The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has placed public hunting at the top of its list of tools to eradicate feral pigs within the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, on the eastern slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Kea. However, after nearly five years of public hunting, it seems clear that this has brought the refuge no closer than it was to its goals of eliminating pigs from the areas where hunting is allowed. If anything, the refuge is losing ground, with pig populations in the hunting areas being as high as or higher than they were at any time in the past.
In determining refuge management decisions to allow public hunting, the desires of a small but influential group of hunters appear to have been given more weight by the Fish and Wildlife Service than have the recommendations of its own biologists, conservationists, and people experienced in feral ungulate management. The claimed recreational needs and asserted rights of this outspoken group have, in the minds of many, been given a higher priority than the vital needs of the dwindling populations of Hakalau’s forest birds, whose protection is, after all, the first duty of the refuge.
Place of Many Perches
From 1976 to 1983, a group of young scientists participating in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Hawai’i Forest Bird Survey trekked through the forests on each of the main Hawaiian Islands in order to assess the distribution of birds. The resulting data were the first ever to show the areas of concentration of Hawai’i’s endangered and soon-to-be-endangered forest birds. When bird distribution maps were compared with maps of areas set aside for habitat protection, the results were disappointing. There was very little overlap.
It was out of this discovery that Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge was born in 1985. It was established under the authority of the Endangered Species Act in order to preserve endangered forest birds and their habitat and is managed by the Refuges and Wildlife Division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the first – and so far only – national wildlife refuge intended to protect forest birds.
The refuge lies on the eastern slopes of Mauna Kea in an area that, as indicated by the survey, contains substantial populations of 14 native forest birds, eight of which are endangered. Hakalau, which in Hawaiian means place of many perches, contains the core populations of three of these endangered birds: the akepa (Loxops coccineus); the akiapola’au (Hemignathus monroi); and the Hawai’i creeper (Oreomysris mana).
The refuge is also home to a number of native plants, many of which have co-evolved with forest birds and serve as primary sources of food. Like the birds, several of these plants are endangered or candidates for endangered classification.
Since 1985, the refuge has grown from 8,313 acres to its current 32,733 acres. The largest single addition to the refuge occurred in 1994, when a 15,716-acre parcel (the World Union parcel) was acquired on the makai side. While the acquisition of the land has been in itself a victory for the endangered forest birds, it is only the first step toward ensuring their survival. According to the 1983 Fish and Wildlife Service’s Hawaiian Forest Bird Recovery Plan, “the biggest threat to the continuing survival of Hawaii’s forest birds is the destruction and severe disruption of their habitat as a result of… grazing and browsing by feral animals.”
Surrounded
The forest contained by the refuge is regarded as one of the best examples of native wet and mesic koa and ‘ohia forest remaining in Hawai’i, but it has long suffered from extensive cattle grazing in the higher elevations and the presence of pigs at all elevations. In addition, the refuge is adjacent to several areas with high populations of feral pigs – the Hamakua and Hilo forest reserves, the Laupahoehoe Natural Area Reserve, and the state’s Piha Game Management Area, which bisects the refuge and separates the Maulua portion of the refuge from the more southerly portions. With the Piha area being managed by the state precisely to maintain healthy populations of pigs, constant entry of feral pigs into the refuge borders would seem to be inevitable.
After the Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the land that initially made up the refuge, active management of the area began in 1987 with the hiring of Richard Wass. Wass, whose background is in aquatic biology, remains refuge manager to the present.
Protection and expansion of native forest bird populations remaining in the refuge require the maintenance and expansion of their habitat. The presence of feral pigs and cattle in the forest is perhaps the chief impediment to this task. Management efforts have long been focused on ungulate control, but with the refuge’s current staff of 12 and even fewer in years past, effective ungulate control has not been easy. Creating even more difficulty for refuge management is the strong opposition of hunters to the very idea that pigs should be eliminated in the refuge.
In an attempt to supplement staff eradication efforts and placate pig hunters at the same time, refuge management opened selected areas on the refuge to public hunting and has given public hunting high priority as an eradication tool for the entire refuge. On its face, this appears to solve two problems. On the one hand, staff benefits as it is able to concentrate its pig-removal efforts in some parts of the refuge while the public is enlisted to clear out others. On the other, hunters benefit from the food and recreation provided by hunting. Left out of the equation, however, are the birds. Refuge statistics show clearly that public hunting is not achieving or even approaching its intended goal of pig eradication. Still, to the dismay of many conservationists and biologists, refuge management persists in its claim that public hunting is a valuable method of feral ungulate eradication.
The design of a feral ungulate management program for Hakalau goes back to 1986. At that time, the Cooperative National Park Resources Studies Unit, the National Park Service and the University of Hawai’i undertook a cooperative study of feral ungulates in the refuge area. The resulting Preliminary Survey of Feral Ungulate and Alien and Rare Plant Occurrence on Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge documented the types and locations of various plants and the degree of damage caused by cattle and pigs. In light of these findings, it made recommendations for future management on the refuge.
The report stated that through grazing and the suppression of koa reproduction, “cattle have converted large tracts of forest to open pasture throughout Hawai`i.” It recommended that “cattle… be removed from the refuge as soon as possible in order to allow forest regeneration to begin.” More attention was given to the elimination of pigs because of their greater population and the larger effort required to eradicate them. The report indicated that “continual disturbance by pigs will result in continued degradation of the under story and inhibition of native plant reproduction.” The recommendations emphasized that “eradication is necessary because the high reproductive potential of feral pigs can result in rapid repopulation of an area, even when just a few pigs remain.”
The report suggested that the refuge be divided into fenced feral ungulate management units in order to keep more pigs from entering the refuge and to help with eradication of existing pigs within the units. While acknowledging the possibility that populations of native forest birds were highest in mauka (upland) portions of the refuge, the report went on to recommend that emphasis be “placed on establishing makai units where forest integrity and reclamation potential are highest.” These areas suffered some degradation from the presence of ungulates, but had not been subjected to the long-term grazing that had occurred in the upper portions. This recommendation was justified by the assertion that “the future of the Refuge for birds depends upon regeneration of dominants and native forest. This is most readily accomplished in least-modified areas.” After individual units were fenced, the report called for intense pig management within the units. Snaring, trapping, baiting and the use of one-way gates were some of the management strategies suggested.
The report identified “systematic hunting with dogs” as “the most cost-effective method of pig control.” But the report emphasized that “a distinction must be made between pubic land systematic hunting.” As if foreseeing the problems HFNWR was destined to face, the report elaborated on this distinction:
“Public hunting sometimes reduces feral pigs in accessible areas and temporarily near human access points. It is also a good public relations tool. However, it should not be used instead of an effective, long-term pig population reduction or eradication program.”
Fencing of the HFNWR’s first management unit, the 550-acre Middle Honohina unit, was completed in 1988. Feral ungulate control on the refuge had officially begun. In 1989, a group of professional hunters from Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park came to the refuge to eradicate pigs and cattle from the unit. Following a concerted hunting effort that removed nearly all cattle and most pigs, snares were set within the unit and along the boundary to catch any animals that may have eluded the hunters. Two wild cows, pigs and two feral dogs were eliminated by the snares. The unit was then declared ungulate-free.
The Shipman parcel was the next management unit to be fenced. At 5,000 acres, the ungulate removal in this unit would prove far more challenging and expensive than in the relatively small Middle Honohina unit. While fencing of the Shipman unit was under way, systematic removal of cattle began. Once again, the refuge sought assistance from Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, contracting with the park to test aerial hunting as away of controlling feral cattle within the Shipman unit.
Riflemen on helicopter platforms and ground hunting teams set about the task of removing cattle from the unit. From December 1990 to November 1991, 93 cattle were killed in four helicopter hunts. An experienced local hunter was hired to remove any remaining cattle. There was no systematic effort to kill pigs in the unit in 1990, although 44 were killed by staff members while performing other duties.
With the Middle Honohina and Shipman efforts, the refuge seemed to have a running start on its ungulate control efforts. Management, however, had still not ruled out the use of public hunting as a means of eradicating pigs. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s 1989 management plan for the refuge included a discussion of the perceived benefits of public hunting over other approaches, including fencing. The management plan states that the “cost for this method of control [public hunting] is considerably less than that described above [fencing units] because fencing is not required.” (The plan does go on to note, however, that the “degree of control” achieved by public hunting “is also considerably less” than that achieved by other means.)
In February 1991, the refuge management developed a Sport Hunting Plan, which called for opening up part or parts of the refuge to public hunting as a means of reducing pig populations. The plan asserts that a public hunting program will fulfill the refuge objectives to “prevent further deterioration of native habitat” and “promote public awareness and appreciation for Hawaiian rainforest communities.” The plan goes on to elaborate on the latter objective: “Opening a portion of the refuge to hunting will … yield public relations benefits because the hunting public currently perceives the USFWS to be ‘anti-hunting’ and overly protective of the resources it manages.” Accompanying the plan was an environmental assessment, which declared, without substantiation, that the “environmental impacts of a public hunting program will be similar to the impacts of pig hunting efforts by refuge staff” A finding of no significant impact was issued by William E. Martin, the USFWS acting regional director on February 15, 1991.
Plans were made to open the refuge to public hunting the following year. Refuge hunting regulations would be identical to state regulations with the exception of bag limits. State regulations, the plan noted, “are designed to provide the hunting public with a sustained yield, so a daily bag limit of one or two pigs has been established.” The refuge has no interest in a “sustained yield” of pigs for hunters, the plan noted; thus, no bag limits would be enforced on the refuge.
Objections
Hardly had the plan been approved when it came under fire. In April 1991, representatives from the refuge, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, the Nature Conservancy’s Waikamoi Preserve on Maui, and the state met to discuss and set priorities for the fencing of feral ungulate management units at Hakalau refuge. According to a summary of the meeting prepared by Fish and Wildlife staff, highest priority was assigned to fencing the boundary between the Piha Game Management Area, owned by the state, and the Honohina portion of the refuge because of resource value and conflicting management objectives between the two areas. Those in attendance opposed public hunting on the refuge. A summary of the meeting prepared by refuge staff indicates some of the concerns raised: that “limited resources could be better spent on staff and contract hunting,” and that “good public relations should not be a priority management objective.”
Participants emphasized the effectiveness of multiple control measures in pig elimination over reliance on a single method (that is, hunting), noting that the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy were relying increasingly on snares to reduce pig populations in hard-to-reach areas.
Diminishing Returns
Over these objections, the Sport Hunting Plan went into effect in January 1992, with the opening of the 7,240-acre Maulua tract for public hunting. The area is the northernmost portion of the refuge, bordered by the Laupahoehoe State Natural Area Reserve to the north and the Piha Game Management Area to the south. No fenced feral ungulate management units had yet been established in the Maulua tract. Hunters would be allowed to hunt pigs in the area by reservation only, on state holidays and on the first three weekends of each month with no daily or seasonal limits on the number of pigs killed. The last weekend of each month would be reserved for the non-hunting public for recreational activities such as hiking, bird watching and photography. Access to the area could only be obtained through a gate in the upper portion of the Maulua tract.
Initially, the response from hunters was promising, with 105 reservations in the first month, but the numbers soon declined. As noted in the refuge’s 1992 Annual Narrative Report, after the first few weekends of public hunting, hunters realized “that hunting on the refuge was no better than in the adjoining state-managed areas ‘Ohia and Laupahoehoe so their numbers declined markedly.” The lack of hunter participation prompted refuge manager Wass to attend two meetings later in 1992 with staff from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife and about 25 local pig hunters. State Rep. Dwight Takamine, from the Hamakua area of the Big Island, had called the meetings to discuss state and federal public hunting programs and management objectives. The refuge’s 1992 Annual Narrative Report includes a short summary of the talks, indicating that they “did much to facilitate communication between hunters and managers.”
According to that 1992 report, hunters expressed disappointment that the refuge was not being “responsive” to their position. Hunters claimed more and more lands in the state were being managed for pig eradication and control. This, they said, along with land uses such as ranching, logging and closures of private property, resulted in the “continued compression of public hunting areas.” Hunters also claimed that the mountain was their “meat locker,” that they depended on it as a food source for their families, and that they were disappointed in the apparent waste of meat resulting from systematic eradication programs. The report mentioned, too, that the hunters claimed it was only “outsiders (‘mainland haoles’) who wanted to preserve native birds and plants for their own enjoyment.” The report went on to paraphrase the hunters as saying that ‘locals’ appreciate native birds and plants, too, but as an integral part of the hunting experience.”
‘Fabricated’ Evidence
Finally, the hunters were reported to have expressed the view that, contrary to the claims of scientists, pigs “are beneficial to the native forest at low to medium population levels.” They claimed that the collected data, “which implicate ungulates as responsible for significant forest degradation, are fabricated by scientists and government officials to support control programs, and that scientists who net birds for study and blood sampling actually do more harm than pigs.
The report states that the meetings “caused the Refuge Manager to begin thinking about permitting hunters to access the Maulua Tract from the lower end and to allow them to use dogs.” Wass appears to have let himself be swayed by the hunters’ arguments; despite a growing number of studies, published in peer-reviewed journals, showing the ineffectiveness of public hunting in Hawai’i as a means of eradicating pigs. Moreover, Wass seems not to have anticipated that the strong anti-eradication sentiment expressed at the meetings could be the first signs of a pattern that, if allowed to snowball, could cause future problems for refuge management.
On June 17, 1993, Wass issued a modification to the Sport Hunting Plan that was to go into effect on July 1. The modification stated that, “After current refuge hunting regulations, hunters residing along the Hamakua Coast had to drive more than 60 miles each way to get to the Maulua Public hunting area access gate, in the upper portion of the refuge. If direct access were provided to the lower end of the tract, the long drive could be eliminated and an area that was not being hunted at the time could be made available to hunters. The hunting public had been concentrated up to this point if the upper parts of the tract because of the long hike resulted to get to the lower section from within. Hunters would now be able to enter the lower Maulua portion either by way of the Piha State Game Management Area to the south or the Laupahoehoe State Natural Area Reserve to the north. Each of the rules for lower Maulua outlined in the modification tracked a regulation in the adjacent state hunting areas. The use of hunting dogs, which had been prohibited up to this point, would be allowed in lower Maulua since they were also allowed in the lower portions of Piha and Laupahoehoe. Likewise, since hunters in the adjacent sections of Piha and Laupahoehoe were not required to make reservations and could hunt on any day of the week, hunters in lower Maulua would be allowed the same freedoms.
The rule that departed most meaningfully from past management practice, however, was the one that established a bag limit. Despite the indication in the original Sport Hunting Plan that bag limits were contrary to the refuge’s ultimate goal of eliminating pigs, the modification document set a bag limit of two pigs of either sex for the lower Maulua area, identical to state regulations on hunting in the lower Piha area.
With this modification to hunting policy, refuge management effectively annexed lower Maulua to the state’s hunting lands, allowing hunters to come and go without restriction and applying state bag limits, designed to assure hunters a sustained yield of pigs.
The refuge’s Annual Narrative Report for 1993 indicates that between 1990 and 1992, 170 cattle were removed from the fenced Shipman unit. During 1993, no signs of cattle activity were observed so refuge staff turned its attention to pigs. Eighty-seven pigs were removed by hunting, 30 by snares and three by other means not indicated. Fencing was completed on the 180 acre lower Honohina unit in this year, making it the refuge’s third fenced feral ungulate management unit.
The report includes a table comparing 1993 feral ungulate survey results to statistics from 1992. The data used to gauge pig presence are collected by observing recent signs of ungulate activity on established trails in various places on the refuge. Each transect is divided into 5 x 10 meter plots and the survey results are expressed in terms of the percentage of plots within each transect where pig activity is evident.
The report states that refuge-wide pig activity increased from 30 percent in 1992 to 42 percent in 1993 (that is, in 1993, 42 percent of all plots in the refuge showed signs of pig presence). The only transects on the refuge showing reduced pig activity were within the Shipman unit; where staff hunting and snaring had been concentrated. All the Maulua transects showed marked increases in percentages of pig activity, with an average increase of 31 percent.
Although past studies had warned that public hunting was ineffective in controlling pig populations, the report still describes the increased levels of pig activity in the Maulua tract as “surprising,” since “public hunting was initiated in these areas in 1992.” In addition, the report notes that although pig activity levels decreased in the first six months after the area was opened to public hunting, the 1993 survey “shows the pig population returning to pre-hunting levels.”
In 1994, fencing was completed on the upper Maulua section. The refuge’s statistics for this year indicate that 25 pigs were taken by public hunters in the Maulua Public Hunting Area. This number, however, reflects only the pigs taken in the upper portion of the tract, since hunters in lower Maulua were not required to report the number of pigs taken. Also, 25 were killed by snares in the Shipman unit and 110 were taken in Shipman by staff hunting.
The refuge Annual Report for 1994 indicates that the “pig population in Upper Maulua remains very high in spite of the public hunting effort,” while “populations have been markedly reduced during the past year by staff hunting and snaring in the Shipman unit.”
In short, the data gathered from the Maulua tract bear out the predictions of the 1987 National Park Service report, which warned that public hunters “normally go to new areas once hunting becomes difficult and/or wait for pig numbers to increase to ensure individual hunter success. In the six months following the opening of the public hunting program at the refuge in January 1992, pig population since each Maulua transect decreased significantly. The feral ungulate survey taken in July 1992 indicates an average decrease of 24.5 percent in observed pig activity in these transects. The next survey, conducted in September of 1993 shows that pig populations increased in each of these transects to levels slightly higher than before public hunting was initiated. In other words, after 1 1/2 years of public hunting in Maulua, feral pig populations were actually higher that they were to begin with.
In contrast, the five transects in the Shipman unit, where staff hunting and snaring continued, showed further decline in pig populations or, in one case, a negligible increase of only 1 percent. Three out of the five units showed a constant decline from 1992 to 1994.
Despite statistics indicating that the pig population was on the increase in the Maulua area, in July 1994, Wass issued a statement of compatibility – required under the Endangered Species Act – regarding the hunting plan. “A major management objective for the refuge is to reduce/eliminate feral pig populations,” Wass stated. This was followed by the determination that public hunting “will have a beneficial effect in controlling the pig population in the forest,” and that ”hunting activity will decrease the impacts of feral pigs on the native forest.”
In 1995, the refuge began to prepare a formal Feral Ungulate Management Plan, or FUMP. According to an overview of the refuge’s history in the final document (prepared by wildlife biologist Ron Walker), by the end of 1994, nearly 10 years since the refuge’s establishment, it had become “apparent to the Refuge staff… that an organized and detailed prescription for the management, control and possible elimination of feral ungulates was needed.”
But at the very time that the refuge was acknowledging the need for aggressive ungulate control, refuge staff were instructed to stop all hunting or snaring efforts. The edict came in a memorandum to Wass from Robert P. Smith, Pacific Islands ecoregion manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Smith told Wass “to immediately cease all hunting and/or snaring of pig and feral cattle on the refuge by refuge personnel,” until further notice.
Smith gave two reasons in the memo for the suspension of staff control efforts. The first involved the “disposition of meat taken by Federal employees on the refuge.” Prior to this time, refuge staff had been allowed occasionally to take meat from staff hunting efforts during off-hours and also hunt pigs (in areas not open to the public) when not on duty. Although one of the major contentions of hunters opposed to staff eradication efforts was that too much meat was wasted, refuge management apparently had received complaints concerning the taking of meat by staff members.
In the memo, Smith states that the refuge policy on staff take of meat “needs significant revision.” It remains unclear, however, why a cessation of all snaring and on-the-clock systematic hunting efforts would be required while Smith reviewed this particular policy. According to Wass, the staff take of meat is still not allowed and the policy remains under review.
The second justification given by Smith involved the preparation of the feral ungulate management plan and the “extensive public involvement” anticipated in the plan’s formation. “I do not believe that the Service will appear completely genuine about considering the input of the public if we have an ungulate control program already underway during development of the plan and public involvement periods,” Smith says in the memo. Despite the prior justification of public hunting on the refuge as a feral ungulate management tool supplemental to staff efforts, Smith made it clear in the memo that the cessation order did “not pertain to the general public hunting program approved for the refuge.”1
More FUMP
Three meetings to discuss the contents of the proposed FUMP were held in 1995 with members of refuge staff, representatives from hunting organizations, and Federal and state agencies. Ron Walker took notes at all three meetings.
In his notes, Walker refers to the first meeting, held on February 22, 1995, as an “Agency Scoping Meeting.” One suggestion to emerge from the meeting was that the plan identify public hunting as just one part of a sequence of actions leading to pig eradication – public hunting would be identified as a first step to be followed by staff hunting and snaring as soon as hunter take diminished.
Attending the second meeting, held March 13, were representatives from the refuge; Sen. Daniel Akaka’s office; the Wildlife Conservation Association of Hawai’i (WCAH), a hunting organization; and the Pighunters of Hawai’i, another hunting group.
Concerns aired at this meeting echoed those voiced at the 1992 hunter meetings with Wass. According to Walker’s notes, one of the hunters suggested that, since the “ESA [Endangered Species Act] is the basis for the creation of the HFNWR and elimination of pigs is the mission, then the ESA should be overturned or modified to allow sustained yield hunting.” Aside from Fish and Wildlife staff and Walker, no representatives from the scientific community attended this meeting. Wass’ notes from the meeting indicate that when hunters were “confronted with a statement that the vast majority of scientists has concluded that pigs damage native forest,” one hunter representative “stated that Tim Ohashi believes that pigs do not need to be totally eliminated to preserve native forest.”2 According to Walker’s notes, it was clear at this meeting that hunters continued to oppose the refuge management goal of total eradication of feral ungulates.
An Ultimatum
Representatives from the same organizations as well as representatives from the governor’s office in Hilo and Rep. Patsy Mink’s office attended the third meeting, held April 10.3
Walker’s notes from this meeting indicate that hunters do not budge from the positions they had staked out earlier. Brief notes taken by Wass indicate the most significant result of the meeting was an ultimatum presented by the hunters to refuge management. The following is taken directly from Wass’ notes of the meeting:
“The Wildlife Conservation Association of Hawai’i met April 7 to discuss Hakalau’s ungulate management plan. The members reached the following position: They will support the [plan] if it includes ‘gated management in areas not yet fenced… They are willing to concede pig ‘eradication’ in the areas that have already been fenced. They define ‘game management’ as sustained yield hunting to keep the pig population at about 50 percent of the carrying capacity and a bag limit of two pigs per hunter. The hunters want a ‘guarantee’ that ‘game management will be an objective within the lower elevations of the refuge.’ Only when they have that ‘guarantee’ will they be willing to discuss and recommend ways to encourage and facilitate public hunting at Hakalau. They were unwilling to discuss those subjects at the meeting because we would not give them the ‘guarantee’. The meeting, therefore, ended in a stalemate.
In the end, the hunters did not get their guarantee. Wass ultimately rejected their ultimatum in an October 19, 1995, letter to Lloyd Case, a representative of WCAH, in which Wass confirmed statements made in July telephone conversations he had had with Steve Lichter of the Pighunters of Hawai’i and Isaac Fiesta of the WCAH. (Fiesta, it should be noted, is business agent for the politically muscular International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union local 142 and was recently appointed by Governor Cayetano to serve a four-year term on the Land Use Commission.)
In the letter, Wass wrote that he, refuge staff, and Fish and Wildlife Service officials at the Honolulu office had concluded that a “sustained yield hunting program is not compatible with the purpose for which the refuge was established which is to protect and enhance populations of native Hawaiian forest birds and their habitat.” Furthermore, Wass said it had been “determined that a pig population of 50 percent or any other level above zero will degrade the native forest habitat.”
Stalling Out
In addition to the meetings with hunters, refuge staff met twice, in August and September 1995, with the Natural Areas Working Group. NAWG had been organized in 1994 by the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife in order to discuss and resolve management conflicts arising in the state’s Natural Areas Reserve System. The group was made up of environmentalists, representatives of hunter interests, community activists and representatives of state and federal conservation and game agencies.
Walker’s notes from the August meeting indicate that, again, public hunting dominated the discussion. Lichter presented a map of the refuge illustrating his proposal that refuge management allow sustained-yield hunting on the lower half of the refuge while maintaining the goal of pig eradication in the upper elevations. Later in the meeting, Walker’s notes indicate, NAWG member Marjorie Ziegler of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund pointed out that “any ‘sustained yield management’ option … would not be acceptable because it would result in endangered species habitat damage which would be contrary to the purpose for which the refuge was established.”
According to a summary drawn up by Richard Wass, most of the September meeting with NAWG was “spent venting frustrations.” However, Wass’ summary also indicates that several times during the meeting, NAWG members Jim Jacobi (a scientist with the Fish and Wildlife Service), Kim Harris (The Nature Conservancy of Hawai’i) and Bill Stormont (state Natural Areas Reserve System) pointed out that “the NAWG had previously agreed that some areas should be managed for pigs and some for native species,” and that they felt “that Hakalau was one of the native species.”
Moving Backward
In September 1995, HFNWR released its annual feral ungulate survey. The survey – the first conducted since Robert Smith’s January order to cease all staff hunting and snaring -contained sobering new statistics:
“As a result of the moratorium on staff hunting, pig activity has more than tripled throughout the area (Pua Akala, Hakalau, and Honohina tracts) since the 1994 survey. Pig activity has increased from a low average of 8 percent (1.5 percent to 15 percent) in 1994 to 29 percent (3 percent – 71 percent) during the 1995 survey on six transects within the Pua Akala and Hakalau tracts… Numerous pig family groups with piglets six months old or less have been recently seen in the open grasslands above the forest.”
The moratorium also had devastating effects on the refuge’s highly publicized koa reforestation efforts, which had been concentrated in upper level pasture areas for two years. According to survey results:
“Considerable pig damage has occurred to seedlings planted in 1993 with as much as 50 percent seedling loss having taken place. The damage occurs when pigs move up from the forest and into the pastures in the evening. While searching for worms and grubs, they root and push up the clods of grasses and soil along the scarified tree planting corridors, digging up some seedlings and inadvertently burying others. During this survey, pasture portions of the transects showed as much as three times more pig activity than in 1994.”
Pig activity was noted even in the small Middle Honohina unit, the first to be declared ungulate-free. The lower Honohina unit, meanwhile, had suffered a 25 percent increase in pig activity since the 1994 survey. Pig activity decreased somewhat in parts of the fenced Upper Maulua area, but as the survey notes, pig “activity has been consistently lower in this area due to the dense, thick cover of kikuyu grass and the open nature of the pasture.”
The survey also disclosed that, for the third year in a row, there was no decrease in pig populations in the lower Maulua portion open to public hunting: “The lower unfenced portions of [Maulua] continue to have greater than 90 percent pig activity throughout despite three and one half years of public hunting. A slight increase in activity, mostly occurring in the area just below the road where hunter pressure should be the greatest, is indicative of the lack of hunter pressure within these portions of the tract… The lack of pig fences in the lower portions of Maulua, immigration of pigs from adjacent areas, continuous reproduction and continued low hunter pressure continue to contribute to the high pig population within this area.”
In conclusion, the 1995 survey notes that “hunting pressure from refuge staff and/or the use of other control methods is needed to reduce feral pig populations on the refuge in a timely manner and to allow for habitat regeneration eminently necessary to aid in endangered forest bird recovery, for which Hakalau Forest NWR was created.”
Limited staff hunting to protect koa seedlings resumed in the fall of 1995 in areas that previously had been controlled, but no new ungulate control efforts were to be initiated until the final ungulate management plan was approved. In November 1995, the Upper Honohina management unit was fenced and in December, the use of hunting dogs by the public was permitted in the enclosed Upper Maulua unit to increase hunter effectiveness.
Early Warnings
Discussions concerning the contents of a draft ungulate management plan lasted throughout 1995 and well into 1996. In December 1995, a preliminary draft was circulated among agency staff Steven Fancy and Thane Pratt, both wildlife biologists with the U.S. Department of Interior’s National Biological Service, submitted comments. While each was supportive of the plan’s objectives, each expressed doubts as to the effectiveness or need to use public hunting as a tool to attain the plan’s goals.
Fancy indicated in his letter that public hunting “on certain portions of the refuge should be continued, but is unlikely to effectively reduce pig populations on the refuge and should be augmented by staff hunting.” He goes on to state: “While some members of the public will oppose staff hunting and snaring to eliminate pigs on the refuge, I believe that the mandates to the USFWS to recover endangered species and to meet the objectives for which the refuge was established necessitate an aggressive approach to eliminating feral ungulates as quickly as possible.”
Pratt’s letter elaborates on several concerns that arise from having public hunting included in the plan, among them the likelihood that hunters could themselves carry seeds of noxious plants into the refuge. Pratt warns refuge management that, “By inviting such a small but politically aggressive user-group that does not want to see the end of the pigs anywhere, the refuge may eventually bend to this new clientele and keep sections of the refuge open to pig hunting under the rationale that management can’t do the job by itself.”
Finally, in March 1996, the draft feral ungulate management plan and accompanying environmental assessment were made public. Public hunting continued to be mentioned as a tool in pig control, despite the warnings of Pratt and Fancy. “Merely reducing pig numbers will not fulfill the purposes of the Refuge,” the draft plan acknowledges. “Due to the severity of these impacts, the potential of rapid population growth if a few pigs remain, and the conflict that one-time elimination is more cost-effective, the goal is to eliminate pigs.” However, the document does not call for elimination of pigs throughout the entire refuge. Rather, it calls for their removal only “from fenced Feral Ungulate Management Units,” with populations in unfenced areas to be “minimized” until such time as those areas, too can be fenced.
Such a strategy depends for its effectiveness on an aggressive fencing program. This, however, the refuge lacks.
When the draft plan was released, for example, the lower Maulua unit had been open to public hunting since 1993 and had been unfenced the whole time. Maps in the draft document that showed priority fencing areas for the refuge suggest that any fencing for the lower Maulua area and the vast World Union parcel would be years off.
Indeed, in an interview with Environment Hawai`i, Wass raised the possibility that the lower Union parcel might itself be opened to public hunting. “We have to decide if the benefits are significant enough to outweigh the downside, which is the introduction of alien plants” into a relatively weed-free environment, Wass said.
Getting the Pigs Out
The draft FUMP includes a variety of methods to be used in feral pig eradication. The first three pertain to the initial enclosure of feral ungulate management units. They are: fencing with hog wire; installing one-way gates along fence lines to let pigs leave fenced areas; and driving pigs out of management units just before completing the fences.
After the fences are in place, the draft plan lists a wide and, some might argue, bizarre range of eradication measures. They are: public hunting with dogs; staff hunting with dogs; snaring; contract hunting; trapping; the use of Forward Looking Infrared devices to track down pigs (a method requiring rental of helicopters flying at low altitudes in open terrain hardly practical in a forest refuge operating with limited funds); biocontrol (in the form of predation by introduced feral dogs); sterilants (unproven, with the added drawback that a sterilized animal will continue to wreak havoc until its death); and toxicants (none has yet been approved for use).
The draft plan acknowledges that in all likelihood, only the first three of these measures will be used. (The final plan, released in August 1996, tracks language in the draft, except for the suggestion that feral dogs be used, which has been dropped.)
Leaning Toward Hunting
After the draft FUMP’s release in March 1996, two public meetings were held, one in Hilo and one in Waimea. USFWS files contained a consolidated summary of the issues and questions discussed at both meetings. According to the summary, “a preponderance of attendees represent[ed] the local hunter special interest group” at both meetings; few of those attending represented the “conservation special interest group.”
The primary issue discussed at these meetings, according to the summary, was the desire for continued and expanded public hunting. At one point, the summary indicates:
“Dick Wass, Refuge Manager, made it clear that management actions on the Refuge are tied to the purpose of the Refuge as mandated by Congress. Thus, the entire 32,000 acres are managed with the purpose of protecting endangered birds and plants.”
Later in the meeting, however, Robert Smith, Pacific Islands Ecoregion manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service, tempered Wass’ statement. Acknowledging that the service has to “manage for endangered species on the Refuge,” Smith said, it is nevertheless “driven by the budget” to compromise. The “lower areas inaccessible, fences are expensive. Management leans toward public hunting in unfenced areas,” Smith was reported to have said.
Contrary views
While the meetings produced comments largely in support of public hunting, only one of the five written responses to the draft FUMP appearing in USFWS files indicated approval of this part of the plan. The remainder were supportive of the refuge’s proposed actions but expressed concerns over the use of public hunting, as a management tool.
In one letter, dated April 21, 1996, Daniel Sailer of the Hawaii Audubon Society stated that while “we would like to hope that sustained yields of ungulates can be achieved in other protected areas, the critically endangered status of the native forest bird and plants within the Refuge warrants a policy leading to the most rapid recovery of native habitat.”
He went on to suggest that “if the Service should err in its policy of controlling feral ungulates, we urge that the Service err on the side of conservation,” and to point out that since feral pigs and cattle are “in no danger of being threatened with extinction, we are unconvinced that their continued presence on the Refuge commands a higher priority than the recovery of native forest bird populations.”
The longest and most detailed letter received by the refuge was from Rick Warshauer, a botanist with the National Biological Service who had participated in the Hawai’i Forest Bird Survey. Warshauer’s 10-page letter contains a thorough discussion of his concerns regarding the draft FUMP and comments based on “my own field experience and also those of other agencies with whom I have shared a keen interest in ungulate damage and control in native ecosystems since the early 1970s.”
Warshauer’s letter, dated May 10, 1996 arrived more than two weeks after the April 23 deadline for public comment. And although the final plan was not published until August, it seems as though Warshauer’s concerns went unaddressed. One of Warshauer’s major concerns involves management on the lower portions of the refuge. According to Warshauer, since “most of the lower half of the refuge was purchased in 1994, well after refuge management costs and resource evaluation had been initiated, one cannot help but wonder why the doubling of the refuge size was undertaken at all if refuge management is not going to be prioritizing its best management into the new area as well.”
On the issue of public hunting, Warshauer reminds USFWS that it has been proven an ineffective tool in eliminating or even sufficiently reducing pig populations. He continues:
“To utilize inefficient or questionable means of removal over proven efficient means in order to try to appease those opposed to your mission cannot be viewed as either cost effective or the most ecologically responsible. The hunters have alternative areas to hunt, but the refuge area is limited in extent and without alternative.”
A letter to refuge management dated May 25, 1996 from the refuge staff biologist Jack Jeffrey, also a participant in the Hawai`i Forest Bird Survey, echoes Warshauer’s concerns. Jeffrey laments the fact that “it seems that special interest groups have become more important than the ecosystem.” In his letter, Jeffrey states that many of the management decisions being made at the time regarding feral ungulate control “are not biologically or ecologically sound, not compatible with refuge mandates, not in the best interest of the refuge’s endangered species but to all the other native species that call this ‘place of many perches’ their home.” “Welding to the whims of special interest hunter groups is not an acceptable or reasonable strategy,” Jeffrey says. He then states that such a strategy will “with no doubt in my mind and that of many other of Hawai`i’s biologists and conservationists cause the extinction of the very species we are mandated to protect.”
Jeffrey emphasizes the devastation and “localized” extinction caused by avian malaria which was (and still is) advancing from lower to higher elevations on the refuge “like a wave of death.” The actions of feral pigs are acknowledged as being directly related to the spread of avian malaria and, according to Jeffrey, this is one of the primary issues necessitating the speedy removal of pigs from the refuge:
“We know the causes and we have the tools and the ability to avert, or at least delay, extinctions on the refuge, but we need to take drastic action, now.”
As mentioned earlier, a final document was issued in August 1996 that was, in most respects, nearly identical to the draft. One exception was an addition appearing in the introduction to the FUMP, in the section setting forth the legal basis for the plan. Along with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administrative Act of 1966 and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the plan cited Presidential Executive Order 12996 of March 25, 1996 as its legal justification.
The executive order, issued less than a month after the draft plan was made public, was concerned primarily with public use of the National Wildlife Refuge System. It mandates the recognition of “comparable wildlife-dependent recreational activities involving hunting, fishing, wildlife observations and photography, and environmental education and interpretation.” The order directs that refuges “provide expanded opportunities for these priority public uses,” but goes on to say that this is to be done only “when they are compatible and consistent with sound principles of fish and wildlife management.”
In September 1996, the refuge disclosed that surveys made in the Upper Maulua unit indicated that pig activity had been reduced to 23 percent. Still, in view of past statistics, the report noted that if “public hunting continues at the same rate, a moderate pig population level will be sustained.”
“Pig activity levels have remained almost steady for the past three years, indicating that public hunting is barely keeping up with reproduction.”
- 1. An unstated reason for Smith’s order may have been some serious personnel problems at the refuge. Indeed, Smith’s order may have prompted by a desire to resolve this issue more than by any of the reasons cited in his memo as justification for the move. Environment Hawai`i has not been able to substantiate this, however.
2. In “Feral Pig Management in Hawai`i – Management Alternatives for the Natural Area Reserves System,” Ohashi identifies total eradication of feral pigs as an unrealistic and unnecessary management goal for Hawai`i’s forests. He asserts that while “pigs are considered an undesirable animal within the Natural Area Reserves System, they are in demand by hunters as a recreational and food resource.” He recommends that forest managers determine an acceptable population of pigs and utilize public hunting to reduce populations to that level. However, Ohashi also states that recreational “hunting has not been shown to be effective in remote areas having rugged terrain with no roads for vehicular transit,” and that “light and infrequent hunting by individuals willing to venture into such areas results in spot reductions that may have no net effect in reducing the population.” See Tim Ohashi, “Feral Pig Management in Hawai`i: Management Alternatives for the Natural Area Reserves System.” Prepared for the Hawai`i Natural Area Reserves Commission by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Animal Damage Control (Honolulu, 1988).
3. Mink has supported hunters throughout the development of management plans for Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge. Most recently, in a letter dated May 9, 1997, to the chairman of the House Interior Appropriations subcommittee, Mink defended the inclusion of public hunting in the Feral Ungulate Management Plan. “To exclude public participation after the plan had specifically been worked out with local and state authorities to include public hunting would greatly exacerbate public confidence in the [Fish and Wildlife] Service.” Mink wrote. “Allowing the hunters to help achieve the goals of the plan supports the state-federal partnership and maintains the critical, oftentimes fragile community relations.”
Volume 8, Number 4 October 1997
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