2018-01-29 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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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