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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-10-27 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes iI Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting ` Minutes —October 27, 2014 i i Game Management Advisory Commission ,l County of Hawaii Minutes, Meeting Date: October 27, 2014 Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Hawaii County Building - Council Chambers & Videoconference to West Hawaii Civic Center CALL TO ORDER: Quorum established. ROLL CALL: Per B. Kossow: Willie-Joe Camara, District 1 Dwayne "Ike" Yoshina, District 2 Anthony "Tony" Sylvester, District 3 Paul Bueltmann, District 4 —Absent Thomas H. Lodge, District 5 Kenneth "Kalani" DeCoito, District 6 —Absent District 7 - Vacant Mark C. Bartell — District 8 District 9 —Vacant Quorum established ALSO PRESENT: Craig Masuda, Corporation Counsel Barbara Kossow, Administrative Specialist B. Command, Deputy Planning Director, Absent GUESTS: Lisa Hadway, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Administrator Ryan Kohatsu, Mechanical Engineer, DLNR Volunteer APPROVAL OF MINUTES: September 15, 2014 Action: D. Yoshina moved to accept the minutes as circulated; seconded by T. Sylvester, and carried unanimously by voice vote. PUBLIC TESTIMONY ON AGENDA ITEMS.- Lloyd TEMS:Lloyd Case: It was brought to my attention that the military has been eradicating the sheep on lease land. And it was done in a way that nobody knew anything about. I thought that they were supposed to have public hearings 1 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 and some kind of notification of what was going on. After all, this land, especially the ones that are eradicating the sheep — are considering the lease back to the military. Especially the impact area, I want that to be cleaned up and rules for hunting in the future and there is a lot of archaeological sites on that place. So I don't think that the military has the right to just shoot all these animals that was given to the King, Kamehameha III and the people in Hawaii and hunters and so forth and so that's why I'm here. I wanted to know who gave the authority - if our senators or congressmen that knew about his and if not then we should have it brought to their attention because this wrong. This is not what Hawaii is about. A lot of People forget that this Hawaii, this is not America where we have different ways of doing things and especially in this unique life and culture as well. That's what I wanted to say and... Chair Lodge: I can't speak to that since the Colonel is not here. But we did have a meeting with him today and from what I understand, he was very much against this eradication. This is mostly Fish and Wildlife Service due to [unclear] option that was issued. So I'm not sure that he had much opportunity to do anything about it. But that's basically all I can tell you about it, since he's not here tonight. He was scheduled to be at our last meeting but— Tony, will to talk more about this too as we go on this evening. L. Case: Ok. Chair Lodge: Thank you. Kona? M. Bartell: Yes, we have Teresa Nakama here. T. Nakama: Aloha everyone. The question I have is —where in the membership that it represents Hawaiian Cultural gathering rights of Hawaiian cultural history that one can bring to the present, I mean who on board sits with this type of knowledge? GMAC... Chair Lodge: Is that a question? T. Nakama: It's a question for the board to answer. GMAC is supposed to be representing... Chair Lodge: OK. This isn't a question and answer period. T. Nakama: No, no, no. It's something for you folks to consider because this is what GMAC was initially brought about. It's about our gathering rights, our hunters, our fishermen. This is not a western thinking island. We're Hawaii 2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Island. The board seems to forget we're Hawaii Island. We're made up of members who people who live here for generations. I don't see their knowledge bring forth in any of the decision that comes to the table. T. Sylvester: I can answer that Teresa. We have 2 positions open that we can't fill. Anybody is welcome to apply to those positions. T. Nakama: I've applied to the position and I haven't gotten... T. Sylvester: We can't force people to come in here and join a commission. T. Nakama: I've applied for the position. T. Sylvester.. ....anybody can join, any race, any nationality, any cause, whatever — as long as you get vetted by the mayor and the county council, so... I mean you can't hold us over here accountable to if I'm not a Hawaiian or Ike is not Hawaiian or we don't understand cultural practices. I don't know how you expect us to answer that question. T. Nakama: Right. And so therefore we need to look for bodies that have this kind of knowledge and Tony I've applied for the position. T. Sylvester: See we can't look for people. That's against the law. T. Nakama: I understand what you're saying, but still, we need to be considerate of the fact we live in Hawaii and I've applied for the position, Tony. But I haven't received word that I can fulfill the obligation I'm here — a responsibility I feel that I should fulfill. Chair Lodge: Thank you. DISCUSSION: 1. Power-point presentation The Future of Mammal Hunting in Hawaii. The path we're on will end hunting as we know it. The need to do something different by Ryan Kohatsu. My name is Ryan Kohatsu, I'm a mechanical engineer, hunter-fisher, I like to go birding. I've done some planting myself. I do videos, I do photography. And I'm also a DLNR volunteer with the hunter education program. And also I just wanted to send out thanks to Lisa and Steve from DOFAW for showing up on their weekday night to come be with us as hunters here. And also give a little bit of recognition to our wildlife program folks. Sometimes they don't get the recognition they deserve, I believe, NARS everybody else at forest restoration gets all the media and all the TV. I know our wildlife program managers are the ones trapping catch — 3 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 trapping mongooses, wild dogs, which benefit all wildlife, native and non- native — so I just want to make sure they get some recognition as well — in wildlife conservation, it's not just the specialized groups. So my presentation today is on the future of hunting in Hawaii and particularly it will be focused on game mammals —the game birds aren't particularly being attacked in the idea of environmentalism, in a sense, so I'll be focusing there. Got a few pictures here of interest. I got a little girl — the future of our hunters are with the youth and also the future of our wildlife conservation and the lands that we are supposed to be taking care of is contingent upon people being involved in the outdoors, people that care about the land. It's not particularly the folks sitting in a condo who never get to come out here and see these things. The people most interested in protecting what we have are the ones out there. Another thing I have is — you see an iiwi bird there — it's one of my favorite birds in the native — native birds here in the forest with its nice red plumage and of course we have the hunted animals that we hunt. Got a feral sheep there from Puuwaawaa. And I just want to make an interesting note that you know a lot of folks will say that sheep don't eat fire weed — that's a little bit of short sighted thing because that sheep is munching on fireweed and she munches on fireweed for about half an hour. Selectively picking on fireweed, moving from fireweed to fireweed patch instead of eating the kikuyu that was right next to it. So just something I wanted to throw out there. Moving on —why am I here? Because the state public game mammal hunting in Hawaii will end. So that sheep you see in the picture? You're not going to have anymore public hunting of that anymore. It's kind of a bold statement but I'm gonna try and justify why that is. So game mammal hunting will end. Statewide we have about 900,000 acres of public hunting lands are available with over 700,000 acres on Hawaii alone. This is a statement given by our Chairperson William Aila on a testimony before the house committee on Water and Land. This is somewhat true; we do have a lot of lands that we hunt on. But I want to go into the details of why this isn't completely true and of course is our friend red iiwi there — all these are pictures I took myself so... You're gonna have to bare with my photography. So it's a map of the public hunting areas on this island of Hawaii. Most of you guys probably know all of these, you can see it's quite a lot of area, I mean 700,000 acres potentially. What I'm gonna do is you're gonna see how these lands are disappearing over time and why. So I'm going to overlay a few things. The first one is — let's talk about some of the places that are already fenced and are under eradication. So, of course, we have Mauna Kea —which is a big blue area on the map — I'll use the screen on the left of me here and an indicator with a pointer— so the blue area — or course we all know the palila habitat the eradication since 1979. And of course we also have in Pohakuloa which the 4 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 gentleman that testified before me talked about we have areas in PTA that are also fenced and eradicated as well. Be it for native plants, archaeological sites, whatever it is. And there's a couple other little fenced - in these little pink areas in Puuwaawaa that I know of that area also fenced and eradicated as well. Because we're such a big area and I only frequent these higher elevations —we also have a lot of other fences in Laupahoehoe, Puumakala, Kahalaleo, Kohala, Manuka and private lands which are actually quite sizeable. I don't exactly know where they are so for accuracy I didn't put them on the map. But it doesn't matter, cause I'll show you how they disappear anyway even without those. So let's add in the next section — the natural area reserve system or NARS. Now it's a common misconception that NARS is a public hunting area —yes, you can hunt in there now, but you're not going to be hunting there in the future. And I'm going to tell you why — the language of NARS is "in reserve the strategies to reduce population of non-native animals to the lowest possible that will be employed." Essentially, that's eradication. You got to get rid of them. They're non-native animals. Sustained use management of animals for hunting is contrary to the intent of the NARS system. So you're not going to have sustained [unclear] hunting in there. Where practicable regulated public hunting will be used to control these animals and at the bottom you can read the rest— other control methods — shoot in helicopter, fencing, whatever it is — is to reduce these non-native animal numbers. So I know it may upset a bunch of pig hunters or people that like to use the NARS system for hunting but they should know that NARS is not a sustained public hunting area. I'm always told, "Oh, NARS have the most liberal hunting and it's great." That's for a reason. It's not going to be that way in the future. So just to get that out there. The purple areas are the NARS areas. You can see actually I messed up — that's actually Puuwaawaa safety zone — so you don't count that but all these purple areas. And I believe the NARS system doesn't— may not require public hearing for fencing, If I'm not mistaken, so I believe Manuka is to be fenced —we got a lot of big areas to be fenced. So it's unfortunate for the hunters — but, you know, hey, that's the law and we were asleep when these things were written. Let's talk about the next thing. Forgot the — priority one into watersheds and probably every ones seen it on TV—the big rainfall is the forest launched by the Abercrombie administration. I think it's a great thing, I'm not bashing it— all I'm saying is it affects you as hunters. So in the green area — the darker green areas — you have the priority one watersheds — in the lower areas you have the priority 2 watersheds and essentially it's been deemed that your non-native mammals in these areas are detrimental to the watershed. No matter how many — they're detrimental. A pubic hunting system has not been part of the watershed program. Therefore a lot of these areas are scheduled to be fenced, eradicated, controlled —whatever you want to call it. Just know that hunting was not 5 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 included in the watershed plan. So you can see we're cutting down a lot of area. And some more area. Next we have the DHHL Aina Mauna plan which is — it's supposed to take up about 50,000 acres of the DHHL lands up on Mauna Kea. And one pointer is particularly in this area that I don't have marked — but in particular question is the Kipuka Ainahou area — the grey area we have there —which used to be leased by DOFAW— it's not technically leased right now—we haven't paid for it— but the Aina Mauna Plan particularly doesn't make any concessions for hunting. There's 50,000 something acres there — I believe they're making a little program where they — everyone recalls the sheep that you see on Saddle Road between those hills — those big herds. They'll be cut down — severely cut down — and then also pushed up higher on the mountain kept in about maybe 800 acres or so — and that will be your hunting program. And any unmanaged ungulates as stated in their environmental assessment—will be removed. So I don't know, maybe for some of the folks that area stakeholders or something like that— if you take at any one time what are you know the Hawaiians doing in DHHL lands right now? I'd say a lot of them are actually hunting in Kipuka Ainahou. The only place they can hunt. But apparently this Aina Mauna plan is supposed to put Hawaiians back on the land, it's supposed to benefit you by providing public-private partnerships with the Nature Conservancy, Hawaii Forest and Trail„ probably a lot of companies that are not run by beneficiaries — they're also going to reforest a lot of the areas and all these things — so I don't know— out of those 50,000 acres lot of Hawaiians like to gather and hunt and the best they could do in this plan was to give you roughly 800 acres to gather in and cut down this number of animals. So I don't know— maybe something you guys can question with your own commissioners on that. Next Puuwaawaa safety zone which is a green area there. We just had hunting in there so maybe you can take that out— but take these zones where you can't particularly hunt and now that we have, you have houses and development in there so not sure on the future of that. And then you, we have lava flows and poor habitats. So anyone knows that without good habitat you don't have wildlife. Food, water and cover, right? So these are mainly the big lava flows — the black areas — those are the main ones and you can see it takes up a significant portion of land. Of course there are others but those are the most definitive ones. So you can kind of see what we got left. You're basically talking about Puuanahulu, sections of Puuwaawaa, and the Kau Forest Reserve — those splotches here and there but some of these are landlocked and I'm not totally familiar with them so I'm gonna talk about these two. And just to make sure I'm not making this up —we have every year— five years or so —we have Pittman- Robinson plan that is put forward in which they define what we're gonna do with the federal dollars that is tax on all of your guys buying — buying rifles, ammunition and archery equipment. So we get federal funding to instate projects on our hunting lands and of course we have to make a 6 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 plan for these things. In this plan at that back of the plan they have resource management guidelines and they outline areas —we can't really read it—there's a lot of wording there — but essentially areas Al and A2 are for game production and mixed game and other uses. A3 and A4 you can pretty much deem as OK you're not going to keep any animals there. [Unclear] maybe its NARS areas, it's not for sustained yield hunting. So to confirm just what we said, Al and A2 being game productions —we're looking at Puuanahulu, Puuwaawaa, and then of course on the pink side you got portions of the Waiakea Forest Reserve, I believe, there, and Manuka — all this is gone, though, so that's not really accurate because it's a NARS area. So do we really have 700,000 acres to hunt right now? Yes we do right now. But it's not going to be there in the future. And this is the status that we are in. So basically I just covered that—what's left— those 3 areas and what is some of the hurdles just so you folks are not as involved in this thing —we have federal funding and under that federal funding you have Endangered Species Act Section 7 Consultation — you federal funding is your Pittman-Robinson dollars — your hunter dollars. Anytime we spend money that is federal money you have to go under this consultation or this review. Basically, it says you that you cannot use federal dollars to detriment of the effect any endangered species. This is the reason your watering stations are [unclear] across all your public hunting areas are fenced — because [unclear] water sheep and goats because it may proliferate them which eat endangered plants or something like that. So that's one of the hurdles in being that we take federal money to do these things — you can't do anything with it as far as it relates to our game mammals. We also have critical habitat designations that are coming. I don't know where they are — lot of talk of it. Maybe one day we can get a map showing where they are today. And then of course there's also the questions — does the DLNR manage out state lands or does the federal government do so. I don't mean it in a contentious fashion but we take a lot of federal dollars for our state lands and with the federal dollars come a lot of federal rules, which are restricting us. So every time we come as hunters we ask DOFAW, "Eh, what are we doing?" They always say it's the federal government—well we're taking federal dollars so it's kind of this catch 22 situation — very hard for you guys — very hard as hunters to move forward with our funding. So on this path — public hunting for game mammals in Hawaii will end and you know I didn't mention but we have Puuanahulu and Puuwaawaa which are the game production areas — you would think that we could do things with our game mammals there — and again I have to point back to the Endangered Species Act Section 7 Rules —which anytime we take federal dollars we can't do anything with it— so just keep that in mind. Anytime we federalize something pretty much our animals are toast. 7 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 1 want to talk a little bit about environmental conservation. You know as a bird watcher and photographer and a guy that likes native species as well, I didn't make it a statement in the beginning of this presentation but I want to now—we hear a lot from people that do one thing: they plant trees, they look at native birds; they work in an aviary restoring birds. We hear from hunters: you only hunt—that's all you do. What I'm trying to say is that I like to do everything. I like doing a lot of things and I try to look at it from a balanced approach to things — so I would hope in the future we could hear from people like that— people who are on both sides of the fence with it. So I do enjoy my native species — I do enjoy endangered species — I've come to learn to love them — so I'm gonna talk a little about environmental conservation — Hawaii is unique. We did evolve in isolation. Of course we have nearly 400 threatened and endangered species. And over half of our Hawaii forest has been lost in the last 200 years as the rainfall is the forest plan says and is the reason why we need to protect them. It captures Hawaii's unique environmental challenges and it preaches the intrinsic value nature not so much the thing that we can sell or catch or kill or eat. It's — they have a value just being there — they're a part of our environment and that's something we need to look at as well — and of course it brings up the idea of preservation versus conservation. Preservation meaning nature has an intrinsic value — you leave it alone, you don't touch it, you preserve it in a sense and conservation meaning the wise use of resources where I can take a few things but I also make sure that we put back in a sustainable way. So we do have slightly a battle between ideals here — in a sense where I believe endangered species are more of a preservation approach — and hunters in a sense —we're trying to look for this conservation type approach. But they do preach a lot of environmental conservation does preach that non-native, invasive, and injurious species — species that injure native or endangered plants and animals are all bad. And that's kind of a notion that I think we need to take into context because of course when the first Polynesians got here they couldn't survive solely on native species. They brought pig, they brought the rat, they brought the dog, they brought all the canoe plants, your ulu — your breadfruit— your taro. All of these things are non-native species as well and they're part of our resources as a people to survive. So I just want to make sure that they're not all bad and the narrative needs to somewhat be adjusted. All I'm gonna say — I'll make a little bold statement now— I enjoy all the environmental conservation — I think they do great work— but I see a problem — and this is just anecdotal from me — forest protection, restoration, endangered species is currently domestically and economically unsustainable. They're already seeing challenges with funding. We're having to route around ways — try to get more federal dollars for our stuff because it's very difficult—we have increasing fenced areas, increasing lands that we need to protect but no way to fund them. 8 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 So that's why I'm saying is unsustainable — one of my questions is our public resources on public lands held in the public trust— so I'll use an example —we'll talk about the Rainfall as the Forest. It's a big 50 million dollar a year plan over so many years. Have any of you guys had any input into this plan? I don't think so... If I read the plan at the back of it I believe it states they phoned 700 people on Oahu and over 70% said let's protect our watershed. Is that really a public process? Is that public resources being held in the public trust? This is a notion that happened way back in the day in North America when we're pillaging all our elk and deer and everything and they realized that it was a public—that these things and resources belonged to the people and they would be the most interested in protecting them — so a lot of these things are happening and I don't think you guys have — or the public here has a full say in it. Just something to think about. Fences - while they're great for keeping out the animals and protecting the forest, which I believe is, yes, in most cases, that issue and that is important— it also does something interesting — it removes the people and is removing people truly the answer? And I'm gonna talk about the myth. So there's this myth that wildlife and all these things we have today just occur by accident—they just are here. I tend to disagree. I believe our endangered species — our hunting — all these animals we have on the land today because of us — because of people. People that are willing to work hard to protect the funding, fencing, removing invasive plants, hunting in a sustainable way — managing our animals. These are things people do — they create legislation — they create rules. But what a fence does is it fences out people from land. You can't go in these fenced areas. You can't do anything anymore. They become preservation units. And while they are important— I'm not going to disagree that you know it's not something that we should completely eradicate — you need to have these pristine areas and I think that's important— is this something we need to do everywhere. It is continually limiting the amount of people that can enjoy our outdoor areas and that begs a question — that is the reason why funding is very difficult, I believe. People don't care so much for conservation — they're living in the cities —they're not connected to nature like hunters and fishermen and people out there are. Yes, you have the bird watchers, you have the people that observe wildlife, but as you limit these things you get less and less and obviously they become less or a priority. Society doesn't get to enjoy it or put a value on it— it will disappear or it will be neglected. Then, of course, environmental conservation — they do a lot things — I've seen a lot of fantastic projects — lot of good ones — but I've also seen some that don't work— and things that maybe they don't want to talk about - but you know I don't mean to take a stab at it. I think we need to talk about it as a public. Because these are our resources, these are our monies, our funds, so we need to ask the question. Is the mode we are in today—is it working? So it took a 9 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 little bit of [unclear], I took some scientific papers and I read a bunch of `em and particularly about the dry land forest areas — so this would be Puuwaawaa, Puuanahulu and it's very difficult to restore native ecosystems in these dry land forests because of invasive weeds and invasive grasses. I took a paper that was co-authored Lisa Hadway as well, so they know these things and basically at the end in their conclusions and observations it asks — is the goal of achieving a self- sustaining native dry forest independent of perpetual human intervention realistic or even important? Now there's a lot of science in these things but basically all it means is that these things are going to require a lot of work. A lot of people, a lot of time, a lot of funding and a largest population of people in these areas —just so happen to be hunters — in the ocean they happen to be fishermen — but if we need a lot help and a lot of work and people that care about these areas — it would seem not logical to get rid of the largest population of people there that care. And that's what we're having right now. So we'll continue on. I'm gonna take some examples of maybe why some of these things don't work. Like I said, maybe I could have showed you some good ones but I think the media on TV shows you all the good ones anyway. So let's talk about some of the other ones. The upper left picture of the Puuwaawaa Forest Bird Sanctuary — I think this was established in the 80s — a very long time ago. The forest bird sanctuary was originally there to restore habitat for the alala —the Hawaiian crow. If anyone's part of the current events today you' know that we're gonna be releasing a crow on the other side of Mauna Loa, actually, in the Kau Forest Reserve instead —where I think historically they don't have any records of them being there —we actually pulled the last few out of the wild in the South Kona area and Puuwaawaa. So ask the question — is the native habitat there since we fenced it 15, 20, 1 don't know— a very long time ago — has it been restored good enough to release our original intent of the alala there? And obviously not—we're not doing that— so that begs a question — is habitat restoration happening? And instead we're actually gonna release the bird on the other side of Mauna Loa in a place where there's a lot of pigs. I don't know maybe it will work— I'm not the scientist— it probably will work—who knows —but all I'm saying is what does that say about habitat restoration? Is it happening? And in the picture you got banana poka —we got a bunch of invasive grass, we got ivy —we got everything — I took this on a tour while I was there. I know, it's a lot of work to deal with these things. A couple other things —we have a lot of fountain grass — it's a big problem — a fire hazard and also noxious weed on the ground from suppressing all natural regeneration of any native plants. As you can see — if we fence — and don't take care of it— now this is just, you know, to keep the plant there so the cattle don't whack it— maybe you can grab a seed bank out of it— but if we fence the whole thing, we're gonna have a pretty good sea of fountain grass if you don't take care of it quick. And this is in Puuwaawaa —we have a grazing management plan to address these things but all I'm saying we can't 10 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 continue down this path all the time everywhere, which is potentially what we're facing in this area. I'll pick another one, we're still in Puuwaawaa — it require a lot of work— like I said —this is herbicides to suppress down the kikuyu grass so it doesn't choke out the native hibiscus up there. These are herbicides you can't just buy over the shelf - I mean I don't know— I'm not a herbicide specialist. But these herbicides we spray are in our watersheds — maybe it's something to ask— maybe it's not harmful, I don't know, I do know we find pesticides in our water wells already. But is this something — maybe this is the way we need to do it. But it's gonna require a lot of work. I took a bunch of other pictures there — this was an area that the cub scouts or someone volunteered to plant— obviously if you neglect planting you don't get any plants — they die. So we got a lot of, we got a lot of flags here with no plants in it— actually there's some got a really tiny — I don't know what it is — maybe a mamni inside of there — but they're being choked out requires a lot of work. That's my basis of argument there. And still talking about Puuwaawaa and maybe I'm just using example of how it relates to our hunting and stuff like that. We just had the administrative rules go through so maybe we'll have a hunting program back at Puuwaawaa — but right now you are currently— everybody that hunts there — you're currently hunting under a damage control program. It's not hunting — it's damage control. So we're viewed as people who control animals — not so much as hunters — it's also under the building of a habitat conservation plan, which is supposed to protect endangered species but also give us an incidental take license so we can keep our sheep there. These things were done — these funds were allocated a very long time ago, as far as I understand it— and we're still sitting here today without it. All of these other plans and fences and things have happened over this time — but the hunters have been neglected. The largest user base at Puuwaawaa as you can see just this last season we had 412 applicants and 401 in the season. Some of those are just user based there — people that care about the land are being neglected and this is in my view kind of unacceptable. Of course we just had the administrative rules I talked about— they would cite the appellate court ruling as a reason why we can't charge for tags, we can't change our rules. That's partially true — it got rid of everything that was unlawfully done, but it is not all that true in that we could change our rules if we still went through the public process. So instead what you did was you had a big stack of papers — three hundred something pages — whatever it was — you guys have a few months, few weeks to read on it and then they vote on it. That's pretty unacceptable way to do business and in a conservation system where our situations are changing annually. So Tony will talk about a State Game Commission which I believe should alleviate that problem. It's something I think a lot of hunters should support and hopefully our department supports as well to get hunter involvement in these things. They have a five year recreation plan — I just saw that 11 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 came out— it addresses all kinds of hiking — even looked into public- private partnerships with the Hawaii Forest and Trail maybe — and all these other environmental types — but it doesn't address hunting in any sense again — so, you know, we continue to get neglected — but that's OK — that's why we're here. We have a grazing management plan — it addresses the cattle to keep the fine fields down so we don't get a fire — you can take care of all native plants but if one big fire comes through you end up with Puuanahulu — a sea of fountain grass and no native plants. And of course they did mention a lot of critical habitat areas — to my knowledge I haven't seen a map that shows the critical habitat areas of Puuwaawaa. I'm trying to look for that. It might be something interesting to see it to understand there may be more — there may be bigger areas they're trying to propose or maybe they're already done and we just don't' know about it. We can't get away from this — I know a lot of people don't like to see it but— as a hunter and someone that cares for all wildlife — including the roaches and everything , you know, animals do get stuck in fences and it is just not something humane which we should be looking at. And they do get treated — our animals get treated as second rate pests — to a lot of us they're resources, to the community that wants to protect endangered plants — they're treated as pests so it's slightly, maybe disrespectful in a sense. Then — I'm just going through examples or things that—you know questions that maybe we should ask ourselves as a community. So I'm back to the Rainfall is the Forest Plan —we rate the priority watersheds in green and we also have a map of the areas of all of the projects that are supposed to happen. I don't know if anyone notices anything interesting about this map — but if you particularly look here and here — you have a bunch of projects that total to about a little over a million and a half dollars, I believe, that are not particularly in the priority watersheds. So we created this whole plan with public funds and without your input so much — and here we are spending it on a palila habitat— hena hena fences here is for the endangered species that are inside of the caves and things like that— so if the water was such an important aspect and the watershed was so important as the media portrays — you would think we would prioritize our money on our watersheds — but we're spending upwards of over a million dollars on other things. So, just something to think about. I think it's a miss-allocation of funds potentially — and maybe this will be something a public process would not have had that. I'll talk a little bit about game management so, you know, we got to manage our animals — if we let them go crazy they're gonna eat the forest and stuff. I totally agree with an environmental view on that. There's no doubt. So we have this thing called game management but we have a difference in opinion. Environmental conservation [unclear] use — this is just some quotes I took around from people that tell me stuff or you know 12 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 what I see on the net— that our problem as hunters is access not acreage and I think with the maps I showed you guys earlier it isn't' particularly access —we are losing acreage due to the plans that are happening right now and we are not part of these plans. And also we need to eradicate all non-native invasive, injurious sheep; those pigs there across the state; farm animals don't belong in Hawaii; all this non-native stuff— but yet some reason watershed projects and groups support cattle ranching and support sustainable logging, saying the idea that our consumptive resources are actually good —which our consumptive resources are also sheep, goats, pigs and deer, somewhat hypocritical in that sense. To a game manager— I took this out of chapter one of Game Management by Alder Leopold — if anyone one doesn't know who Alder Leopold is — he's one of the great conservationists at the turn of century — and along with folks like Theodore Roosevelt, Gerrit [sp?] Brunel, even John Muir, himself, the founder of Sierra Club back then. But game management is the art of making land produce sustained annual crops of our game for recreational use. So while the other guys say we need to eradicate them — well that's management in our sense for sustained use. I'd like to out the recreational though because the vast majority of hunters do not purely hunt for recreation — but always include some kind of sustenance or subsistence. Nobody here that hunts just kill something just to kill it. There is only one group of people that actually kills things just to kill it and leave it there — and I don't need to say who does that. Consumable resources put funds also into the management budget of the land, versus seeking public treasury monies or non-domestic sources. So these animals that we have —that we're gonna start charging for tag —we got the administrative rules — that's great— these are funds that we can use for our land management. All these years we weren't doing it— but— I don't know— that's just the way it is. So what I'm saying is our consumptive resources are important and we need to keep them. Otherwise we're gonna look for federal dollars all the time and be stuck to fed rules and of those hunters. I just have a little illustration of game management— kind of a joke but it's really not. Here's Hawaii's theory — you can just pretend this is Saddle Road, maybe, and you can see all the sheep on the side of the road and DHHL and these things and we don't have hunting there but we have nearby fences where we fence off the important stuff and we continually to encroach and get less and less land that people can hunt, increasing the population of animals, also reducing the amount we can hold, increasing the damage, and this is what they put on TV all the time. Now also sometimes you get one plant and we make a big fence. Sometimes they take critical habitat area that doesn't even make sense, so this is the theory that we have. We have lot of hunters, small areas, lot of animals concentrated and of course they cause a lot of damage that's 13 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 unsustainable. The rest of the world, of course, they have a little bit bigger area —we're only an island — but of course they pay for their hunting and they have a little less animals, little less density than we do, so maybe hunters need to accept fewer densities for proper game management as well. And of course, talk about some plans —we have you know anything that is important to us — you plan to keep. So we have wildlife conservation plans, we have water resource protection plans, NARS plans, Aina Mauna plans. We have all these great plans and only recently we've been working on a game management plan. So I think we should continue that— it's just that— you know if it's important let's plan for it. [Unclear] sustainable food, of course. Not in the sense that you can have it running all over the place and destroying the forest, obviously it's not sustainable — but sustainable food and that they're here. I don't need to pay for them to come here —we can manage them in some sense. It is an ethical treatment of animals — now we can support cattle ranching [unclear] putting cattle in a fence from pressing `em so they can eat their fat and die or they can be a little bit out in the wild and hunters can, we can gather these things. No panic it's organic, of course everyone's talking about GMO right now. These are wild animals; we don't have to worry about creating pesticides or all this other stuff. We're isolated from disease in Hawaii, so a lot of sheep on the mainland they got problems with pneumonia, they got mad cow. All these kinds of crazy things, but here in Hawaii we're so isolated that we do have an opportunity to protect a pristine resource. It will increase the land value and revenue and diversify our resources on the land. So places like Puuanahulu, places you see Iotta fountain grass — pretty useless to us —what we can and should keep animals there and it will actually increase the value and we can actually do something in a place that is pretty much completely worthless. There's a tourism aspect that's obvious — also the values of hunting connection to the land — connection to things wild which we need more of— if people want to be engaged in conservation and wildlife conservation as a whole you need more people outdoors, more people to understand this — family — of course everyone we learned by some sense and discipline in that— of course you have kids learning hunting ethics — handling a firearm or a bow in an ethical manner and a very responsible manner which is important in today's society. And, of course, like I say more residents outdoors and I took a picture of the Hawaii Hunter Education Class which I'm a volunteer —we're swamped with kids and people wanting to learn to hunt. Every class — it's not like we're never not full — yet our hunting license sales are declining and I can't understand why that is. That's what people say, "Oh, no, they're here to get their fire arm correct, but we really we ask that question all time and - maybe a few five, six people raise their hands — they're actually there to go hunting — it's just that they don't have places to go. They get out there for a little while and we don't have a structure in which support staff— so it's like do a little bit of economic stuff so this is 14 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 from the US Fish and Wildlife Service they do a census every so many years — it's not perfect— you know, it's very vague but you can see we got they've estimate roughly 23,000 hunters. We only have 11,000 licensed hunters in Hawaii, though. And, of course, you have the 50 million dollars a year in total expenditures and it's a significant part of our economy, you know, you go to a gas station, you buy gas, you go to [unclear], you buy some arrows, whatever it is — get rid of these things and I'm pretty sure that some people would not be afforded jobs anymore, where they are. So it is a part of revenue, it is a part of recreation and you know economically something maybe we can keep. This is second to the last slide — I call it making magic—We've had a meeting in Kona between DLNR — Bill Aila was there Lisa (Hadway) was there, Steve was there. And you know the Chair asked me an interesting question, he asked me, "Ryan! If you had a magic wand, what would you want to do?" And I thought about this since then, because, you know, I can complain about all the things I just complained about but how am I gonna fix these problems, right? So one of the things is I thought of we — the folks thought about—was the State Game Commission. Giving hunters a formal say in our resources — these are public resources, they belong to all of us — not just the Nature Conservancy, not just hunters, not just hikers — they belong to all of us, so to have this formal say in a sense, because we have an Endangered Species Commission, we have a NARS Commission, we have Water Resource —we have all these other commissions and apparently, I guess, our game is not that important or maybe we can make it that way. A regular, comprehensive game management plan, like we talked about having plans — that's self explanatory, I believe. Placing a value on our game animals —we're gonna do that—we're gonna have the tag fees and all those things where hunters are actually going to be paying into a wildlife program that also supports conservation and land management. Not too many places can you just go and say, "Hey hiker-bird watcher, you gotta pay for your permit." It's a very tough thing to sell because it's a non-consumptive resource. So in hunting and fishing, this is an advantage I believe we should take and move forward on. And, of course, community based management has been pretty popular— I don't know if everyone follows — but DLNR just passed that Kaula Community Fisheries Management thing and it looks like that's the future — that people that live there — people that are out there in the outdoors — are going to be most engaged in protecting and conserving it and then moving toward community is a way to go there. Also, transparent governmental decisions on making process in public lands for knowing where things are happening, how they're happening — Rainfall is the Forest, you know, are you guys part of it. Do we just phone 700 people and just go off with that, you know? Let's not include anybody else. So these, I don't know, we sure kinda left out in that sense. I think, I think the public should demand better in that sense as well. And I said public resources on publically owned lands belong to the people of Hawaii. 15 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 So like the gentleman talked about Pohakuloa — those are state lands — state lease, I believe, does the military own the animals that are on the land? I don't think so. So these things are — these things belong to all of you in a public resource and you should have the say in whether— I mean, maybe still eradicate them, fine , it's just that you should know. You should be a part of it. [Unclear] departmental collaboration, of course, you know, all these things, we have all these state lands, there's all kinds of departments inside of it doing their work— they're doing hard work but sometimes we don't know what's going on. You know, we can ask our wildlife guys - oh I don't know what's going on here or there and then suddenly we walk into fences that we didn't even know were there. So having some of that— and also to have management of our game mammals is a cost effective method for watersheds and invasive species. You can fence two hundred something thousand acres of watershed — it's gonna be very costly. It's gonna take a lot of work. But right now—we can manage the animals we have, we can also charge for tags — you can also make money on these things — it's a no brainer, Yet, I don't know. Part of the hurdle is, I believe, we have a department— maybe [unclear] the environmental pressures — I don't blame anyone in particular— and a federal department that doesn't publically accept wild pigs, goats and sheep and deer as a resource held in a public trust. So if they could actually do that and make a decision that hey we're gonna keep these animals here as a resource. We're gonna do that. We're find ways to do this — then maybe we'll actually have a chance, but instead, we get, "Oh, we have all these endangered species; we have this and this and this instead." And that becomes more important than anything else, so... Someone needs to make the decision in our management that says, "Eh, we're not going to get rid of these things. These are important to us." And I got some closing thoughts, you know, for the sportsman, for the hunters in my own community because we're facing tough challenges, you know. We have to accept some level of game management. We can't have the good old days — the forty thousand sheep running across Mauna Kea, eating the Hawaiian forest, killing palila birds. That was unacceptable and rightfully so we have eradication today because the ethic then would not— the public probably wouldn't allow for someone to go in aerial shooting to cull the herd. But we needed to accept that a while ago and I think today with the way we are going we can — our community can accept this. We also need to support reasonable forest stewardship. That doesn't mean the forest belongs to only hunters, you know, everyone else is out there as well. We have to care about our native species as well, not just the pig, not just the sheep. We gotta care about mamani trees, ohias, all these things — this environment is as a whole. We need to value conservation and preservation. Value using our resources and also preserving the pristine areas that we can because these are unique and intrinsic valued things that we got. And also protect tradition as a hunter of both the wildlife and land ethic as the largest consumptive users of the forest. So, 16 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 you know, you hunters — as sportsmen —we come from a very strong history in this country of leading wildlife conservation. You know it wasn't long ago deer, elk, turkeys — all these things —they would have been on an endangered species list had there been an endangered species act then. And it was hunters that stepped out to protect these things and to bring them back in a conservation ethic. And it should be the same here in Hawaii, since we are the largest users of the forest, we need to care about iiwi, about akeapolaau, about palila birds, as well as the sheep, goats and everything else we looked at. So that's just my testimony and my presentation here and hopefully it shed some light on the issues that we face and maybe a potential way of how we should move forward. Thank you very much. 2. GMAC Commissioner Tony Sylvester (Power-point presentation) — Concept of a statewide game management commission. Support? Council Resolution? Mayor? T. Sylvester: It's a good year to introduce legislation cause on odd years — anything that we do carries over to the next year— so we actually have like a 2-year shot at this — so it's good for us to get involved as much as we can and make it happen this year. And then wherever it ends —we can pick up next year and we wouldn't have to start all over again. So why a state game commission? For the ability to work collaboratively requires a seat at the table. And I think that's kind of what Ryan was trying to talk about too, that we have all these other commissions and things where they all have a seat at the table to, I guess, project their views or concerns and so forth. So Hawaii County's vision, OK, we already had our mayor he committed his resources to give us a seat at the table in Hawaii County. So what we're trying to do now is we'd like to take this vision to other counties of which some members have gone to outer islands already, and then at the state level, through legislation. So why is having a seat at the table so important? Well, our core mission has always been to address the concerns of our members in our community. Everyone values trust, respect, creativity, collaboration and knowing they have a voice. And in the three years that I've been active in this — that is what keeps me going. And then one of the major reasons is the decline in access to public lands of diminishing resources of fish, game, and subsistence gathering. So who is looking out for our families, our future, keiki, friends, relatives, ohana? Who's looking out for these resource users? So what is lacking? I broke this down in four simple things: cooperative management and sustainable land management. For me, it's a commitment organization and involvement by all resource users. OK? And that's us too. OK? We all need to do a better job. I mean we can easily grumble and complain and go home or whatever—we need to get involved —we need to get active, need to get organized. Another problem is the will of DLNR and the need 17 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 for our legislature to prepare a state's filled resource management policies. And the reason why I've talked with some pretty high level people over the past few months and, you know, the will of DLNR is a problem because from their perspective it's — they don't believe in sustainable hunting. Whether they're forced — their hands forced —that they have to follow what they're following or not, I don't know. And it doesn't matter at this point. It's just that their will there is not there for whatever reason. OK? So what is cooperative management? And this so important to many things here, you know effective and equitable systems of resource management and that's where we're neglected in that sense right there. There's no equitable system. It's one or the other or none. It emphasizes sustainability requires devolving power from the central to local groups. So right now we're getting the feds and everything to get this upend of power — centralized power— it's not the local people anymore —we have no say in anything. And I'm gonna talk a little about biological opinions, which is the latest thing now. OK, and then empower local communities, share knowledge, power and responsibility. In [unclear] existing cooperative management efforts by DLNR, there's attempts —we have Puuwaawaa and Laupahoehoe Advisory Council —which they do some good work— but some of the problems are that the council's stacked with environmentalists plain and simple. I've been to the meetings in Puuwaawaa, they got some great people there — but most of them are government workers, preservationists pushing their set agenda. A couple of hunters — one hunter on there and he's trying really hard and there's another one that's an environmentalist with a hunting license and I mean that's what we have to deal with there. And the guys want to quit! And that's because of poor resource user representation to overshadow [unclear] representation. I've been to that meeting and I've been insulted with my wife, you know, by these people, and it's just why? I'm trying to be a part of what's going on and they literally insulted me and it was about the pig. [Unclear] a poor resource user representation due to overshadow of representation — its sufficient user resource user involvement— so that's back to us again. You know, we're the resource users and we need to get more involved because we can't just bitch and complain and then don't do nothing about it. And then the faulty council selection process. That's the problem with a lot of these commissions where this goes through the chair or I don't know if it's the administrator? The DOFAW administrator? You know? OK, a solution! A state game commission and why a state game commission — address the concerns of our community, work collaboratively with agencies responsible for game resources, give part of the rule making process, and so the issues affecting our game resources should be vetted through a game commission. Currently, who is making these decisions that and what input do we have? OK. I gonna talk about sustainable land management. And this is from the United Nations — U.S. Earth Summit in 18 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 1992. So globally-wise, what is sustainable land management? The use of land resources including soil, water, animals and plants for the production of goods to meet changing human needs, while simultaneously insuring the long term productive potential of their resources and then maintenance of their environmental function. So they have to realize that places like Africa and all where, hey, we've got to feed people, we've got to protect the environment, we've got to figure out how to do all of this. So the world has been looking at this stuff for a while. So here in Hawaii the key to our survival is our animals and is the management of these animals and the most important thing is the human resource — sustainable land management recognizes that people — the human resource —which you never hear, ever, OK? And the natural resources which they depend directly or indirectly, are inextricably linked. Rather than treating each other in isolation, all ecosystem elements are considered together in order to obtain multiple ecological and social economic benefits. This stuff is all there. I'm not making this stuff up. You know the world is looking at this stuff and we seem to be out of that loop. So wildlife conservation model is an existing principals — Hawaii is the only state that does not follow these principals and as the North American model of wildlife conservation. And, of course, they're gonna say that our animals here are invasive or introduced so they don't, can't fall under this, whatever, yeah, so a Supreme Court decision that decried that wildlife belongs to the people and not government corporations and individuals. OK further directs how these natural resources to be used and managed under sustainable guidelines for the betterment of wildlife and the people. So this stuff is there already. The model is guided by seven principals. The biggest number one is the public trust, there's a public trust doctrine: wildlife belongs to the people and managed in trust for the people by the government. Public trust doctrine is considered a pillar of North American model of wildlife conservation. So that public trust doctrine — I read that— it's actually very good and it kinda helps with state land managers and things like that and how they're supposed to follow. So in essence the PTD holds that certain natural resources such as water, fish and wildlife, are held in trust by the government for the benefit of the people. The second one is the prohibition of commerce of dead wildlife. I think as Ryan mentioned back at the turn of the century— people were selling — so they would come down from the cities and kill all the elk and deer and everything and take that back for profit. And that's what started the — a lot of this conservation because people that relied on these animals for food in their area —the animals were going extinct— so that was kinda the basis of that—what that means. OK, then allocation of wildlife is by law. Laws developed by the people and enforced by government. The laws should be by the people and enforced by the government. I don't see that happening too often. Opportunity for all! Teddy Roosevelt believed strongly in wise use conservation and fought aggressively against preservationists or non-use proposals. So it's — you don't believe in 19 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 preservation — it's conservation again. And a non- [ sounds like previous] use is no wasting of game — that's wanton waste —which we have a lot here. And then, of course, international resources and managed by science. And why that is so important— the best source available will be used as a base for informed decision-making and wildlife management. When Ryan touched bases on the Rainfall is the Forest— that fits right into that. Cause that state plan did not include fog drip. And if you look at the science, thirty percent of recharge is fog drip. So you're getting your numbers of watershed recharge and all it's about a third of the recharge process. Is that best science? I don't think so. What will a state game commission achieve? We're looking at a balanced resource management policy for the future of Hawaii. Having the opportunity to address the concerns of our community — everyone values trust, respect, creativity and collaboration and knowing they have a voice for our future in Hawaii. Thank you. 3. Tony Sylvester— Report of August 28th meeting with Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) Commanders and Staff as to Hunting, Animal Removal Activities, Game Census and Management Plans for PTA in the future. If PTA Commander or other representatives are in attendance they will be offered opportunity to respond to questions from the GMAC commissioners only. T. Sylvester: There was a follow-up meeting today but I didn't attend that— so I'll just talk about the August 28th meeting with PTA and I guess Tom or Ike, will talk about what happened today. On August 28th a group of us met the new commander (Lt. Col, Petersen) at PTA. We got word that there was gonna be an eradication in — somewhere in there —we didn't know. The commander got kinda offended when I said that it was a "secret" because they don't have "secrets" there but nobody knew about it so... But regardless, they met with us and we were told that areas 22 and possibly 23 — I don't think there's too many animals left in there —were gonna be eradicated. We asked about the methods that they used and if Hawaii wasn't open for hunting — cause I think it was closed for like 4 years and they didn't want hunters trampelling the plants and stuff in that area — so I asked how are you guys gonna eradicate and they said they were going to lower people from helicopter— cause they can't shoot from the helicopter. So that was gonna be their method that they were gonna do this and it was gonna be 300 animals, is what we were told. So as far as the eradication side and then they also stressed that they would like to open us some of the other areas that have been closed for a while for some type of hunting program. So I think that's what Tom guys will talk about a little bit today and the findings of how many animals were actually shot and left at PTA. Thank you. 20 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Chair Lodge: We met with Colonel Petersen today and we also met with Mr. Mabry as well. Mr. Mabry is the new enforcement guy at Pohakuloa similar to a DOCARE employee. They're hiring a biologist as well to start doing game management up there at Pohakuloa. And those of you who are here for the concern about the eradication number— originally the number that Tony and I were given, and Ike, we were all there at that meeting —was about 300 animals they thought might be in those paddocks there — or those fenced areas. And they took out 1,274 animals. It's a shocking number— how it got to be that number— and the colonel; at least in our conversation...No animals were recovered. All were shot and left there. And so it's wasted essentially.. But anyway, so there are other reports that we got for the different things that might have been going on where they shooting from the helicopter and he said no they didn't. He also said that of the animals that were left behind — they told us that they were gonna do a census — and they didn't have a chance to complete that census on the animals that were outside of these fenced areas. They've put out a request to the hunting community that they would like to have the hunting community involved in what goes on there at Pohakuloa — they'd like to have you involved in the management of that game, they'd like to have - and there's another area on the east side- it has a number of animals in it — they'd like to move those animals out— and they'd like to move it out by pushing them out. They don't want to go through this eradication scheme anymore — they want to get these animals out in the open and then manage it. So this is an opportunity, you know, they've made the offer, it's an opportunity for us to take them up on it and see if they live up to it, you know, if they do, we have a future with them that— for managing this wildlife up there. But basically, we had a pretty good meeting today with Brian Mabry was game warden. We're gonna start this in January. They expect to have a full game management plan they said, hopefully, within a year. They're right now following state license and bag limits. For hunting is gonna be up —they're gonna be also working on the managing both mammals and birds. They're looking for volunteers for population counts to get a census — they're looking for feedback from hunters to their game management staff to improve the situation up there. They're also looking for volunteers to help —they have some guzzards up there that they want volunteers to help fill and repair. They also talked about a hunting club up there, as well as in —this has already been requested by everybody here — anybody who has to go [unclear] your rifle you have to go up 16 miles on the weekend and they were trying to see about establishing some sort of a rifle range for hunters and for people up there in the middle of the island. So whether they're able to even do something like that, I don't know. But these are the plans they would like to promote so far and that's what we got out of our meeting today. And as far as the eradication up there — U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service drove that whole thing — and as Tony was talking about here — the fact that these —when you talk about game mammals 21 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 back in the turn of the century where they were doing all this market hunting —where they depleted animal resources —were required management and people actually stood up to do that—there is no difference from an eradication. It's doing the same things as far as we're concerned. It's wasting the resource. And there's no management by science up there —the number is zero — it's not management. Anyway, that's the gist of our meeting today. D. Yoshina: This is Ike. I went to the meeting and I found Colonel Peterson to be really out front and forthright. I don't think he's hiding anything. I think its incumbent upon the resource-user communities to kinda go out and take advantage of the opportunity to participate with him — to do what he wants to do. I would encourage hunters to get together with fishermen and other users of the forest like Ryan has suggested and try to work together because we can all work as separate entities but, you know, we're stronger together as a community if we come together and talk about, for me resource management, rather than just hunting or fishing or gathering. I think our goals should be the wise use of the resources in Hawaii and we've got to learn to talk with each other. We cannot continue down this path — there are too many — everyday you have more and more people on the island. You have more — you know you have a limited resource base and you have growing demands on that resource base. We gotta work together— I think, you know, my own opinion on this and it's only my personal opinion is that we have a Board of Land and Natural Resources that should be doing what we're talking about. And since they have not done what they are supposed to be doing, I think over time, what you have had is a second level of bureaucracy put in place — those are all the commissions — and as you will look at the commissions and find out they're all advisory — so you have no power except to advise — and yet, you have a land board which is supposed to be setting resource management policy in the state — and they haven't even taken care of such things as our game management. And for me game management includes fishing, hunting, and guys who go out and just take in nature. And I think that's what we have to get to —we have to — in this state talk seriously about resource management. So, you know, I'm just requesting that we all work together with the different people in our community and move towards what I consider to be the most important subject or issue in the state and that is the use of our natural resources. I was happy with the discussion I had with Colonel Peterson this morning because he seems to be an open guy and he seems to be extending his help to move us in a direction that he shares with us. So I would hope that all of you guys take that into consideration. He talked about 55, 1 forget what he called it— guzzlers — at PTA and he wants them to be operational — so he's looking for volunteers. As an example of his extension of his willingness to work with the community. So it seems to me that if we're serious about— in this case hunting —we should talk to him about that. He says he needs 22 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 information as to the effectiveness of that because he has to use good science. And so if any of you guys have information about the utility of guzzlers — you should kind of get together and go and see the guy together. I think, you know, when we talk about moving the animals out of PTA it means that DOFAW has to be involved in that because if you move them out of PTA—where are you going to move them? So I would hope that DOFAW is very much a part of that. And that's what I mean about sitting down talking story with each other. Comes down to, for me, resource management that's my focus. So if you want to talk to me you've got to talk in that language. Thank you. W. Camara: So did he —with that 1,200 head — did he say which areas that was in? Was it only 22 and 23? That's a lot of animals... And was 22 and 23 already eradicated a couple years ago? As far as I know, I think it was. Chair Lodge: I couldn't tell you... W. Camara: OK. D. Yoshina: I'd like to make a clarification. You know he tried to clarify for us that while he is the commander of PTA— the people who really did the eradication was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and he, you know, he kinda told us that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked if they could do aerial eradication and he told them no. So, you now, if you guys have visually seen aerial eradication — I think the guys we have to talk to would be the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guys, you know, it's that kind of bureaucracy or bureaucratic games that go on that you've to deal with. So while it's easy to blame PTA and maybe, maybe he was responsible, but I think you have to be real careful about who you blame — so again — let's work from facts and let's try and get to the bottom of the story. I think that would be helpful. Chair Lodge: My personal opinion or position on this if he extended an offer to the hunters. I think that in order to see if this is going to be real or not and if we're gonna be able to actually have some sort of sustainable hunting program up on Pohakuloa — that we accept his offer and see where they go with that. You know, it may be an opportunity — it may just be something that, you know, who knows — but we won't know if we don't take that opportunity to work with them. W. Camara: I guess my point was that I'm not pointing a finger at the colonel but this kinda something that happens every 2 years — every time the colonel changes over we end up having an eradication up there and you know it may be because of the little bit of—the new guy coming in so he doesn't know what's been happening and what has happened in the past— but it seems that every 2 years when they trade out we go through this whole 23 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 situation. So I'm not naming the colonel at all, I'm happy that he's willing to work with us and we will work... Chair Lodge: On that— he indicated today that they are going to establish a game management plan and process up at PTA. You know we seem to see if they do it, you know, they're having a guy they're coming on... T. Sylvester: Did they give you a time frame for that because as Willie-Joe says in 2 years they're gone and then is this something that's gonna be picked up cause I've heard this for 10 years now at PTA. Chair Lodge: Well, you know, Tony I can't... Their new guy is gonna start January, he said this biologist is going to be here. D. Yoshina: And just for clarification purposes — my understanding is that they— this eradication started with the 2010 biological opinion from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that said that they would clear Pohakuloa of all ungulates. And so, you know, I'm not an apologist for the colonel but seems like he inherited this so, you know, I guess I'm just asking that we try and be fair about all this. If in 2010 the commander at that time received the notice and then between 2010 and 2014 they tried —they were working towards the so called solution, we gotta remember all those things as we go forward. Chair Lodge: Yeah, the only thing I have to say, if we can I'd like to give the floor to Lisa from here. What troubles me about that 2010 decision is why they didn't do it in 2010 instead of waiting till its 1,200 animals...That's... T. Sylvester: Well that's what I'm saying. Why was it even closed to hunting then for four years if there was an active management plan to keep the numbers down or eventually thin `em out to zero — fine — but why let the numbers build up like that. And then say 300 animals and shoot 1,200. 1 have a hard time living with that because if I told you I'm gonna buy a cow from you and I take ten — I mean — that's — they're putting the commander in a spot. They do aerial surveys — I have a person that told us exactly the amount of ungulates in PTA. Exactly, they flew over and counted almost every animal in there and it was 1,600 animals. And now I hear they shot 1,274. So this is accurate counts from the people that are actually doing the count and the shoots at the time — so — if I'm a little upset about it—that's the reason why. The commander was led to believe there was only 300 animals and they're lying to the commander and this is our Fish and Wildlife or the biological Peter Pushat [?] or whatever his name is in there — is telling the —feeding the commander— I think there's something definitely broken in the system that have to be doing that. Just tell the truth and do what you gotta do. 24 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Chair Lodge: Yeah, I want to get to Lisa here too, so... J. Sanborn: Real quick on the PTA thing. I think someone should take notice and let the commander know that this is a big scam. The whole PTA, every single area in PTA is fenced off currently. So now they're talking about a game management plan —well this past four years while they've been doing fencing I have friends on the fence — I know this for a fact— they're won't be no animals to manage in PTA. The 1,200 animals is done. They took four years — all of the animals — all of the 900 and something animals that was counted in Hawaiian Homelands actually belonged to PTA. Those are animals that were pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed to pressure, pressure, pressure —went across the street and are safe in now DHHL lands. They often, every night, three or four hundred animals go back into across the street— there are videos on You Tube of them going across the street and going back into PTA. But they're continuously pushed out. So the game management plan — there is none — because you're only talking about impact area and the impact area has very little animals. I have a lot to say and will help in any way I can. 4. DOFAW Administrator Lisa Hadway —Accounting of the Wildlife Revolving Fund. L. Hadway: OK. So I was asked to present the Wildlife Revolving Fund situation and what I want everybody to know is our legislative report for FY 14 was due in October and it's come out of— it's up in the Governor's office and it should be approved by the end of the week— so at this point I can't hand the legislative report out to everybody but by the end of the week it will available on line — so but I can present it to you just in terms of what the funds were in FY 14, so it's actually a very dry presentation in terms of pictures and stuff. So basically — revenues in FY 14 and I'll go — I'll show another chart— but there was $178,000 that came into the Wildlife Revolving Fund (WRF) and the WRF in the next slide I'll show you the revenue sources. It was established basically for— it's got in statute and that's part of the legislative report— but basically when you see that the expenditures were actually more than the revenues —what that demonstrates is that there were staffs who are funded from other sources were contributing to work associated with the WRF. So we actually had a negative cash balance at the end of FY14. So these are the summary of the revenue sources, you can see that hunting license sales brought in the majority of the funds - $168,000 and there's small other fees that came in and as Ryan mentioned and others mentioned we did get the rules package approved by the board on Friday, late in the evening. So what that means is the new rules will allow us to 25 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 sell that conservation stamp again — so we should hopefully see the revenues potentially double in the next—well as they come in — because we're almost halfway through the FY and FY 15 — our fiscal year runs from June 30th to July 1St. So what happens now after that rules package was passed by the board it then needs to go to the Attorney General's office for full — to ensure that it's all up to form — then it— as I understand it— it goes to the Governor's office and once it's signed off by the Governor it comes effective 10 days after that. So we'll be sure to let everybody know when that actually proceeds. I suspect with the change in administration it might get held a little bit. So then I was asked what the main expenditures are of the WRF. And a solid proportion of it goes to the island of Lanai. We pay lease rent there — this reflects a payment of$51,000 and we are now in a 3-year agreement with Pulama Lanai and we're paying $35,000 a year now. It also pays for 2 '/2 bodies — staff members across the state —the majority of them are on Lanai but we also have a staff member who's half time or partially half of their pay comes from the WRF and they're the ones that are mostly involved in the license sales out of the Hilo branch office. So I just wanted to also show you what the expenditures are on Hawaii Island. $44,000 of the fund comes to this island across between East Hawaii and West Hawaii and again we run as a single branch on Hawaii Island so that personnel expense actually is reflective of the position on the island that assists with us. So the legislative report, if you want me to go through, let's see if I have — that's it for slides — so the legislative report I can go through island by island the types of things that they were spent on aside from personnel, Lanai, vehicle maintenance, but for example on Oahu they bought ring necked pheasants for the bird release program, you now, bird feed, traps, those kinds of things. It's all outlined in the legislative report which will be available and provide a breakdown of expenditures branch by branch. Anybody have any questions. Yes? Man: [Did not state his name]...you said you going to bring back the conservation stamp, can I ask you what will that funds be used for? L. Hadway: So that's actually a good question and one of the types of things that could be potentially funded out of this. So what are the types of things that could potentially be funding — come from this would be funding like a state wildlife commission —we estimate that staff time and moving commissioners around statewide to have meetings, etc., they usually try to budget around $100,000 dollars for that to have staff support and the travel costs associated with it. So that's one potential thing. There's ongoing —there's the development of the shooting / archery range on 26 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Kauai and then on some working bird releases at Kekaha and Wailua GMAs. On Oahu they'd like to fill a vacant general laborer position that once — that helps with the program on Oahu —to run the hunting program there and more purchase of birds to release in the GMAs on Oahu. On Maui they want to continue with the Lanai lease and fill the positions and develop an on-line application system for the Lanai lottery hunts and then on West Hawaii and East Hawaii it's a continuation of things like the cattle hunts — as I mentioned to you earlier— that's very costly in terms of staff time — and this is the kind of program that could help fund that. And then in terms of process —was the next question and input. You know at this point the fund doesn't have a lot of leeway in terms of decision making based on the fact that we have to cover staff costs and the Lanai lease. I think if there was a state commission — that's an opportunity that that commission could discuss what the priorities would be. If the hunters statewide don't view the Lanai hunt as something that's important perhaps they could consider using those funds on something else. Man: The reason why I asked the question I just wanted to make sure this was the hunting commission [unclear] for all the hunters. We want to make sure it's not against us. L. Hadway: Yeah, 85 — it's in the statute and I am — I wish I could hand this report out right now— I called Honolulu begging them to let me release it today but until it comes out of the Governor's office — but it just basically describes what it's used for and 85% of the funds go to the hunting program and the 15% can be used for wildlife sanctuary management as well and that 15% usually includes things like predator control which will benefit both native species and save the game bird species. Chair Lodge: It doesn't look like there's, you know there's a habitat conservation plan for Puuwaawaa / Puuanahulu that's out there and WRF you know— monies from the WRF don't require a match to be spent on mammal enhancement and other things that enhance game mammals, is that correct? L. Hadway: The WRF's —we are using it as a match for Pittman-Robertson's. Chair Lodge: I understand that. You don't have to... L. Hadway: We wouldn't— it would be very challenging to budget appropriately to be able to use the Pittman-Robertson funds without using the WRF funds as match. Chair Lodge: I guess what I'm getting at is that this money, you know, every time we use a federal dollar for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, right, we're not 27 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 using any of that to enhance any game mammal habitat or anything to do with game mammals and so my question is —why should we keep using that money for other things when you have animal hunters that can't hunt mammals — there's no mammal enhancement here and... L. Hadway: Again, I think it would be up to a priority of a statewide commission to determine the important aspects of the Lanai piece is that given that that's a very large piece of private lands we very much try to not use federal funds on Lanai very specifically so we don't— so that private landowner isn't required to go through extra hoops associated with the Endangered Species Act. Chair Lodge: I appreciate that but why would U.S. Fish and Wildlife matched funds not be able to be used in say like Puuanahulu? L. Hadway: If we get the habitat conservation plan completed they will be able to use those funds. Chair Lodge: OK. But why would it even require the habitat conservation plan for the Puuanahulu? L. Hadway: Puuahahulu does have endangered species associated with it and basically the amount of funds it takes for example to clear the fire breaks and the roads there would far exceed the amount we actually are looking at in terms of funds going here right now. To cover our costs given the staff expenditures etc. the wildlife program is very — has a very diverse set of funds and much of them are federal funds. It would be —we would basically have two and half people statewide just on the WRF. Chair Lodge: That habitat -when is that habitat conservation plan going to be completed? L. Hadway: It's getting worked on — it needs to get a latest update, I know Senator Schatz office was enquiring about it. Chair Lodge: Do you know when that's gonna be? L. Hadway: The release of the environmental assessment associated with it is coming up and Steve, I don't know if you have an update on that? Chair Lodge: Why is there a biological opinion coming along with that? L. Hadway: Sorry. I wasn't aware this was on the agenda. I'm sorry I don't have all of this information prepared. Chair Lodge: WRF money... 28 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 L. Hadway: And a biological opinion was associated with it due to the fact that there are animal species involved as well. Chair Lodge: One last question. When you do a match with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with WRF moneys isn't there supposed to be public input? In terms of where — how that money is being spent? L. Hadway: As I've mentioned, you're more than welcome sit down with me Tom and go through my budget. I sat with Mark Bartell and talked about our budget situation. Chair Lodge: It's not your budget— my question is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Title 16, you know, says that, you know, before — on the purpose, for example, that to encourage state and fish and wildlife [unclear] provided for public involvement in the process of development implementation of a wildlife conservation restoration program. That's when you ask for the money and where we provide that match money. It's saying that there should be public involvement, what does that mean? L. Hadway: Well, like I mentioned, I believe that the potential for the state commission would be an opportunity for that. I believe that this commission here — if you folks had ideas of where you would like to see those priorities — given what I've been handed to deal with in terms of budgeting — my priority is trying to cover staff expenses and the lease rent on Lanai. So that doesn't leave us a lot left to deal with. But if, you know, we'd be open to that kind of conversation, I don't know if you've sat down with the wildlife staff here and discussed how they're spending their funds? Chair Lodge: We haven't. L. Hadway: And I would encourage Ryan as well. You're more than welcome to pick up the phone and call staff about where maps are of critical habitat. There's a lot of existing critical habitat that's been designated for years all over the islands. And so we are more than happy to share that information — I don't want anybody to think that we're trying to hide that information. And I only wish you could hear me in the meetings as I try to discuss the challenges of the lines of where those designations go and I fully am in agreement in a lot of those things, so I just want you to know that we are open —we've discussed this —we're, you know, these venues aren't always the easiest for exchange and questions and we're more than happy to have wildlife staff, we're more than happy to sit and pour through numbers with you. 29 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Chair Lodge: So with your comment there — might I take that you're in support of a statewide game management... L. Hadway: I'm — as long as the funding source — I think we have the funds to run it and the staff to run it— as you well know we're down to a skeleton crew— at least in the admin end of wildlife. We're trying to recruit as quickly as we can for a wildlife program manager and the game biologist at Johnson's old position. We're very challenged. People can't afford to live in Honolulu. We're looking at alternatives for that but, you know, we'll just have to work through the language with the legislature and make sure they're pulling it from the right funding source. And I think we have a potential opportunity given that we hopefully will have more revenues coming into the Wildlife Revolving Fund. Chair Lodge: OK. L. Hadway: But at this point, the WRF would be challenged to cover that roughly $100,000 cost, but we can look at these to... M. Bartell: I just want to make sure I understood. So in concept the statewide game management commission — DLNR can support. L. Hadway: Yes and have I got a job for you guys. M. Bartell: Yeah, no, no, I think you have a lot of people willing to step up and try to help you out, right, I mean... L. Hadway: That rules pack could use work and I think that, that would be a perfect break tool then potentially also looking at the 183 D statute and considering how we might want to adjust the statute to provide more flexibility.. M. Bartell: So it's yes on a commission and if I heard maybe a hesitation it's around funding. L. Hadway: Yes. M. Bartell: Yes. OK. So Lisa let me ask this, right, so we've gone through this — I mean the last time you were here you used a few choice words — I probably did too around the last rule package in a length of time it took to create the rule package, right, I mean... L. Hadway: Yes. 30 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 M. Bartell: I suggested it wasn't a priority and you said a few other things. So what in — I think one of the other commission members actually made the point that all these commissions are advisory, right? L. Hadway: Yes. M. Bartell: I would be very much in favor of making this game commission a rule making commission, right? L. Hadway: That's something an attorney general or a lawyer would have to consider and the statutes can allow. M. Bartell: Agreed. So let's just talk conceptually here. I mean there's lots of reasons to say no but conceptually, I would say that if we're gonna do a state game commission then let it make the rules. They seem to be a problem in terms of how fast they can get done, how they can get done, when they're revised. It just— if you've got a group that is focused on hunting and working with DLNR in a positive constructive way — it just seems to be that you should give them the rule making authority surrounding this. [Unclear] conceptually. I know there's probably lots of legal things but conceptually can you get on board with that. L. Hadway: I'm hesitant because I think of all the other commissions as well and given what the purpose of the Board of Land and Natural Resources is I think that it's the work of the commission is done well then that— everything's centralized at the Board of Land and Natural Resources level — it should be quite seamless in terms of staff and commission is working well together I can't image the board not supporting it. M. Bartell: How about you personally? L. Hadway: I think writing rules is an extremely challenging thing to do. I think it would be really difficult for a commission to actually write rules. You're gonna need the staff support there — you're gonna need the legal support there in terms of— one of the biggest issues that arose out of this last package was actually the American's with Disability Act and making sure the hunting rules were in compliance with that. And so I wouldn't expect that a commission would necessarily want or need the expertise to do that — but we would turn to the right resources to help us write those rules. M. Bartell: So I'm still trying to figure out what you Lisa Hadway stand on rule making versus advisory. L. Hadway: I would sit with advisory. 31 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 M. Bartell: So if legislation came forward that said rule-making, how would you counsel legislators to vote? L. Hadway: If the rule making commission had a full time attorney general assigned to them perhaps it could be workable. M. Bartell: OK. Alright, so there needs to be underpinnings to that? L. Hadway: Yeah, what I would not like to have happen is a lot of work done by a commission and it ends up coming into legal conflict on certain things and if there's a way to clarify those legal components of it... ....you know, there are very — I would love the rules to be more simplified and much easier to understand and make the process a lot easier in terms of being able to set fees and those kinds of things. It's a very rare statute where we actually are set the fees in statute. Do you know in 1902 they paid $5.00 for a hunting license and today we pay $10.00? And if we did the math... M. Bartell: It would be more expensive than that... L. Hadway: Yeah, so, I'm... [Unclear] on the mainland where they paid $325,000 for a tag on the sheep. Chair Lodge: Excuse me Lisa; you do know that it was your department that rejected a higher license fee. We asked for $30.00 and they said absolutely no way, we can't do it more than $10.00. L. Hadway: Yeah, well... M. Bartell: OK. L. Hadway: No, its set in statute I'm pretty sure. Chair Lodge: Right, but... M. Bartell: So... Chair Lodge: They didn't want to... L. Hadway: Yeah... M. Bartell: That's all right. I think last meeting you gave us a challenge to say how is it we work together to resolve some of this. So I think we're coming back with — I think we want to help resolve this —we are willing to work together to resolve —we'll be creative on how we resolve this — so, I mean, I think we're trying to find some common ground, Lisa, and I think we've 32 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 got one here in the state game commission —whether it's advisory and frustrating because advisory committees are incredibly frustrating — I'm just— I think this is one issue that we should spend some time working together on and seeing what we can push through because, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve years, I don't know when the last hunting rules were revised — they were revised a very long ago, right, it's too long, but it puts us in a place where we have a Wildlife Revolving Fund that can't support game management, right? And so the problem — let's figure out collectively — how we can work on a solution. But we're running out of time, Tom, so I'm gonna stop there. D. Yoshina: I'd just like to add to that request. You know there are all kinds of organizational theories out there — one of which is a collaborative model — and I've heard Mark mention that a number of times — so it sounds good to me and I would ask that DLNR talk about collaboration. L. Hadway: Sounds good. Chair Lodge: OK. I appreciate her time. If you don't mind —we would like to take you up — come and talk to you about some of these things. L. Hadway: Sure. And then I can give you more numbers. Like I said, this is gonna be available hopefully end of the week. I'll send you the link whenever it's available and [unclear] write a report... D. Yoshina: Lisa would you send me a hard copy please. I'm still in the 20th century. L. Hadway: Sure. Chair Lodge: Thank you, Lisa. Stanley? Stanley: As hunters goes, we don't mind paying $1,000 - $2,000 for license but give us something to hunt - manage what we have. We just keep on eradicating taking our game away. So it's not part of paying for one license $10.00, $30.00. We'd pay more than that— but give us something to hunt. Chair Lodge: Right. Man: Lisa [unclear] the license fee L. Hadway: You know, you're just reminding me. So I didn't bring the rules package with me that just went to the board —the fees are really only going up on the island of Lanai. Other than, you know the license fee and then there's gonna be the stamp fee. So it's gonna be a total of$20.00, 33 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 right, ten and ten. The fees for the tags on the island of Lanai are gonna go up and I think they're going up, you know, some of them were $5.00 and they're going to $25.00. Non-resident fees are slightly going up as well. But I think it's something, you know, that a state game commission could really look at and as I've mentioned, much of this — I know it's complex but there's a statute and then there's the administrative rules and some things are in the statute and you have to change the statute. You can't just make an administrative rule to say something — and that's how we got in trouble the first we set fees at the Board of Land and Natural Resources — not an administrative rule — and that's where the lawsuit— where we lost that income. Man: [Unclear] tag fees.. L. Hadway: At this point, yeah, they have tag fess, but I'm not certain they went up but I'm sorry I don't... Chair Lodge: You know [unclear], excuse me —we're getting to the point where we have two other really critical things we have to get... L. Hadway: Yeah, sorry...It's on line, actually. Chair Lodge: OK. I want to bring up two items here for consideration of the commission. 5: GMAC — Items for Consideration and Implementation: Chair Lodge: One of them is the legislative committee right now has a lot of work that you're doing and they're doing a lot of work independently and having to bring it back to the commission to talk about. And I am suggesting that the commission move to give the legislative committee carte blanche authority to transact whatever we're doing with the legislature, whether it be rules, whether it be testimony, whether it be creating bills, negotiating like with DLNR on different things and to advise and seek resolution to items that might be subject, you know, to committee referrals or other ideas that we might have, but that the legislative committee be given carte blache to conduct their business free of interference — not interference — but just free from having to come back to the commission. Would you please...? T. Sylvester: I make a motion to secure approval of GMAC to give powers to the legislative committee to negotiate, testify and advise on all legislative issues pertaining to the appropriate legislative session. Chair Lodge: Any second? 34 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 C. Masuda: If I could suggest an amendment to that— that be in the cases where — because of the speed of the legislature sometimes you get notice at 2:00 that the meeting's being at 6:00 — that be given —those authorities be given to the legislative committee in cases where it is not possible to convene a meeting before the GMAC. Chair Lodge: OK. I would like to — I know what you're saying —we can't come back and do legislative business on a month-by-month basis. C. Masuda: [Unclear] but if it's something where it's put off and then you do have the authority because when you say carte blanche —the attorneys all go whoa, whoa, whoa! Chair Lodge: Well, what we're suggesting —what I'm suggesting when we have here — is that we conduct like writing bills, being able to write our testimony, being able to secure other agencies to support us or support from other agencies or islands or what have you without coming back to the committee — to the commission on a month-by-month basis which is unworkable — especially when it comes to the legislative... C. Masuda: That's why I'm saying — if it's a situation where there's no time for the committee to come back and still be effective, that's the authority you're given — however, that authority is limited or it is a situation where there is a upcoming meeting and the commission can properly notice it— I'd bring it before the commission... Chair Lodge: Give me an example of what you're talking about. C. Masuda: For example, if you have matters — say it's during cross over time — we'll have time to come back before the commission in lot of instances. If it's something that's been already moved on by the two committees or three —whatever the referral is — on your referral sheet at that house — and it's done already — you'll have time to come back before the commission prior to cross over. Chair Lodge: OK. I'm actually opposed to that idea. I would like the legislative committee to be able to do their job as the legislative committee and I am suggesting that this commission put their trust and confidence in that legislative committee. There is — being — gone through two legislative sessions already — I can see that that is for us really a burden, cause we have to get it on an agenda, we have to then discuss it. As far as legislation goes.... D. Yoshina: I think then we run into Sunshine and all of that and I don't know. But you know you guys are asking me to trust you guys... 35 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Chair Lodge: That's right. D. Yoshina: I'm just kidding... Chair Lodge: No, But I mean that's what we are doing, we are saying — whoever's on that legislative committee trusts us with these decisions. C. Masuda: I've said my suggestion. I'm not going to repeat it. You folks all understand it so there's no sense for me to repeat it. But that is my recommendation. D. Yoshina: Another question for Craig then. What kind of legal problems that we have. C. Masuda: For one thing, it's not a legal problem — but you have to remember — as pointed out— you folks are an advisory committee to the mayor, yeah? It's customary to give the mayor the heads up of what you folks plan on doing legislation on. I'm not saying necessarily get his approval — but get his opinion — get his — notify him through Bobby Command who is on the cabinet. That's one thing — as far as legal problems — if your sub- committee is less than the majority of the commission there is not an issue about doing [unclear— sounds like served] communications for Sunshine and all violations. D. Yoshina: Good. And so, if I might ask the chair, how many - who's on this committee now. Chair Lodge: Right now it's myself, Tony and Mark. D. Yoshina: Thank you. T. Sylvester: In the past, what we did was we ran everything by the mayor and we also got the mayor's support testimony for that particular bills as well as —we didn't do anything without.... C. Masuda: And the mayor's support and testimony will be crucial on any kind of effort you folks put forward. T. Sylvester: Yeah, I know... Chair Lodge: Right. We do understand that we act on behalf of the mayor. He's been very supportive of us — there's nothing we're gonna do to try and screw him up. C. Masuda No. Understood. But as your attorney, I have to always advise you. 36 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Chair Lodge: Oh, I know, I appreciate that. We don't want to be off in hand cuffs. M. Bartell: So a thought, right, if we had a — during session — right— leading up to and during session — if we had more of the members of the legislative sub- committee do an update of, you know, reasonably detailed update of actions taken, decisions made blah, blah, blah, blah to the rest of GMAC I think that's an important thing, because Ike is trusting us — but at least he may or may not depends on how he votes on this dog gone thing — and so is Willie-Joe, and so is Paul and so is Kalani. So I think Tom during session that that's almost a mandatory, yeah. Chair Lodge: Well, yeah, we have committee reports that— every meeting that we have —which would be at the time to, you know, bring that to bare and so that people know what we've done — there's a committee report. Not that there's anything that the commission needs at that point for discussion we can move forward with no emotion to do whatever we need to. Ok, so where were we with our motion everybody? Action: T. Sylvester moved to secure approval of GMAC to give powers to the legislative committee to negotiate, testify and advise on all legislative issues pertaining to the appropriate legislative session; seconded by D. Yoshina; Motion carried unanimously by voice vote. Chair Lodge: Along with that we also have standing and ad hoc committees that are created every once in a while for special items and right now we have a committee for access issues and we have committee for the outdoor heritage I think right now. And there may be other things that come up that require a special ad hoc committee and I'm moving or suggesting that the commission again secure approval of the commission — the GMAC — to give powers to those various standing ad hoc committees to negotiate, advise, seek resolution to items that are subject to committee referral —we say hey take care of this that someone brought up to the commission — that they be able to take care of it unless it requires, you know, some major action on behalf of the commission. That if they can resolve an issue in the committee itself that they just go ahead and take care of that. W. Camara: As far as I understood that's what the committees already does, I mean, that's what we already said when we made the committees, right, is to do all of that, so I don't understand. Chair Lodge: I just want to make sure that we know that we have the authority to do that. W. Camara: OK. 37 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 Chair Lodge: And that we are giving permission or are giving you the authority to — if you have an access issue and you can negotiate it— do it. If it's something that needs to come back to the committee — then so be it— but if not— that's the whole — let's move on... Action: D. Yoshina moved to secure approval of GMAC to give powers to the various Standing and Ad Hoc Committees to negotiate, advise and seek resolution to items subject to committee referrals and other related committee interests; seconded by W. Camara, and carried unanimously by voice vote. A question from the audience regarding clarification of the motion [person did not use the mic] C. Masuda: The motion was that they be allowed to do that and they passed the motion that they're gonna work within the sub-committees —will go to the legislature and testify. Please remember— any individual hunting organization is always free to go to testify on any bill for whatever position too — and I think that's what Ryan and Lisa were always saying — is it takes a whole community — not only the hunting community but the whole community to make things happen within the law. NEW BUSINESS / COMMITTEE REPORTS: Chair Lodge: Hearing no new business. Commissioner's report District1? W. Camara: OK. Basically, just a couple of things from my district. Well first off, we gotta send a little aloha to Bobby. I hear he's not feeling to good — he's been in the hospital and a speedy recovery for him. And then secondly, District 1, I had met with our District 1 County Councilwoman Val Poindexter and also we had got a meeting together—there was some concern from the Rural South Hilo Association I believe it's who they were and also some hunters from the Pepeekeo area about access pretty much. So we did have a meeting with them and this kind of falls under my committee report too for the Access Committee. We had the meeting — people from that Hilo Association was there. There were supposed to be a bunch of hunters there's to give their ideas and their— let us know where the areas of concerns were. One hunter showed up to that meeting — so that kinda goes with what Tom was saying and also Ike is in line - I mean everybody, I mean, you know, when these people put this meeting and nobody shows up — so it's easy for us to keep complaining but I can't do anything unless I have the suggestion from the people. But anyway, it was a good meeting — I did — on that note — I did talk with David Penn about the access. One of the places is that area that we're currently working with — for the —with the County to get the easement surveyed —just in a 38 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 nutshell — and there was a whole line of different areas — also some private property places that we had to explain to these guys that it's not really anything we can do about because they're private and that's it. The other thing from my side was just the concerns about PTA and eradications and I'm actually been having a lot of people call on that. Chair Lodge: Can I ask the DLNR a question on that? Talking to David Penn he said that Finance Factors is what we're talking about that property of Finance Factors that there was memorandum of understanding that they had agreed to and that was gonna have to be sent out to the different wildlife departments and I was curious if you folks had a chance — has that happened yet? L. Hadway: I'm imagining it's with the Attorney General's office and then if there's an MOU between us, the County for access — it'll go to the Board of Land and Natural Resources once the AG has reviewed it— so that it's matter of scheduling a board meeting. If there's only one board meeting in November and one in December— so I'll try and catch up with Dave on the status of that. Chair Lodge: Oh, very good. OK. Thank you. District 2? D. Yoshina: This is Ike Yoshina. Mostly I've also gone to the public access meetings. I'm going to try and meet with professional staff at the county to get some clarification on some understandings that I have that may be in error, but, so I'm trying to clarify that. I also attend the Na Ala Hele meetings and, you know, that's a commission that I think more of us should take an interest in — because they're talking about the historic trails — but there might be — I think there might be possibilities of collaborating with them to get, I hope, access to hunting areas and the fishing areas. So that's why I go to those meetings. I've also attended meetings with the PTA. I think one area that I've not done so well at is Iiaisoning the community and frankly, I don't know how to do that. I mean, I'm willing to meet with anybody, but just putting the invitation out there means that people have to contact me and if anybody is interested in doing that, come see me afterwards. I'll give you my phone number. I'll give you my email and you can contact me. I've had a few people walk up to me at various places to talk to me — I don't know who they are, right? And 1, you know, I'm not good at names anyway, so if you come up and talk to me and I act like I don't know who you are, please forgive me for that.. It's not that I'm not interested or anything, you know, I'll talk to anybody. So, that's my report. Or one more thing. I received this letter from the Fujiyoshis' a couple of months ago and I thought that we would be taking action on this, but since no one has — I'm gonna write them a personal letter, because my name is on this and I'm just gonna send it out and it's gonna be 39 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 personal letter to the Fujiyoshis'. So I hope that's OK. I'll send a copy to your guys. Chair Lodge: District 3? T. Sylvester: The usual. Lotta concerns about PTA I've been flooded with calls the past month, two months. And I had one interesting call from a pig hunter saying that we should seek some form of limiting to like 4 dogs for pig hunting, because I guess there's no limit and it's just ridiculous. Some people are taking a lot of dogs — I don't know— I used to hunt with 4 dogs — but I don't know what— I guess other people are taking more and that's something maybe we can discuss with other pig hunters and see what they feel about that— if there is an issue with — I can see that, yeah, having more than four dogs is, I mean, usually you have 2 dogs when you're training one or two along with them or something, it should not... Chair Lodge: District 4 is absent this evening. . District 5 - 1 don't have anything really to report other than what we've been doing, which we've been talking about tonight. District 6 - Kalani, absent M. Bartell: I'm District 8, the phone calls I've gotten over the last month they've all been about PTA eradication. A lot of very disgruntled, unhappy, pissed people, to be honest with you. And a lot of questions about the hunting rules, right, so, and I think we've touched on those here tonight so, that's kind of the feedback I'm getting. NEXT MEETING The next meeting will be on the 17th of November, ADJOURNMENT Action: D. Yoshina moved to adjourn the meeting at 8:53pm; seconded by W. Camara, motion carried unanimously by voice vote. Respectfully submitted by, Barbara Kossow Secretary ATTEST: Thomas H. Lodge 40