2018-09-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – September 24, 2018 BS: Sure... TL: J.B. Friday... BS: Um-hum. TL: ....was here. He had mentioned that this Rapid Ohia Virus had been here for 40 years... BS: Four, did you say? TL: Forty... BS: Forty? Well, it’s – there’s a lot we still don’t know. What we do know is that these two species are here now. The lesser of the two – or the lesser of the two – Huli Ohia – there is some among the pathology community – there is some thinking that that one may have been here for some time now and we’re only seeing it now because we’re looking for it and it’s really being diagnosed and identified as a fungus that’s causing the death in ohia. There’s a lot of things that cause ohia to die including sinesis – old age... TL: \[Not speaking in mic\] for a power line is one way... BS: Well, there’s that and thank you for mentioning that cause that’s kinda where I’m gonna go. So there are these two fungi that are here and B – the former B – Huli Ohia could well have been here for a very long time and that’s what’s on Kauai. They’ve not found Luku Ohia on Kauai in that small area where they’ve detected it it’s been the Huli Ohia that they found there. One of the ways that we know that ohia does get infected by the fungus is through wounding in the trees – so tree trimming - and it could be a variety of things – that for instance bull dozer work – roadside clearing – we’ve seen examples where ranchers have felt the need to improve their pasture so they’ll have a bull dozer come in push the guava around to get rid of the guava to open up pasture land but it wounds ohia trees along the way and six to eight months later all of a sudden the trees are dying – lots of them and you go around and you see wounding so and it’s a lot of different things that can happen but very strong evidence that wounding is a major cause of trees becoming affected and it could also be the wind. I mean, it’s a lot of different reasons why ohia may be wounded. We also know that the spores that cause the fungus to be moved can be air borne and so you can imagine in a big wind storm spores are being carried and trees are being wounded – broken branches – that sort of things and so that’s a way that it can spread. What also happens is after a tree’s infected – ambrosia beetles – which we have both native and non-native ambrosia beetleshere in the Islands – they will go into a tree and begin to attack it – they know it’s wounded because a tree – 9