2019 02-12 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

Home

Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – February 12, 2019 sheep or whatever they’ve got in there that they want to look for grubs and worms. It’s beneficial for them in that the pies get broken off into many pieces and fertilizes the ground – the grass grows faster and better and they want the birds there so damage control Kapapala for birds non-existent. Gordon Krantz, when he was alive told me – that the more birds he saw the more he liked it because that means his cows are gonna grow better and we think back Nature 101 this is where they’re coming from. Commercial Aquarium Fishing BKK: So next up – I’m gonna give it over to Teresa to introduce the next speaker. TN: This is Teresa. Our next speaker is over on the Kona side – Eric Koch is with the Aquarium Collectors and he’s gonna give us an update on their EIS study that is ordered by the Supreme Court. EK: My name is Eric Koch – I’m a commercial fisherman and an aquarium fisherman and a farmer. I reside in Naalehu down by South Point and I came here, I guess, so I could speak about the EIS but I also wanted to give you guys a brief review just kind of on the background and the history of the aquarium fishery particularly in West Hawaii – the West Hawaii Fishery Management Area. The fisheries been actually going on in the State – at the State level for – since the mid-Fifties and it was primarily on Oahu at the time and then thorough out the Fifties the Sixties and, I believe, most of the Seventies about 1980 – I guess it was – it started to spread to the outer- islands and it’s remained relatively a small fishery throughout the time – reason being is that it’s not really a giant industry so it’s kind of – people come and go through it over time – but there’s actually in the – 1979 is when management started DLNR/DAR started to put regulations and rules toward the fishery and there’s actually been three substantial rules packages that have been passed – the most important one being Act 306 – that was done in 1999 and implemented in 2000, I believe it was and what that actually did is it set up a – what’s known as the West Hawaii Fishery Management Area, which is from Ka Lae, South Point up to Upolu Point – the northern tip of the West Side of the Big Island – there’s a Coast Guard station – that’s Upolu Point up there – geographically speaking the whole management area is 145 miles long and in this management area there’s eleven separate “No Take’ areas that have been established – whether they’re Fish Replenishment Areas known by the acronym FRA; Fish Management Areas – which is known as FMA; or MLCD, which is a Marine Life Conservation District. FMAs and FRAs are aquarium specific – they only apply to aquarium fishermen and there’s nine of those, I believe, and then there’s two MLCDs up along the coastline – Marine Life Conservation District – and that applies to any sort of marine resource extraction – any type of fishing – it doesn’t matter what it is it’s kapu. When you total up all these fishery management areas – the FMAs, 22