By JASON ARMSTRONG Tribune-Herald staff writer ADVERTISING Hunters and their supporters took to a Hilo street Monday to protest a state plan to ban hunting within 4,800 acres of public forest located south of Hilo. Feeling their way of life
By JASON ARMSTRONG
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Hunters and their supporters took to a Hilo street Monday to protest a state plan to ban hunting within 4,800 acres of public forest located south of Hilo.
Feeling their way of life is being threatened, about 20 participants held pro-hunting signs and waved at morning commuters while gathered outside the state’s Forestry and Wildlife Division headquarters on Kilauea Avenue.
The demonstration was peaceful, generating an occasional supportive honk from passing motorists. More than one patrol officer drove by the gathering, which lasted much of the morning.
“It’s sacred, that place,” Travis Afong said of the 18,706-acre Puu Makaala Natural Area Reserve located near the top of Stainback Highway and including much of the former Kulani prison site.
The state earlier this month released a 15-year management plan that calls for installing 17 miles of fencing to keep pigs, goats and sheep out of four management areas above the 3,300-foot-elevation level.
Feral ungulates’ eating practices destroy native vegetation, may accelerate the invasion of weed species and provide mosquito-breeding sites that can spread avian disease, according to a January draft environmental assessment of the state’s management plan.
“The primary threats to biodiversity and watershed integrity at Puu Makaala NAR are feral ungulates … especially feral pigs and non-native, invasive weeds,” the document states.
Extending almost to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park boundary, the area would be closed to hunting as a way of protecting the ecosystem from invasive species.
Afong said that’s where his grandfather taught him how to hunt and where he brings his 2-year-old daughter to pick flowers and recreate.
“It’s not all about hunting,” he said.
Closing the hunting areas will leave too little land to sustain the activity, said Ken Mohica, 52, a lifelong hunter from Fern Acres.
“They’re taking away all the prime hunting areas right now with this fencing project coming up,” Mohica said. “I just feel they have enough areas fenced off already where they can save their plants.”
The state has 230,810 acres of contiguous hunting areas, a full 38 percent of all Big Island hunting grounds, located directly across Stainback Highway from Puu Makaala, said Lisa Hadway, Big Island Natural Area Reserves System manager.
By comparison, the eight Big Island NARs total 95,000 acres, of which 12,000 acres are fenced, Hadway said.
Also, only 5.2 percent of Big Island “priority” watersheds are now protected, and half of Hawaii’s forests have been lost during the past 200 years, she said.
“Protecting a small portion of these incredibly unique forests is critical so that future generations will be able to experience the incredible places and species that comprise our unique Hawaiian forests and watersheds,” Hadway said in an email. “I believe there is room for all of the users in the forest, and when you look at the percentages of areas available and those protected, our areas are very small.”
Hunters, however, see the issue differently.
“We’re just the people of Hawaii. We’re just trying to get together to stop these land-grabs,” said Mountain View hunter John Griffiths, 49, who helped organize Monday’s protest.
“What’s local people going to do? Where’s our lifestyle?” he added.
One Hawaiian Paradise Park woman said although she’s not a hunter, she’s happy her refrigerator is full of wild game that family and friends provided.
“I am here for the culture of Hawaii,” said Nani, who didn’t give her last name.
Also offering his support was Sydney Singer, a self-described medical anthropologist from Puna. Singer said he’s not a hunter, but he was attracted to the issue because it involves threatening local culture by targeting one of its traditional food sources.
“If you’re going to get rid of the pigs, you’ve got to get rid of the culture that uses the pigs,” he said.
Lifelong hunter Pat Pacheco of Hilo accused Natural Area Reserves officials of spreading misinformation in order to have more public land placed under their control.
“It’s the same thing; they’re taking our hunting grounds away,” he said.
Pacheco suggested the state won’t stop with the 4,800-acre Puu Makaala area.
“They want to get rid of hunting by saying, ‘Get rid of the pigs.’ Then (there’s) no more hunting,” he said.
The state is accepting public comments on its long-range management plan until Feb. 7.
Once that comment deadline passes, the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Forestry and Wildlife Division will make an analysis and prepare responses, Hadway said.
All that information then goes first to DLNR Chairman William Aila and then the Board of Land and Natural Resources for approval, she said.
The last step will be publishing a final environmental assessment — the draft found “no specific major negative impacts” resulting from the management plan — in the “Environmental Notice” published by the state’s Office of Environmental Quality Control, Hadway said.
Email Jason Armstrong at jarmstrong@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
