2018-11-13 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 13, 2018 KS: This is something I probably could have answered better with a little bit more time... I apologize – by guy’s that in charge of the data called in sick and I was off- island today so I couldn’t go look for it myself. I don’t – the short answer is I don’t know why the population would seem low. This year based on the numbers from the beginning of hunting season – it seems like the population or at least the harvest rate is actually pretty good. On Mauna Kea on the first weekend we had – well, the first day Kilohana had 120 hunters signed in with 170 birds harvested. The second day was 48 hunters with 47 birds harvested. Puuhuluhulu was on the first day 47hunters with 51 birds harvested and the second day was 23 hunters with 17 birds harvested. I mean if you want exact numbers –when I ran it I think that was like up 1.4 birds for a hunter for the opening weekend and opening weekend is probably going to be the most success so I can’t say – so I wanted to look at the opening weekend, you know, the last three or four years and see how it compared. I do know the last three or so years for the whole season it’s been about .9 birds per hunter and so I don’t know if I can really compare opening weekend to the whole season but based on opening weekend numbers I would say that the population this year is much better than it’s been the last three years. My first year here is was a really good year – I think it was about a bird and half for the whole season per hunter trip. Short answer – like I said I don’t know. I also – some of the other questions you guys had in there were questions about animals – birds moving to grazing lands and stuff like that – just from discussions with friends that I know that are members of Parker Ranch hunting – the Parker Ranch Bird Hunting Club – the numbers of the past three years over there have been low as well. And they release birds on their lands and so I don’t have exact numbers on harvest rates for them – it’s not something they have to share with me but just anecdotally – it’s been low the last couple of years – kinda across the board – I don’t know why – this year’s based on the first two weekends it seems like it’s gonna be a pretty good year. TL: I have a graph table that goes back to the 80s that if you haven’t seen it I’d be happy to share with you. I think it came from Shaya actually. KS: Yeah, I’m sure I have it. So, I don’t know, I also think that this year the bird population is probably is much better than the last couple of years but I can’t say yet until the end of the season. NP: That’s the first I heard that. Does anyone know anything about that? KS: So, talking to hunters personally half of the hunters say it’s gonna be an awesome year and half of the hunters say it’s gonna be a bad year – so I don’t know. 17