2018-11-13 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – November 13, 2018 NP: I guess part of the problem is the tall grass, right? KS: If you want to base your hunting based on the tall grass than it’s gonna be a bad year cause the grass is very, very tall – yes. But if you base it on numbers of birds – I mean dogs are gonna get bust up cause they got to work much harder in the tall grass – you know, the hunters are gonna get bust up. I agree with that – I don’t know how much we can remedy that, I’m going to – you know, we’re trying, but as far as the number of birds I don’t think it’s gonna be that bad of year personally. I can come back at the end of bird season, I guess, and let you guys know how it went. NP: As biologist do you think the tall grass affects the bird populations? KS: I think it does. I haven’t read anything that says it does but I don’t know if anybody’s done that kind of research, but, yeah, because when we – so we did surveys – you guys saw the – I mean some of you probably saw the press release that the division put out – most of the birds that we flushed were in the shorter grass so, yeah, I think it does but I cannot, haven’t done surveys... NP: Do you think their populations gravitate toward private ranch land because it’s grazed? KS: Like I said – based on just discussions with friends that hunt Parker Ranch their numbers have been lower than normal in the last couple of years as well – I know they’re not the only ranch that borders State land or that has hunting but they’re the largest and they’re the only ones that I talk to people that hunt there so – and it’s hard though – like I said they release birds so they probably should have higher numbers but even releasing birds their hunting hasn’t been as good as they were hoping... TL: Even released birds – doesn’t the habitat have to be acceptable for them as well. KS: From what I’ve been told just talking to people who do release birds – generally, released birds don’t make it to the next year – it’s basically a put and take. Right – you’re putting birds out there for you to shoot that year – whether the habitat was good or not – it’s just what I’ve been told. WK: Hi. My name is Wallace Kauhakone. Me and my partner over there we bird hunt every weekend so far and the mountain is overgrown. We not could walk cause things are so thick, yeah, and it’s difficult to walk. We look on the paper, you know, just look through he papers after we came out, you know, after the weekend and stuff like that and one turkey brah. One turkey the whole day. Before had plenty turkey up there – we don’t see nothing already, 18