2018-09-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – September 24, 2018 TL: Anybody else? Anybody have any other – anybody from the public have any questions for Abraham? Got you $20.00 to join? OK. All right, I do appreciate. And remember – he is gonna be out District 5 representative I’m confident. OK. Mr. Stormont? Tell us a little bit about who you are when you come up here, I mean, some of us have known you for years, but there may be some in here that don’t and some of them may not have an idea of who you are... BS: Aloha. Mr. Chair and Members of the Commmission – thanks for having me this evening. My name is Bill Stormont – I’m forester with the State Division of Forrestry and Wildlife. I currently serve as our agency’s coordinator for our response to Rapid Ohia Death so I’m focusing on that. I was with DLNR between 1986 and 2001 in other capacities. Left in 2001 for some other opportunities and returned last July. So I’m returning to DLNR. Hilo boy born and raised here – classmatmes with this one over here – from elementary school all the way thorugh high school – as a matter of fact and spent over 30 years in natural resource management work here on the Island. Here tonight to share with the Commission – with a request, actually, to provide an update on Rapid Ohia Death as it’s occurring here on our Island and in the recent discovery of it on Kauai as well, but a very brief update on that and then a request with some information I’d like to share. As we know, in the summer around 2012 Rapid Ohia Death arrived here on Hawaii Island in the area of Puna has since spread throughout much of Island. Rapid Ohia Death – and I see you have a brochure – terrific – I have more, too, for you. The outreach folks are doing a great job. Rapid Ohia Death is caused by a fungus and we know a lot more about that – two fungi, actually, that have – are causing this problem with our native ohia trees. The genus is serratacistis – for a scientific name – they’re recently named the two new species that cause this Rapid Ohia Death – Serratiscistius Loku Ohia – the more aggressive of the two – that was formerly called species A – in our meetings I put a hat on the table and if anybody uses an A or B they have to put a dollar in the hat – we’re going with the new names – the other species is the former species BU – which is called Seratacisitic Huli Ohia. And Luku in Hawaiian means to destroy or destroyer – the Wailuku River is apply named and Huli Ohia we know - we all know what huli huli chicken is – it’s turning over – so it turns ohia. So Luku ohia has a tendency to be far more aggressive in the tree – causes it to wilt – it constricts that vascular tissue in the tree and it just starves it of water – and the tree dies very quickly, which is hwere the name comes from. Huli Ohia on the other hand can kill and entire tree – it will – but it has a tendency to form cankers in the tree – so it could do a branch at a time, for instance and not infect the whole tree – whereas Luku Ohia will do the whole thing. With Luku Ohia – once you see the symptoms the tree is done and there’s nothing that we know of yet that can be done to remedy the problem... TL: Can I interrupt you... 8