July 7 marked the opening of the 2001 hunting season for big game – pigs, sheep, and goats – at three areas in the ahupua`a of Pu`uwa`awa`a on the island of Hawai`i.
The presence of these ungulates, along with the cattle that graze there as part of an ongoing ranching operations, has been one of the chief causes of depletion of many of the rare species of plants that were once abundant in the ahupua`a, on the dry, leeward side of the Big Island. Yet Pu`uwa`awa`a remains popular with hunters, not least because it is the only state hunting area where sheep may be taken.
The state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, a part of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, opened the season with youth archery hunts on four weekends in July at all three areas: the Mauna and Makai Cooperative Game Management Area; the Mauka Ranch Lease; and a 3,800-acre tract in the in the upper forested elevations of the land division that was removed from the ranch in the mid-1980s and set aside as the Pu`uwa`awa`a Wildlife Sanctuary.
After giving young bow hunters first crack, the season continues with opportunities for youth hunting with muzzleloaders, then, in increasing order of effectiveness, seasons for general archery and general muzzleloaders. Only on the last four weekends in September (beginning September 8), and in the sanctuary portion only, is hunting allowed with general firearms. Although hunting with dogs (the most successful means of removing animals by hunting) has not yet been scheduled, that, too, is contemplated to occur before the end of the year, at least in the sanctuary area.
The number of sheep that a hunter can take is limited to two a season (not including rams with deformed horns, which DOFAW is seeking to cull from the game population; no limit exists for these animals). No season limit exists for goats and pigs, although there is a daily limit of one goat and two pigs.
According to Jon Giffin, chief of DOFAW for the Big Island, this year’s hunt in the Wildlife Sanctuary may well be the last one – at least for sheep and goats. “The approved management plan for the sanctuary says the area will be animal-free,” Giffin told Environment Hawai`i. Initially, Giffin had hoped to have the sheep and goats out of the sanctuary by the end of June. But because of a manpower shortage, he said, it will be another six months before those animals are gone.
“We have to repair fences and gates, and there are still old sections of fence line,” Giffin said. With the recent hiring of a West Hawai`i field crew, Giffin is more hopeful that the new deadline of the end of the year will be met. For pigs, removal will take even longer, until two miles of the old fence can be replaced with new, pig-proof fence line.
Still, he continued, “we’re getting a lot of resistance in our efforts to remove animals from the sanctuary. The hunters are fighting this every inch of the way. They are absolutely opposed to any kind of animal removal. I keep telling them we have an approved management plan that calls for animal removal, but the hunters feel that, since the trees are recovering, the forest is recovering, we shouldn’t be removing these animals.
“My position is that these animals have to go. The reality is, I haven’t had the manpower to keep animals from moving in, much less to take them out,” he said.
Todd Lum, the DOFAW staffer responsible for supervising the hunts, sees the hunters as a bit more accepting of eradication within the sanctuary. One sign of this, he says, is the fact that members of the Wildlife Conservation Association, a hunting group, have volunteered to work at the hunter check-in stations at the ranch.
Sheep numbers in the sanctuary “are quite reduced from past years,” Lum said, while there are “very few, if any, goats.”
Work to “button up” the fence – tack it to the ground so animals cannot work their way into the sanctuary between the bottom of the fence line and the ground surface – should be completed “within the next quarter,” Lum told Environment Hawai`i.
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Snares At Pu`u Maka`ala