2019 01-29 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2019 it’s hit a point where all the work has been done – it’s just hitting political stonewalls along the way so trying to get that done and in the general sense of the term that would be for lack of a better word some progress toward game management so to speak. There’s been some current events with the 16-Mile Rifle Range – I just got an email forward about some dumping again that is happened – I know a lot of outstanding citizens have taken charge in picking up the trash but it continues and I believe they’re looking for information as to who did that – it’s a bunch of garden trash and lawn trash and stuff like that. As far as the other islands – there’s some – one of the bigger things was that the hunter survey came out from 2018 – they published the results and I guess the results kind of – the top five things hunters wanted was access/acquisition, more hunting days, more hunting land, increased bag limits, stuff like that. I don’t know how the county commission feels about those things but that was a survey that hunters took and that was the results. I didn’t see the raw data so I don’t know, you know, DLNR writes these things it is what it is but that was that. I don’t know if you guys want to know about the other islands what’s going on but, oh, and then bills in the legislature – so I didn’t attend the last GMAC but I was aware that they had created some letters of support for the bills that this county had also submitted. I’m unsure of what they voted but they typically all agree with each other so, yeah, if the letters are good for it than I’m sure they were all in support, but that’s about all I got for the State GMAC – I know Nani’s question was about fire and stuff like that... NP: Thanks, Ryan, Nani here…There was some sort of a rumor maybe, maybe it is, but I wanted to ask you, if you had heard anything from U.S.G.S. suggesting that hunting/hunters should be prohibited or for a period time because hunters, in fact, may increase fire hazards. RK: That came in the context of the Puuwaawaa Habitat Conservation Plan so just to – I don’t know how well people understand HCP but I’ll use and example – take a windmill, for an example, everybody knows a windmill is otherwise legal to make in Hawaii – it produces clean energy – yada, yada, yada, but it sometimes chops up and kills endangered sea birds or endangered wildlife – which is otherwise against the law – so how do you do something that is otherwise legal yet it sometimes has illegal consequences. So one of the ways around that is a habitat conservation plan – so take that analogy and put it to sheep – with the sheep in Puuwaawaa there’s endangered species across Puuwaawaa – endangered plants and they incidentally happen to eat some of these endangered plants – well, how do you keep sheep for public hunting, which is one of the Hawaii Revised Statutes – 183D – one of the State laws to promote, protect, and preserve hunting – how do you do that but, yet, still keep these animals around that might incidentally eat an endangered plant, again, habitat conservation plan was proposed, um, somewhere around 2002 or 2003 or something like that – federal monies were allocated to do it and it progressed along the way a lot of 10