kills, more ethical hunting – all that kind of stuff – so that’s really our focus and so if you had a authorized method of take that was legal for hunting, you know, then I think that would probably be a better fit so regardless of the caliber issue that we’re talking about. BM: I believe Mr. Lodge that is a work-in-progress and in consultation with the local hunting community and shooting community – I think we want to collaborate in coming up with the guidelines and the rules, for example, we think having everyone who has – using their hunter education little permit thing or their licensing as a way of utilizing this place – might be a good way to encourage people to get involved in a more public safety kind of a process, you know, rather than just as is and so it’s our attempt as feeble as it may seem at this point to move the ball forward and working in conjunction with the local hunting and shooting community come up collaboratively with a way of allowing people to go up and site in and do things legally, rather than have to have people do thins illegally and so I will leave the rest up to the Chief so that we can catch our plane and not get me going. WJC: Bob I wouldn’t say that it’s a feeble attempt because it’s more of an attempt than we’ve ever had so I thank you guys for that – I understand what you’re saying and I don’t think anybody disagrees here – we have probably more bigger ideas for the whole thing and that’s why we’re asking but it’s – personally I appreciate the work and, I mean, it’s great, cause we’ve asked in the past about Mile Marker 16 about Manuka and we never could really get any answer.... BM: You have a DOCARE Chief and a First Deputy and a Chair who supports hunting – supports providing legal ways in which we can address our hunter and shooter needs. I would like to add one thing. The Manuka property because it’s in a NARS and as bad as the place looks now our NARS staff took out more than 20 vehicles out of there and started the clean-up so although it looks like whatever right now – it’s a lot better than it used to be. The other thing I want to leave you with – just because we’re putting attention on getting Mile Marker 16 – which I think the Chief had a great idea – let’s get something done – doesn’t mean that the Puuanahulu site has been abandoned. Our administration is committed to moving forward with that project at the appropriate place and at the appropriate time. We would appreciate all of you who support hunting and shooting activities to come out 7 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 and support the effort over there at the right time. But right now, that’s gonna take a lot longer than this Mile Marker 16. WJC: That’s great. BM: It’s better to have something rather than nothing... DY: Chief Farrell – to answer my question – because I’m a goal oriented guy – what’s your timeline like? What are your activities that you want to do and in what timeframe? RF: We’re gathering support so that when the Board hears it hopefully in February we will have support from organizations like yours and members of the public who want to see this happen. That’s my goal. So toward the end of February I hope to put it on the agenda and put it in front of the Board of Land and Natural Resources. TL: OK. On that note, how is it that we would go before the Board? RF: You can testify – once the item comes up on the agenda you can testify both in writing and coming to the actual Board meeting and testifying verbally on that agenda item. TL: How much time – the agendas are out like two weeks ahead of time? RF: Yes. And they’re posted online and I’d be more than happy to send the link to you, Tom, and for dissemination to everyone that would be interested. We’re working actively – like I said – with all the folks that have an interest in doing this to try and get that support because that’s important, I mean, you know, this is something that we need to demonstrate that the community is in support of. DW: My name is Don Watson I’m here on behalf of On Target, Inc. Glennon Gingo could not be here as chairman and designated me to come in and just state that we would support the location that Mr. Farrell has pointed out and hopefully we’ll get Manuka too, but we’ll wait and see, we also have experience – we’ve gone to classes on range development and we would be glad to give whatever input we can and support this issue the best we can so that we can have a safe range for the public. TL: Thank you. Anyone else with any questions for the Chief or Mr. Masuda? No? OK. We’ll be in contact with you, Chief, and we do definitely support this issue \[unclear\] for you and we might be able to get our Mayor actually to write a letter as well on this issue. We’ll talk about that tonight. 8 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 RF: Thank you, Tom, and just to say I’m still actively working on the Manuka issues. I want to make sure that both sides have some access and that’ll help a little bit but we want to get something on the map – we want to have a place for people to go and that was the other frustration of mine when I contact folks is like, eh, you can’t shoot here – well where can I go? Well, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here – kinda like last call at the bar, so I want to have now the officers can say, “You can go to Mile Marker 16 and it’s legal to shoot there.” And support our Hunter-Safety Program so thank you very much. TL: I appreciate your involvement here actually and your history behind it so, again, I thank you very much for sharing this with us. NP: Thank you... TL: We have Mr. Hoeflinger – maybe some of you may know also of On Target and you’ve heard earlier this evening. \[technical break\]... MH: Tom, do you want to just approve the minutes real quick while they’re doing that? TL: We will do so... Mr. Dwayne Yoshina moved for approval of the November 28, 2017 meeting. Seconded by Willie-Joe Camara and carried unanimously by voice vote. Richard Hoeflinger, recent past President of On Target, Inc., to speak on Palila, the Federal Court and Game Management RH: Like many of you – I spend a fair amount of time on the mountain and have been doing it for the last 25 years and I was curious as to what the situation was with palila and so I was fortunate to be able to come into possession of all of the State reports to the federal government, which are done basically semi-annually. I don’t recommend to anybody going through those 73. If you have insomnia it might, it might help put you to sleep. A lot of repetition and it’s very difficult to go through them because the format’s changing – there’s no consistency in the way that the reports were put together over the years. So that’s how it came about and I’ll let you – we’ll look at what I found. Palila – you had the picture there – it’s a small bird about six inches – it has a yellow head and breast and the rest of it’s pretty much grey and black. It’s a Hawaiian Honey Creeper and it’s native to the Big Island. It was listed an endangered in 1967 and the habitat critical for its recovery was designated in 1977 and it’s basically all of Mauna Kea from 6,000 to 10,000 feet. In 1979 a number of environmental groups sued the State of Hawaii in federal court – they claimed that the State was not protecting palila. Palila feeds and nests on the mamane and the claim was that the feral sheep and goats were 9 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 destroying the mamane forest habitat. That’s a photo taken some time in the 1970s and it indicated the browse line on manane trees – it’s about 5 ½ feet high – it’s as high up as a sheep can reach. So in 1979 the court ordered the State to remove all feral sheep and goats from the mountain. There was an additional remedy sought in 1987 a claim by the environmental folks that the Mouflon and Mouflon Feral Hybrids also threatened the palila habitat. So in 1987 the court orders all feral Mouflon and hybrid animals removed and that the State restore the damaged habitat. Essentially, all Mauna Kea goats were removed by 1988. There was recent incursion some years ago and they were quickly removed. Between the ten years 1987-1997 four thousand sheep were removed from the mountain and between 1998 and 2016 an additional 18,000 were removed and that was through several methods: public hunting, staff contract and aerial shooting. This is a graph that basically shows the removal of – again the data were extracted from those reports. The top line is the total number of animals removed – the red line is the portion of those animals that were removed through public hunting. So from 1987-2015 a little over 22,000 animals had been taken off the mountain. So what’s happening with the palila? The current palila population is concentrated on the southwestern slope of Mauna Kea near the Puu Lau area – the Puu Lau cabin. The population estimates are all over the map – a high of over 6,000 in 1981 and a low of somewhere around 1,000 in 2015. If you plot all that and I’ll show it to you – you can see that the trend from 1980-2016 is one of continuous decline or up and down and up and down but the mean is – the palila is declining. So these are some of things that I personally concluded from the data that I looked at which is half of all the animals removed from Mauna Kea were taken by means of public hunting – which is good. Mamane regeneration appears to have been largely achieved – I don’t know what you see when you drive the mountain but there certainly mamane is all over including the young shoots so whatever the current sheep population is, it presents to evidence of damaging the habitat. And this photo was taken a week ago – that’s my wife – she’s about 5’ ½” so she’s about the same height that you saw the browse line on the previous photo of mamane. There are some incidental occurrences – there’s no more grazing animals or essentially no more grazing animals on the mountain so the brush has increased which has the great potential fire – maybe a catastrophic fire – which would probably take the rest of the palila with it. This rampant vegetation growth has diminished productive habitat for bird hunting. I’m a bird hunter and I can’t hunt in areas that were formerly open for that. In spite of all the effort and costs the palila population continues to decline. Those remaining palilas are millionaires – each one – when you start adding up the cost of fencing the entire mountain all of the effort in eradication – if you drive up towards the cabin you see that new dip tank that was put it – I’m sure that was primarily for fire suppression on behalf of palila – it’s in the palila habitat. And the other things that – trapping that goes on – if you divide all that money by the number of palila I’m sure each one of those birds is a millionaire many times over. So what should be done? Here’s what I think should be done: 1) for the 10 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 State to quantify a recovery of the Mauna Kea forest habitat, 2) establish a maximum sheep population limit at or about the current level in order to prevent future habitat degradation – we don’t want to go back to where we came from, 3) prepare an argument to show existing sheep populations present no threat to and can co-exist with palila, and 4) the big one – return to federal court to seek amendment to existing \[unclear\] which would permit a managed sheep population at or below the established habitat support level. And then, hopefully, develop a scientifically-based game management plan and then actively promote and manage an enhanced public hunting program which employs recreational and subsistence hunting as the primary means of controlling game animal populations. Any questions? TN: Teresa from Kona. Does the palila bird have other enemies besides the feral animals like the wild cat population, the mongoose or any other predators? RH: Yeah, I’m sure they do. I don’t know the extent. I looked at some data a few years ago on the effects of mongoose predation on birds, primarily ground nesting birds and there were two studies done in Hawaii – I don’t remember the years exactly – some time ago – one study concluded the mongoose diet consisted maybe of 5% birds and the other one was like 8% birds. Mongoose primarily prefers insects: cockroaches are a specialty. So I don’t think birds are high on the mongoose diet – I’m sure their – they take any opportunity to eat whatever they can get but I don’t think that’s significant but I’m not an expert. You’d have to ask somebody that knows more about it. TN: What about the feral cats? RH: I really don’t know. I believe most likely feral cats are a bigger predator on birds than the mongoose. Probably that information would be available from Dr. Banko he spent a lot of time on palila and maybe he could give you some numbers of what he thinks – I know – I was up on the mountain a couple of times and I saw people with radio collars on cats so – he’s probably got some data – I don’t know. TN: The reason why I ask is I’ve watched wild cats in my home race up a tree to catch a bird so... For the feral cats to climb a tree it’s no problem for them so I was wondering if you have feral cats as one of the problems that has added as a \[unclear\] detriment to the palila birds. TL: I think there’s a lot of hazards to the palila actually. Not just animals, I mean, there’s disease, there’s wasps, there’s all sorts of things that are out there. RH: I had a conversation with Dr. Banko fairly recently and he was very interested in the observation that I made on game birds – I could tell you absolutely that game birds are eating fireweed. I’ve opened crops – last season particularly and they’re definitely consuming it – now whether that’s responsible for what’s 11 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 going on I don’t know but he was fairly interested in that. The other thing – I brought to his attention was fire ants. In 1928 I believe it was in \[unclear\] Leopold’s book, which Tom has a copy of sitting up there – it’s a book on game management – he found that the quail population in Georgia took a 12% down turn and he attributed that to fire ants. The ants get in the nests and as soon as the egg’s pip they go down inside the shell and take out the young ones. Dr. Banko did not expect that the ants had gotten that high an altitude – but he did know. TL: Are there any other questions from anybody out there? DY: All of these conclusions that you’ve come to and the proposed action – they’re developed from those 70 some odd reports that you read and is your report available to us? RH: I could get them to you... Would you like all 73? DY: If you could send it to Tom... TL: I have it. Will make you a copy. DY: And that’s good. I would like to make a proposal that we just send the findings to the Council and the Mayor and advise them that we join Mr. Hoeflinger and his proposal – that’s my suggestion... TL: That’s a motion? The motion is we take Hoeflinger’s proposal to the Mayor and to the County Council as an action item for us? DY: And maybe even the DLNR... TL: And the DLNR, right... OK. All good? All in favor? \[The ayes have it\] Anybody in Kona? J: Since we’re talking about studies – there was a study done by, I think it was Griffin...about thirty years ago. \[Unclear as WJC spoke over him\] and his conclusion was that 80% of most stomachs that they analyzed on the sheep was noxious weeds. That there were trace elements of mamane in some and up to 20% in others, but that’s a study that was made a long time ago. WJC: Thank you. 12 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: On that note – we have a study also from Kona, which actually tracks with what you’re saying and when it comes to native plants that they found in the rumen studies of these things, I think the highest one was maybe 20% but they averaged around 8 or 9 for the most part. GH: I’m Grayson Hashida. I had a question for Mr. Hoefflinger – in your study – did you see any – back in the 80s and 90s – was there any kind of studies or actual scientific studies that showed causation between the palila bird decrease and the sheep or the feral animals? RH: I’m terribly sorry but I’m getting just about stone deaf – I didn’t catch your question. GH: Back in the 80s and 90s when the court determined that the palila bird decrease was due to the feral animals – was there any research or actual studies or scientific studies that backed that up, as far as that being the cause? RH: I don’t know. I really can’t answer your question. I don’t know what the basis for the court – I know the results of the court action – I know why they did what they did but I don’t know what kind of data was presented to the courts in the original federal court case. GH: Thank you. TL: We have a couple of DLNR / DOFAW type people that might be able to answer that question? MH: Tom, I have a quick question. Do you know the name of the case? WJC: Palila vs. the State of Hawaii... RH: Ah, you want the actual court case? MH: Yeah, like who the parties were? RH: Yeah, I can get it for you... MH: OK. Thank you. I figure we could just take a look at it – I can see if... Yes, thank you. JO: Ah, James, one of the attorneys of record in that case was John Carrol who represented the hunting community during that case before Judge King. JO: It was the Sportsman’s Alliance here... 13 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 NP: So, Richard, I just wanted to point out something that you brought up – is underbrush from the lack of browsers/grazers makes bird hunting really a problem? RH: That’s another topic. The game bird hunting has been decreasing on this island for the last three years. I don’t know what cause that it – maybe fireweed... But the availability of game bird hunting area – that would need be an area that I can see my pointing dogs in – a pointing dog is no good if you can’t see it so and that kind of a land has been diminished due to the growth of brush for good or bad when there were sheep up there they kept the brush down. NP: \[Unclear\] Yeah. Thank you. TL: Any other comments, question from the public? Anything? If not, then we’re gonna move on to the third segment and that is that one of our agenda items for this year is a game management plan. Something that some of us had actually been working on for a number of years and... ORDER OF BUSINESS OLD BUSINESS 2010 Game Management Plan as reviewed by DLNR and returned to Hawai’i County GMAC TL: Since Mr. Hoeflinger is here tonight I may avail of him as well as we go through this here since he helped put this thing actually into print for us but a lot of you have heard about the Game Management Plan that we were having for the Big Island and not too many people have any idea of the background of how that Game Management Plan came to be. And that’s why we want to bring up tonight just a little bit – to give somebody a little bit of a history of how it got started and where it went because there’s been some comment about this Game Management Plan and I actually have a comment of my own, which we’ll get into, but, as Mr. Hoeflinger mentioned earlier all the loop holes – now this is a game management plant that everyone of the commissioners here has one of these manuals – just so that we can get an idea of what game management is actually supposed to be and there’s a lot of ways that you can identify game management but probably the most common in American, I mean, worldwide game management is pretty typical throughout the world and how they manage game – but we have the North American Management – no – wildlife management – and I’m not doing well tonight – this –but the – but all the loophole is a gentleman who is credited with starting the game management process and back in 2007 we had a meeting up in Waimea with Scott Fretz who was with DOFAW at the time and 14 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 several other DOFAW representatives that were up there and while I don’t know if Joy was with us at that meeting up in Waimea and we were talking about game management and how do we get a game management plan and we wanted to look into a game management plan for the Big Island, primarily, and the idea is to request a plan to manage your State game resources and, so, in 2008, it was agreed that we would get a working group together to start this and this was comprised of DLNR and Island hunters – we developed a leadership strategy and we designed the scope of the plan and it would be limited to his island, so, it would be fairly simple and – now as part of the working group – one of the criticisms that we have gotten on this plan is that it wasn’t a plan that DLNR could or wasn’t comfortable with – and there were some comments that were made about that and one of the things that I would like to acknowledge in the facts are exactly who some of these members were of this game management plan group and besides myself and Dick Hoeflinger there were and Johnson, who’s passed away, Tim Ohashi, John Polhemus – many of you know – Roku Kanakuni – many of you know – Alan Nakagawa – Jon Sabati, the West Hawai’i - Hawaii State Game Management representative – by the way, we have Ryan Kohatsu – the East Hawaii Game Management representative here with us this evening, as well, Hans Sin, who’s now in California – but there’s many others that participate in this – Ron Walker, a retired wildlife biologist – dozens of people – many hunters that many of you may know – Shane DeMattos, another DOFAW guy from Maui – Mark Fox from – Bruce Faulkner from Maui – Mark Fox from TNC – Nature Conservancy – John Giffin, used to be – just numbers of these people and so we had not only hunters – we also had DLNR as a part of this working group putting together this plan and that’s how this plan came to be and in 2008 this basic outline was established – we developed it through individual sections – we went bird by bird – habitat by habitat – an area of the Island – and we held 12 review meetings to discuss what we had gone over and in April 2010 we had completed a 175 page plan, which is basically a five-year-plan for the management of Hawaii game animals and this was submitted to the DLNR. Now, once we submitted that plan – it sat there and it sat there for 7 years and, so, in 2015, we got this plan back from DLNR and what they did was – and I’m not a educator or an academic – but if I compare two documents I like to compare the original document with the document that’s been corrected or modified and that’s what we expected from DLNR when they sent this back to us – what we got was a hodge podge of a lot of new stuff that they put in there – a lot of it had to do with – they made a lot of changes – and we couldn’t keep track of it – I’m gonna have Dick come up here – my thought processes are – but maybe I could invite you back up here for a minute – no? You’re not coming? OK, he’s not coming. Um... But they made extensive modifications to this plan and rather than putting them in the order that we had them in – what they did was – they plastered them all over that documents and one of the problems that we had with that was that you could not compare the plan – you could not see what they did, how did it relate, what were the changes that they had done to that plan as to what we had 15 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 originally – and those of you who have not read that plan – the original plan – you should. There’s a lot of history that every hunter in Hawaii should be aware of in that plan and I do thank Richard for some of the stuff that he dug out and there’s a lot of people that helped him that deserve a lot of credit for this, as well, but, they didn’t make any notation where changes were – they just gave it back to us – they essentially – a good word would be “butchered” and it’s incoherent and unreadable. You cannot look at that document and say this is a game management plan – it just does not exist in that document and, so, as a consequence, those of us that were involved in the original plan – myself as part of that and I’m sure Mr. Hoeflinger and others that have – do not want to put their name to that plan that the DLNR came up with – it’s an embarrassment – it really is – and, so, what we would like them to do and some of the things about it is a lot of politically correct stuff in there has no business being in a game management plan. We don’t need – we have enough – a lot of it is endangered species stuff that they tied into that plan, you know, we have the Hunter-Ed program \[unclear\] except endangered species, we have reams and reams and reams of publications that all talk about endangered species – nothing is talking about game management and we don’t need all this other propaganda in a game management plan – we need somebody to look at the management process – what do we have – what do we need and where do it and that is lacking in this plan that came from DLNR and some of the stuff that we want to have done requires DLNR to actually make an effort in determining what’s out there, you know, how much game do we have; where is the game; if there’s plant there what do we do with area in between the plant and so there’s a lot of problems with this thing and so, for myself, I believe, that we’re sending it back to them as is and we would suggest that because this plan is – this revised document is not the one prepared and submitted by the Game Management Plan Working Group – should not be referred to as such. And there’s another thing and Dave Smith was here earlier – did he leave? TN: This Game Management Plan that we’re sending back that you stated – is it a revised copy that you folks have been involved with or who has been involved with? TL: The revised copy is not a game management plan. What we would like DLNR to do is to sit down with us and go through this page by page. We would like them to sit down and say, OK, the first three pages are three areas of interest in the game management plan – we have this problem, we have this problem, we have this problem, we need to fix these... We would like to have a collaboration with DLNR. If they’re looking at it and wanting to revise it – we would like to have them revise it with us so that we know what they’re doing and do it in a concise manner is what we would like to have. That did not happen... 16 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TN: Have we requested a meeting with them? TL: No, we have not – not on that issue, yet, we’re discussing it. TN: Are you looking for a motion? TL: Possibly... Not just yet. But, although, if you would like to bring a motion forward I’d be happy to entertain it. TN: I’d like to move that they Game Management Commission Board meets with DLNR at some future date designated when it’s the proper time that they can confirm and date with us that this goes forward. WJC: I’ll second that. TL: Essentially, what we would like to do is ask DLNR to sit down and collaborate with us section by section with that Game Management Plan and to work with it based upon the realities that here rather than some esoteric... I’m in favor of that. Anybody in favor? All in favor? So the motion is that we’re gonna go back to DLNR and ask them to collaborate with us section by section with that and if there are problems with an area that we work ‘em out together with DLNR and then bring the plan back and submit it to the public for review. All in favor? It was moved by Teresa Nakama and seconded by Willie-Joe Camara and carried unanimously by voice vote. TN: Tom? Teresa in Kona. Can you say you amended my motion to read as you stated? TL: I’m not totally – I’m not sure what I said. TN: No but it’s already in the recorder so you just say, you hereby amend Teresa’s motion. TL: OK. I amend Teresa’s request to – we have a guest here at the table. TN: OK. I second. DS: I’m also a Dave Smith – not the other two Dave Smith’s that also exist – a quick question. It took 7 years from them to return it hodge podge with air quotes – I’m 37 now – is it gonna be another 7 years before we get it back or is my daughter gonna be in high school – or are we gonna set parameters on a time frame for review, I mean, we can ask for a request to review this but if 17 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 we don’t set parameters like we’d like a response within this certain date it can sit in perpetuity, you know, for another 7 years. TL: You’re exactly right and in fact some stuff has been sitting here since 2002, that’s still not resolved over on the Kona side for a habitat conservation plan, for example... TL: This happened with DLNR and I agree with you, I think that when we do go back them we’ll ask them, say, look, we’d like to have a timetable – let’s do this is six months or a year and whatever it might be and I agree, thank you for that. DS: Because the only analogy I can do is if we’re doing a doc inspection on some lettuce – if they don’t want to talk about it – the lettuce is just going to sit there and eventually, the lettuce goes bad and well, the problem is solved, but in this case it’s not really solving the problem, it’s ignoring it, so... TL: That’s exactly right and thank you, Dave... TN: The amended motion you made to amend my motion needs to have a vote on it. TL: All in favor? WJC: Aye. \[The ayes have it\] TL: We’re OK now? TN: Yes, you are. Thank you. Tom, we have a question from the audience. TL: Yes, ma’am. GH: Hi, Grayson Hashida again. Quick question, Tom, is DLNR legally bound to come to the table to have a discussion with us regarding this plan? TL: I don’t know that they’re legally bound but they have been willing to work with us on this so, the DLNR people that we have been working with have been very forthcoming. This plan part – once it got submitted to them – I can’t tell you what happened there but DLNR – those in DLNR that we have been working with – have been working with us and in a timely manner. But the Honolulu is not who we’re working with primarily and this is where the disconnect is, which I think that you can see here – Hawaii Island community and what goes on here on the Big Island is not the same that goes on in Kauai or Molokai and Oahu in particular. And I’m not sure that people on Oahu understand what goes on out here, I mean, I could be wrong, but I don’t even know if that answers your question. Did I answer your question? 18 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 GH: Yes, it kinda does. It does seem like it could be another repeat of the last 7 years if we’re not clear about who the people are and their motivations to come to the table to create this product and I think clarifying that might be time well spent. TL: I think you’re exactly right, now, we have Ryan Kohatsu here from the State Game Commission – this is an ally that we have now that can help keep this thing on tract, in my opinion, they can keep the pressure on DLNR and they are working directly with DLNR and DLNR is gonna be down here March 15, if I understand correctly, that’s for sure, right? And they’re gonna have a meeting in the State building here in conference rooms A, B, and C. I’m not sure what time you guys start? Ten? TL: Fifteenth. And this is with the State Game Commission and I think it’s a good opportunity for some of these things to be brought up to the State Game Commission and we can work with Ryan in the process so we don’t take over that meeting with all of our things, but, there are a couple of items that we’ve had here that do belong, I think, in the State Game Commission. TN: Is this something that State Game Management can work with us collectively? Is that what we’re asking them to do? TL: We advise the State Game Commission on some of the issues that we have and they have their own agenda, they seek their own things that they are – and I’m not sure where their agenda is moving at the moment. They just got started – they’re, you know, trying to get their feet wet in this thing, but we are working with them, absolutely. TN: Could we possibly send them a letter requesting their support on this Game Management Plan and make it official? TL: Yeah, we can actually do that. TN: So I move that the Hawaii County Game Management write a letter in asking the support of the State Game Management on our game management proposal. TL: OK. The motion is for us to write a letter to - and actually we can deliver that letter to Ryan – to the State Game Commission in working to finalize the Big Island Game Management Plan – is that correct: TN: Yes. JO: I’ll second that. 19 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: OK. All in favor? WJC: Aye. \[The ayes have it\] NEW BUSINESS Election of Officers for 2018 TL: We are having an election of officers this evening, which I was made aware of after I saw the agenda. WJC: Is that something that needs to be done today? MH: Well, it’s supposed to be done annually I don’t know when the last time you guys did it was? WJC: I guess my, my concern is maybe let’s defer and hope that we have some new commissioners hopefully gonna come in, in the next month that maybe they would be better, you know, being that Ike and myself are kinda out it might be fair for them, why don’t you defer it till March. MH: I think we can do that, I would advise that you wouldn’t want a new member chairing, though. If you want them to be able to vote then that’s fine... But usually when new members come in they go with whatever the existing members put in place, but, I mean, if you guys feel that strongly about it and you guys want to wait till March... MH: We can, you guys can defer that to next meeting. WJC: I wouldn’t expect anybody just coming in to want to be thrown into that pot. MH: Yeah, I guess, if there’s a motion from a member that is actually going to – is still on the commission after March now, then... TL: OK. So there’s a motion on the floor, is there? MH: No, there’s no motion, but it should come from someone’s who’s not expiring in March. NP: I’d like to make a motion to defer elections until March. TN: This is Teresa, I second. TL: OK. Moved and seconded. \[The ayes have it\] Any opposed? 20 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: We will hold our elections in March. MH: Yes, you won’t be surprised this time when it ends up on your agenda. TL: OK. Rats. OK. So we had another question on – Donna? You wanted the meetings on Monday, is that, because Willie-Joe is no longer going to be here so you don’t care? DUH: Well, initially, I thought the meetings were on Mondays and so we really just need to be consistent about the night or the day – Monday or Tuesday. TL: Well, the reason why we’re doing it tonight on a Monday is the fact that we were going to accommodate Bob Masuda and Chief Farrell in that they couldn’t be here tomorrow and, um, my personal opinion is that if I can accommodate one of our commissioners that’s what I want to do and Willie- Joe in the past has not had an opportunity to be here Monday without great inconvenience to his family and so this why we’ve been doing it on Tuesday night and I agree with that – I don’t know – but anybody want to... JO: I have a teaching commitment coming up Mondays – it goes from early March through the end of May. So Tuesdays is the only one I’d be available so. TL: OK. So, you know, Donna, we love you, right, but it looks like it may, we may be sticking with Tuesday for a while. TN: So, Tom, Teresa in Kona – are we confirming Tuesday, then, to be our meeting date? TL: Well, it’s easy to get a consensus here is Tuesday being a better day for everybody. TN: Thank you. ANNOUNCEMENTS Next Game Management Advisory Committee meeting will be held February 27, 2018 TN: Could we have one of our meetings bringing up hunters’ issues that hunters themselves come into our meetings? I haven’t heard any hunters bringing up any issues that they may have and want to speak about. That one of our meetings be dedicated to the hunters... TL: Well, all of our meetings are dedicated to hunters, actually. 21 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TN: Well, no, have them speak at our meetings – have them bring up their issues and address to us their concerns. We’ve heard concerns that we ourselves have heard from hunters but I have not heard a hunter come to our meeting and bringing up their concerns and that is part – that we could put on our minutes and it would be on record. TL: Ah, yeah, anybody wants to come and talk to us, they are welcome. TN: Right, but I want it recorded in our minutes that the hunters have this available time to speak to us directly and it be recorded in our minutes that we heard the issues directly from the hunters. WJC: So, you’re wanting new issues? Is that what you’re saying, Teresa? TN: Yes. Because, you know, times change and things change out there... WJC: Right. TN: I’m wondering if hunters are facing issues that we don’t know about. WJC: OK, so I guess, we just need to put that on a agenda, I guess, to have – I want to say “open mic” but anyway and open floor for the public to bring up any new issues – local, you know, personal issues that we can address. KB: This is Kalei in Kona. Is it any different than the public statements that’s in the agenda that we usually have? MH: Yes, it’s, um, this is Malia. It’s different as the agenda items are, I mean, the public statements are supposed to be on agenda items and any – I just lost the – presentations – that’s the word I was looking for. But, I think what I’m hearing is more kind of like Willie-Joe said – kind of an open forum to maybe adding in an agenda item that needs maybe like five to ten minutes for open forum on any issues that you would like to see – future agenda items, I guess, we could possibly put it under, um, anything that, you know, they would – hunters would like to see a presentation or a problem that they see arising maybe we could head off at the pass – that sort of things, um, so, it’s like the same but different. TN: And also, Teresa in Kona – also we need to put a notice out to the hunters that they’ll have this opportunity to speak their minds and bring up other issues that they’re facing with currently, you know, outside of our meetings. MH: Yeah, that’ll be listed. When the agenda gets posted it will be explained in one of the agenda items. 22 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TN: Thank you. TL: I have one issue and that is testimony of the group now – you might want to defer this until March – we’re gonna wait till our elections in March – but I wanted to reaffirm the ability of the legislative committee to have autonomy – so to speak on issues that we testify on primarily and, now, we voted on this in November, I believe, right? MH: I don’t know the exact date – I’d have to look at the minutes. TL: I think it’s in November, but, I’d like to reaffirm that tonight and what I’m asking for is a motion that the Legislative Committee, which – now, Kalei, I don’t know if you were going to be a member of that committee, but I also understand that you’re thinking that you might be moving... BK: I haven’t made a decision yet, I’m sorry, Tom. TL: So then are you planning then on coming into the Legislative Committee as we talked about? BK: I would like to hold off for now. TL: OK. DY: Excuse me, Tom, but this is something that we discussed about three times now...and, you know, we’ve agreed that sub-committees basically have the autonomy to act... So, how come? Why do we need it again? TL: OK, we’re good then, Malia, in your opinion with what we’ve done, right? MH: Yes. TL: So that if we give testimony – see one of the problems right now is that our testimony on any – and we have a bill, for example, right now, an apprentice hunting bill, which the Commission put together, submitted it, got it printed, it’s gonna be heard on Wednesday and I encourage all of you that are here to please go online and it’s Bill 1970 - Apprentice Hunting License. We need testimony on this Bill 1970. MH: Sorry, Tom, HB, yeah, HB 1970 and the website would be www.capitol.hawaii.gov. 23 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: And we’re looking for testimony and one of the things that we’re looking for is that when we do give testimony that we are getting some resistance from certain parties within the community here about who is testifying and we feel that whether or not the administration is going to support or give testimony on behalf of any of the bills that the Commission has put together or support but that anybody who gives testimony on behalf of the Commission can give that testimony on the Commission’s behalf to where it’s the Commission – the unanimous decision of the Commission carries the weight of that testimony and that’s just something I wanted to make clear that we’re doing and that this is something we can do? Is that correct, Malia? MH: OK. So, if I hear you right, you just wanted to reaffirm that whatever testimony is given by the Legislative Committee or members of this Commission is supported by all Commissioners on this Commission... TL: That and the fact that – see what we’ve been doing when we’ve been testifying – we’ve been testifying on behalf of GMAC and – but GMAC, in my opinion, is GMAC – that is these nine people that sit at the table and, you know, they represent the hunters and the people in their district – whether it’s hunting or shooting or whatever it is that you might take an interest in, ah, but that when we speak, we speak on behalf of the Commission and not necessarily the Administration. TN: Point of clarification – could we have a letter signed by everyone in support of this bill, instead of individual testimony? TL: No...Testimony – ten names - are you talking about submitting an individual letter? TN: We all can submit an individual letter or we can send a letter with all signatures of all nine, oh, well, however we have – seven, six... TL: One, six signatures on a piece of paper counts as one. TN: So are you requesting that each of us send a letter of support and did – by the way – in my mind I’m thinking did we ask the State GMAC to support this? TL: I don’t know that the gentleman that was here knows either. TN: Oh, so could you personally call them and ask if they support our bill? TL: On the Apprentice License? After that free for all, did they support it or not support it? WJC: We don’t know the conclusion 24 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: We may have an answer for you... WJC: Well, standby... JM: Joey Mello, East Hawaii Wildlife – I was present – the Commission did not have a quorum and only discussed – did not make any votes or recommendations at that time. TL: OK... All right, thank you. TN: Could you follow-up on that and follow-up with the State GMAC. And then if you’re requesting each of us to write a letter of support, I have no problem with it. TL: Actually, all you have to do is go online at that website that – and what I’ll do if you’re interested – in fact I will send one out to all of you so that your constituents – you can share that with them as well and I’ll get that to you hopefully tonight – tomorrow for sure but hopefully tonight I’ll.. TN: Thank you... TL: But you can – it takes 30 seconds to support online and it’s a very effective system that they have and you can write comments in there, as well, so they’ve approved the – \[unclear\] in my opinion – they’ve approved it quite a bit, so... Alright, yes? WJC: How does the public know about these bills that we’re presenting to the Legislature? There’s people out there who may have positive influence on these bills that we’re presenting... Correct? We’ve discussed this at every one of our meetings. We discuss this at every meetings – it’s been on the agenda. What are you really asking? You want me to personally call you and tell you, hey, this is what’s coming on? What has happened? We got a State Game Commission done – what else has happened? WJC: We’ve done resolutions... JO: Point of order here, we’re leaving Kona out of this discussion... We either need to... RS: I’m Richard Sakanashi, I’m a hunter. I’ve known Willie from way back too, OK, but I’ve been here at all this meeting, even tonight, you was talking about Mauna Kea, right, not one of the people talk about what the hunters going through. The grass is like this. We going hunting up there – bird hunting –half 25 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 the time we’re falling down because the grass is so terrible because got no sheeps – the old days when we get all the sheep the grass was so easy to walk. Not one of the – you guys – talk about that. Last weekend, when I was up there, you know how many hunters are up there on Saturday. Nine hunters checked in. Before the old days we used to get hundreds...People don’t go up cause the grass kills you before hunting – it’s not worth it. What is DLNR doing? Nothing. To me you guys \[unclear\] palila. The sheeps you can eat – palila we can’t eat – it’s just to look at. What’s more important? To me the sheep’s more important. And one of these days you know what’s gonna happen because all that grass is so tall these guys walking in it – somebody’s gonna shoot themselves – they gonna make mistake and who’s gonna be blamed – yelling - for not – the State, actually. That mountain is a mess. It’s not worth going hunting. It’s not fun anymore. So, no, it’s true. You guys supposed to be game management – not only the hunting but fishing too. Right. Even the fishing – this place is terrible – even the fishing – that’s why I go up to Alaska look, you know, we pay big money but at least we catch something, you know what I mean...And that’s what, I think, the board needs to know is what are you gonna do? TL: Right. These are action. Now, these are things we’re actually working on, but you bring up a very good point – how do we get our word out to the public. RS: I tell you, this is way back, OK, I came to one meeting and I told you folks – we went to Manuka, you know, at the – not Manuka – Osaka’s, yeah, and then we were fishing there – cause over there you pay to go in, right – and I told you folks that and the monk seal was right there in front of us stealing all day and I was against that... What you guys did nothing, but DLNR with their ten-year plan they had that in because when I went to DLNR at the office and they had that ten-year plan they came back in the book – you guys – on their record they had nothing that you guys reported that and I think that, that’s what you need to do – your communication is not 100%. So a lot of times I haven’t been coming already. I used to come to every meeting – you remember? TL: Yeah, the monk seal issues, ah, is another issue – I’ll be happy to talk to you about that later. 26 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 RS: Right. And then now they’re bringing all the monk seal in too because – but the monk seal is not from the islands. It’s up Northern Hawaiian Islands not on the main Hawaiian Islands. They’re bringing it in. So now it’s invading our properties. TL: The issue with the monk seal is a serious issue because not only do they bring the restrictions with them when they bring the monk seal here – those restrictions that come with the monk seal actually extend on land as well – they go up to 2,000 feet now – above the shoreline – they’re talking about cats \[unclear\] killed a monk seal so your cats are in danger. No, the monk seal issue is a huge issue... RS: And they gonna increase – they had 200 now they’re talking about bringing back I think 500. I’m against that. And I told them. TL: And so are we - I don’t know about the Commission in general but I feel definitely against the monk seal thing. RS: But, that’s where the board, you guys should go to DLNR and fight that issue – say, eh, people are against it. But nobody’s come up with that... That’s part of the board to go and let the people know – that’s through NOAA. TL: I agree with you there. The monk seal in particular. RS: See, the NOAA meeting I went to at the University – we had brought that up – they find the guy who took the mouflon to Maui and then brought the Axis Deer from Maui to here – that guy got charged. At that time, my other friend had given them the name of the guy who brought all the monk seal from Northern Hawaiian and dropped them. What about him? He’s not supposed to be doing that. It’s an invasive stuff. And what does NOAA do? Nothing because they Feds I don’t think so – I don’t care if they talking about extinction or whatever – but don’t make your own rules. They’re not doing what they’re supposed to. TL: Getting back to your original comment about how do we get the word out – that is something we’ve been wrestling with and what we do – we actually do a fair bit of stuff here and the problem is, though, we’re not doing a good job of letting you know what we’re doing... RS: That’s why nowadays you don’t see, you know, the early part, all the hunters... you know, and my friends. They all hunters. They haven’t been coming for years... 27 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 TL: And that is something....that I would like to try to rectify... RS: That’s where we need to get the hunters together and that’s what we’re here for... DY: I’d like to say something. We tried to get a website through the county very early on and we were told we cannot have it. So we’ve been trying to get the word back out to everybody, you know, it’s a major problem, but we don’t have the resources to go do this stuff, right, I mean, I’m a volunteer, I come to these meetings – you talk about the monk seal – I’ve been to the meetings – I’ve put in my two cents to the guys who write those reports and they told me there is no significant impact. Well, I’ve sat down with them and I’ve talked to them about the impacts – but they’re not, you know, they’re not dealing in logic. RS: Because they’re not involved – maybe they’re not fishermens. DY: They have their agenda going and, and I think what you have to do is you have to join with all your friends and neighbors and stand up because that’s the only way they’re gonna hear you and the problem is when we come and ask you to stand up, maybe you’ll come but who else? I’ve asked every meeting, OK, for a volunteer to serve from Council District 2. I have not gotten that phone call. My term of office is over, I’m done, I have more frustration than you have, OK? RS: That’s why, like I said, how many friends I got that I talk to. DY: If we don’t get the hunters to come out or the fishermen to come out and support whatever’s being done, we going lose it. RS: According to them – lot of ‘em says they don’t know what’s going on cause nobody lets them know what’s going on. WJC: Well, back to that, if there is a question, I mean, we’re not, we don’t have any meetings outside of these meetings here and these are public meetings – I’ve never been to a private meeting anywhere so if, if that is something that – no, but if that’s something that people are thinking is happening, I mean, you know, we need to make that clear. There is no private meetings outside of here happening with us. So whatever we are discussing is here... RS: \[Unclear\] the public or the hunters comments, you know, because none of you guys said that – even – \[unclear\] hunts, you know, they got good ideas... It’s like tonight, OK, we’re talking about DLNR shooting range, Mile Marker 16 – I know where that is, OK, and up Manuka – I seen the bullets in the rock 28 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 piles, you know, \[unclear\] I know where it is too, but the thing is that now DLNR and you guys should work together – even like up here – Mile Marker 16 – OK – make up the rule. WJC: That’s exactly, this is the first time we’ve heard about that was tonight. RS: If they want to \[unclear\] do shoot call DLNR, get a permit from them – tell them I want to go here, what time – when you go up there get a check in box – check in, put your name, they can check with the paper. What’s so hard about that? WJC: And that’s exactly what we’re doing... RS: Tell ‘em, who, what you’re gonna go up, give ‘em your license # of your car – tell ‘em what kind of weapons you’re gonna shoot – let them sign all in the paper and leave the papers up there. If they want, any time – they know what time you’re gonna be there cause they’re gonna give you a time schedule – OK, you can go Tuesday, 10:00-11:00a. If you wanna send a inspector you can. What’s so hard about that? TN: Is there a way for all those that are hunters that have signed up to be – for a hunting license that DLNR has a list of all licensed hunters that we could have access to those records...And fishermen? RS: We get our license to go hunt – so to go shoot up there you’re supposed to have your hunting license and lot of time, you know, to get your hunting license you need to go to a safety class... MH: Sorry. Let me just interject... RS: Old timers they let you waive – they waiver you because you had so many years of hunting already that, you know, but they can get all that information.....from DLNR to go up there – set up a time, eh, I want to go up there, I’m gonna shoot a 22 or I’m gonna shoot a 243 or whatever, you know... TN: Tom, is there a way to get this... TL: Teresa, to answer your question... MH: Teresa, to answer your questions, I’d have to look into it more – it’s probably considered personal information. We might be able to just circulate our own – I think maybe we should just have a sign-up sheet here – start an email chain – we can blast out 29 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 information – might be a good way to get some support but I can check on getting – requesting that information but it might... TN: Yeah, but shouldn’t it be public record? MH: Personal information is not public record. Usually we redact, like personal phone numbers and such like that. Email? I would have to check, but I don’t see a problem with us collecting it then people can give it to use willingly and then there wouldn’t be any issues. RS: Just like – when you hunting now – you go to the tracking station you put your name down and you put your license number – what time you checked in, what date and who you’re with – what time you check out – what kind of bird you shoot. It’s all there in the record. Same thing just to go shoot...get a permit. DY: I’m hearing the complaint that we’re not doing a good job of communicating... TL: I agree. DY: I think you guys gotta work on that – in all fairness – we tried to do that and we got kiboshed, right? We tried all different things... TL: On that note, Ike and I, actually toyed with the idea of – what did that thing – Na Leo – getting in Na Leo and learning how to video each one of our meetings like we did with when Kerri Marks was here. And she would put it on You Tube. Now, two of us, Ryan and myself both have Facebook accounts – that’s one way we can get information out to people, um, but you have to be on the computer and, you know, all that other kind of stuff – there’s a lot of people that just don’t do that. RS: Well, that’s the thing. Nowadays you get so much hackers inside the – even the computer just so I don’t like to fool around too much on the computer... TN: Do you folks have a sign-up sheet in Hilo? If you’d like, I’d be willing to offer my time to take all the emails off the sign-up sheets here in – from Kona and Hilo – and put together an email list. WJC: OK. TN: I’d be willing to do that. WJC: Can we do that? We can do that. That’s fine, Teresa. TN: Thank you. 30 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 NP: That would be great. TN: Yeah, if someone could email me the list of all the emails on the sign-up sheet from whenever GMAC started, I’d be willing to go back 10 years. WJC: OK. We have one more comment. TL: We have one other guest... DY: OK. But before we go on – I have a problem and we gotta make sure that whatever goes out represents what we decided – it cannot just go out, I’m sorry, you know, it’s just that – I have been in situations where things like that have happened and what went out isn’t what we decided and we got into trouble – so gotta be careful about what you send out. NP: Maybe just what’s on the agenda for the coming meeting? DY: And I’m not here for censorship or anything, but at the same time, you know, you don’t want to be misquoted. WJC: Oh, yes, definitely. WM: Hello, my name is Wesley Murakami and “Hi,Teresa in Kona.” TN: Hi, Wes, glad to have you here. WM: Yeah, I’m just gonna share some things that what-you-call, um, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of hunting concerns and, you know, a lot of you that sits on the panel actually hunt and know what’s really going on with Mauna Kea on our own island, but what I wanted to share is some of the things is – how do we get knowledge of what’s going on? So what I want to share with you folks is, basically, is what we have in Honolulu is friend that has passion and in my case what I’m talking about is fishing – so the passion that he has – he’s a retired \[unclear\] from Hawaiian Tel and he’s almost at every single meeting and always has something to say or input – we call him “Uncle Roy.” Well, Uncle Roy is one of those individuals out there that basically lets everybody that comes to the meeting and fill out the emails – lets them know what’s going on. That’s how I can figure out what’s going on in the House bills that’s introduced. Like he was asking for comments – during the comment period – yes, it’s very important to get the comments in, in your own words – it doesn’t have to be a certain way or any way. It’s just, yeah, I’m in support for this certain, certain bill or like the Apprentice bill that we have for hunters – or in the same case, for us, anything that we feel that is working against us on the shoreline – pelagic – like this year I was explaining to Willie and some other friends that a lot of the bills are concerned this year has to do with DLNR and also with Aquatics and fishing – a lot of our recreational fishing things are 31 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 being – just challenged – is a good way to put at it – and another way is basically keeping on tabs on House bills – is your House of Representatives – those are the people that basically put these bills – introduced these bills – if it’s a Senate bill an S bill – then you look at your senators and you even have to get out there or convince your friends to get out there when there’s meetings and speak up. Speaking mind whether you have two minutes, five minutes, or half an hour, yeah, you’re right, as the old timers said, we have ways of pulling strings and whatnot – but the individuals in those seats need to be sitting in the same direction that we want to paddle – not we paddle, three paddle, four and then they’re paddling ten backwards. That’s the most important, I think, when we looking at how we can reach out one of ‘em is among – for people in Hawaii everybody talks at the water container or when we drink water and they always sharing their opinions. Well, that’s the time to sit down – as retirees – like my dad folks – they go to Tex Drive Inn and then morning and afternoon to the office and tell them about certain bills and stuff and he’ll chatter among their table mates and from there the chatter goes out – old timers hunt just as much and I can feel their frustration as a younger individual going up with pointing dogs on the mountain and seeing the mountain – I want to say deteriorate but definitely put itself in more of a harm at this point because the unbalance, you know, and it’s vice a versa – we can sit here and pound you but remember it works federal, state, county. The county can introduce things to the state, the state needs to be on the same page or want to support the county, whereas, the county and the state has to support the federal or the federal just says no. It has a chain that communication is our number one to, what you call, be able to communicate and keep an open floor with an open mind. That’s all I wanted to share. Thank you. ADJOURNMENT Willie-Joe Camara move to adjourn the meeting at 8:31 p.m. Seconded by Teresa Nakama. Motion carried unanimously by voice vote. Respectfully submitted by: Donna Urban-Higuchi ATTEST: Thomas H. Lodge, Chairperson 32 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2018 33