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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-04-25 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 25, 2017 Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawaii Minutes Meeting Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Hawaii County Building – Council Chambers I. CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order April 25, at 6:30 p.m. by Chairperson Tom Lodge. II. ROLL CALL: Members Present: Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina, District 2 Naniloa Pogline, District 4 Thomas H. Lodge, District 5, Kenneth “Kalani” DeCoito, District 6 Bronsten “Kalei” Kossow, District 7 Absent: Willie-Joe Camara, District 1 Teresa Nakama, District 8 Jonathan Bertsch – District 9 Vacant: District 3 ALSO PRESENT: Joseph Kamelamela, Corporation Counsel Donna Urban-Higuchi, Executive Assistant, Office of the Mayor APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Mr. Dwayne Yoshina moved for approval of the Minutes of the April 25, 2017, Meeting, seconded by Ms. Naniloa Pogline and carried unanimously by voice vote. BUDGET REPORT: No Report A1 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 25, 2017 DISCUSSION: l. STEVE BERGFIELD ON THE SUCCESS OF THE CATTLE HUNTS IN THE HILO FOREST RESERVE AND THE PLAN GOING FORWARD Steven T. Bergfield, Branch Manager, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Hawaii made a presentation on Hilo Watershed Feral Cattle Removal Project via power point. He provided an update on the cattle hunts project that his department had been conducting in the Hilo watershed adjoining Hawaiian homes. Mr. Bergfield reported that the lottery hunts started in November of 2013 and will end June 2017, DOFAW has thus far accommodated 1,086 hunters. In June, the agreement with DHHL will expire. One way gates out of the watershed are expected to be operational by the end of April to facilitate more cattle egress out of the watershed. After June, without an agreement to use DHHL access, hunts will continue as long as it is feasible to access along Saddle road. So far, there have been 1,086 hunters who harvested 649 cattle from the Watershed, 315 bulls, 231 cows, and 73 calves. Over the last three years, a total of twenty-five animals were unrecovered, less than four percent unrecoverable rate. The number has been outstanding. There were 141 trips into the watershed which was facilitated by DOFAW and their trusty four wheeler, which eighteen pigs and two sheep were also harvested. This worked out to an average of .60 animals per hunter, a fair amount of harvest. Chairperson Lodge, indicated, “If you tally the approximate take home of meat, it works out to an estimated 112, 992 pounds of beef. If you purchased 80% lean ground beef at $5.99 a pound, there is a market savings of $676,822 and change. Altogether quite a successful program. Thanks to the persistence of the Hilo DOFAW, Steve Bergfield, Joey Mellow and staff.” II. COUNTY OF HAWAI’I SHOOTING RANGE RESOLUTION TL: Chairperson Tom Lodge reported that he, Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina, and Naniloa Pogline met with the County Council members and provided a summary of goals and objectives from previous meetings by the Game Management Advisory Commission. A resolution was drafted by Chairman Lodge and submitted to the County Council. The purpose of A2 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 25, 2017 this resolution is to get a gun range started. Tim Richards, Council Member, D9 will be introducing the resolution. GMAC members will be notified after Resolution has been reviewed by the County Council. Ms. Naniloa Pogline moved for approval of a gun range Resolution to be considered by the County Council, seconded by Dwayne Yoshina. Motion carried unanimously by voice vote. III. LEGISLATIVE REPORT ON STATE GAME MANAGEMENT ADVISORY COMMISSION CONFIRMATION HEARINGS Ms. Naniloa Pogline and Mr.Tom Lodge attended the State GMAC confirmation at the State of Hawaii – Legislature. Senator Karl Rhoads and Kekoa Kaluhiwa, First Deputy of DLNR were the main speakers. Present were Senator Lorraine Inouye, Senator Laura Thielen, Senator Mike Gabbard, Suzanne Case, Chairman, DLNR, and a few state commissioners were present. The County advisory commission were not included in the election process. Chairperson Lodge stated that there were candidates that weren’t suitable to serve on the State Game Management Advisory Commission, DLNR but they were chosen. As part of the criteria to serve in this commission, one must have a hunting license and leadership roles in a hunting or shooting organization. In his opinion, Lori Buchanan was chosen but feels that she wasn’t qualified. He indicated that Ms. Buchanan is smart but has no leadership position in a hunting or shooting organization and they went on for ten minutes trying to excuse that away by all the other work that she did as a member of the Maui Planning Commission and how she is involved in the aina. According to Mr. Lodge, she is unqualified and and their testimony was against her. He noticed that the DLNR has bent rules and sees it as a problem. Josiah Jury from Oahu Aha Moku & Watershed Partnership was selected. A lady from Oahu Pig Hunters, who is not an eradicator or hunter submitted her name. He mentioned that the Game Management Advisory Council representing the County of Hawaii along with Riffle Association, Kawaihae Hunting Association were in support of the lady but was not selected. According to Chairperson Lodge, the State has tendencies to overlook the rules which are supposed to be followed, not broken or bent. For instance, Ms. Buchanan gave a response toward to a qualified man from Molokai, which she then said, “oh but he’s only been here for two years.” Nevertheless, there is a commission which will go before the full Senate for approval either tomorrow or Friday and should have a commission by this weekend. A3 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 25, 2017 IV. GMAC MEMBERS GET TOGETHER Chairperson Lodge, Commissioner Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina and other commissioners thought it was a good idea to have a commission get together to meet the new commissioners on board. The Yacht Club hbeen nominated as a designated place to gather but it has not yet materialized. The commissioners would like to continue with the possibility of having a get together. Commissioner Nani Pogline suggested Waimea, but either Hilo or Kona is fine too. Joe Kamelamela, Corporation Counsel, said it appears that this is a group of commissioners getting together to talk story. Mr. Kamelamela stated there should be no discussion about GMAC business. As such, this item does not have to be placed on the Agenda unless it is being funded by the GMAC – this is more of a potluck gathering. Further planning will be determined at a later time. V. AGENDA FOR FY 2018 Chairperson Lodge discussed two agenda items for Fiscal Year 2018. These two items have been on the agenda for over two years: 1) Game Management Plan which was put together by Scott Fritz, DOFAW employees and volunteers in 2007 and completed in 2010. Commissioner Tom Lodge spoke to Mr. Cogswell from DLNR and was told that the plan was ready about 16 months ago but until now the plan hasn’t been provided to the County GMAC for review. 2) Game Rules (Administrative Rules) were suspended in 2007 due to a lawsuit by Katz Yamada and several others. The Game Rules was drafted in 2015 without any of the changes that had been submitted by the public. There were a couple of small changes made as far as day hunting. The County GMAC received information that DLNR was ready to have a group together to discuss putting rules together and it hasn’t happened yet. Commissioners Kenneth Kalani DeCoito, Teresa Nakama, and others may have additional items to include on the 2018 Agenda that need discussion and action taken. Mr. Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina stated that there need to be a substantive kind of discussion with the different resource groups such as fishers, trail guys, in the State of Hawaii Game Management. For example, What does Game Management mean? What does the State mean when it says Game Management? What does the various interest involved mean? In order to eliminate any misunderstanding, he wants all the team players to discuss and understand the topics of Game Management so that everybody is on the same page. A4 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 25, 2017 Ms. Naniloa Pogline indicated that she would like to have better communication with hunters. She stated that the bird, pig, sheep hunters are out there in the field, boots on the ground – can bring up-to-date reports of their experiences out there. She wants the hunters to get involve and have the hunters provide testimonies. Chairperson Lodge agreed to follow up on the Hunter outreach. This idea started from last year that could be an island wide project to have meetings with hunters. Further plans need to be determined with district commissioners. Mr. Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina asked if there’s a way that the County GMAC might be able to help the DLNR organization’s divisions so they can be fully staffed and get funds that they need from the Legislature. He is interested to know how positions are funded and where is the funds coming from. He wants the County GMAC to be involved in helping to fill positions. According to Steve Bergfield, most of the positions are funded from the State General Funds while other positions are funded from the Federal Government. Currently, there is one open for a Biologist position. Joey’s old position in Hilo Was recently filled. There are fifty vacancies but due to a staff shortage in the personnel department the positions have not been filled. OLD BUSINESS: Chairperson Lodge mentioned a situation that occurred at the Volcano Transfer Station. In the past, the check in blocks were located in the back and people used to be able to drive in. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case now. Two catchment systems were dismantled and taken out of the area. Each catchment system is worth ten to fifteen thousand dollars. As a result, the County of Hawaii placed four big rocks in front of the way causing hunters to unload and take their dogs out of the back of their truck on the highway. This is a safety issue. These hunters reached out to DLNR to find out what was going on. Ms. Nani Pogline and Chairperson Lodge, Joey and Mello went to inspect the area. A call was made to Greg Goodale, Solid Waste Division, to find out status of those rocks. Awaiting a call back from Mr. Goodale. Steve Bergfeld mentioned that his department will try to construct a bigger turn around area because currently the space is too small for people to get in and out. Possiblly, move the check station more up so people don’t have to get out to walk to get to the check station. This way people will be more inclined to actually check in and check out. Chairperson Lodge was in a meeting with Wil Okabe, Managing Director, County of Hawaii, on an unrelated issue. After the meeting, he mentioned the situation to Wil Okabe. A week later the rocks were gone. Chairperson Tom Lodge expressed his appreciation to Wil Okabe in helping to move those big A5 Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 25, 2017 rocks. NEW BUSINESS: None COMMITTEE REPORTS: None NEXT MEETING SCHEDULED: The next meeting of the Game Management Advisory Commission is scheduled for May 23, 2017. ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Dwayne “Ike” Yoshina moved to adjourn the meeting and seconded Ms. Nani Pogline and carried unanimously by a voice vote. Meeting adjourned at 7:50p.m. Repectfully submitted by: Donna Urban-Higuchi, Secretary ATTEST: Thomas H. Lodge A6