2018-09-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – September 24, 2018 SB: Well, there’s a host of other trees that the native birds feed off olapa, pilo, and many other species of plants that the birds forage on and many birds are insect eaters so they’re not nectavours specifically. Some of them eat the fruite and some of them feed on the nectar and some of them are insect eaters – they eat it all – so there’s a – it’s a mixture. Your forest type has a lot of different species in it that can support native bird life. GB: This is George. So you – going back to what you mentioned about the beetles – is there – if there’s such a like prevalent vector for the disease has there been any effort to mitigate them or do you not focus on such efforts? SB: There is a lot of work going on in the understanding the life history of the beetles. Like I mentioned there are both native and non-natives. So if we work on trying to find something to control one it’s very difficult for it to not control the others so we have to be careful about non-target impacts. We are looking at some insecticides that might be possibly used instead of falling the tree – especially if you can’t fall the tree – if you’re in a tight tree canopy you’re not gonna cut the tree down because it’s gonna damage a whole bunch of other stuff on the way down. So are there insecticides that we can use? But the concern then is like I said over non-target impacts. You’re gonna kill everything but we don’t want to do that so we are trying to understand the beetle a little better than to understand the beetle and how it gets into the tree, what the timing is, how long do they stay, how long are the spores of the fungus viable – all those kinds of questions are now being worked on and trying to find answers to by the research committee that is involved. I’m glad you have the brochure, I have more... GH: This is Grayson. I had one more question. You mentioned the insects and the beetles – are there any interactions between ohia death and larger game animals or other animals in the forest? SB: We haven’t – that’s a difficult one to quantify – we do know that there are – we do see signs of bark stripping by animals on some ohia in some areas – particularly in drier areas on the Island. That opens up a wound and that’s a possible vector for ohia or the fungus to get in theohia trees. Nothing direct yet but we know that animals can have that kind of impact on trees. TN: This is Theresa – Kona. Have you folks tested what will kill the fungus that’s affecting the ohia tree? SB: There is no fungicide currently available to kill the fungus and the other problem, if you will, is once the tree shows symptoms it’s pau so it’s a difficult thing to combat once you see the signs. They are testing fungicides that you can inject trees with – they are doing some studies where they are injecting trees with fungicide – giving it am onth and then actually inoculating those trees with the fungus to see whether or not the fungicide works k- so that’s yet 17