2019 01-29 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 29, 2019 efforts and translocation, you know, study – but they don’t have any plans to deal with the grass except for probably fire breaks which are like a four-lane highway dead zones of heavy herbicidal dousing, so that seems to be the solution... DF: Basically one-lane road with grasses overhanging a lot of the road bed. NP: This was at Puuwaawaa... DF: By the way, which you have in your hand is – I sent to all of the Big Island legislators, OK, senators and representatives. I did hear back from one – and that was David Tarnas – but David – I talked to David before about this issue – so he’s aware of it and he said he did talk to DLNR about it and proposed a solution that I proposed which is to stop eradicating them and focus on the restoration areas for their restoration, um, you know, he didn’t get a – he didn’t tell me that they responded in any way but at least he’s on board – but he’s a new guy – I don’t know how much influence he really has but, yeah, the fire breaks can work, I guess, if, you know, they’re wide enough and maintained but if a fire is throwing embers a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards into dried grass that’s like tinder I don’t know how effective they’re gonna be because... NP: If it’s as windy as it has been lately... DF: If you think about it – what I’m seeing is on the west side of the mountain. I don’t know what the other conditions are but that’s where the palila live, you know, a big fire on the west side of the mountain is gonna take them all out, so... SM: Stanley – District 1 – they gonna tell you that we cannot do anything because it’s a federal mandate by the court so they just gonna follow what – that’s what they tell us all the time. DF: My plan is to focus on the life and death issue and submit an article to the Honolulu Star Advertiser. I’ve had luck in getting them to publish articles before and the reason for doing that is to get the Governor’s attention on it – because I think it’s gonna take the Governor saying, hey, you know, it’s too risky and we’re wasting money because I don’t think – and they gotta go to court and I can’t see that it won’t be over-turned. I know that twenty years ago the hunters tried to argue that eradicating the sheep would create this problem, well, and you guys lost and the problem’s here today, so... I think if you go to court and say – you ordered us to do this – it’s not working – and we’re creating a public safety problem – that it might change – but it would take the Governor telling the Attorney General to do that. 5