Maui Mouflon?<\/b> Investigations into how axis deer arrived on the Big Island have turned up one intriguing theory: that at least some of the deer were brought from Maui in exchange for mouflon from the Big Island.<\/p>\n
Lending credibility to that suspicion are recent blog accounts and photos of mouflon hunts and a mouflon trophy taken on the slopes of Haleakala, at Arrow One Ranch. The ranch itself advertises \u201cmouflon-hybrid\u201d hunts on its web site, www.mauideerhunting.com,<\/b><\/a> and says it has more than 1,000 axis deer and mouflon\/hybrid sheep.<\/p>\n Keevin Minami, the Department of Agriculture\u2019s land vertebrate specialist, told Environment Hawai`i<\/i> that no one on Maui has applied for a permit to possess mouflon during his six-year tenure at the department.<\/p>\n Jeff Grundhauser, manager of Arrow One Ranch, told Environment Hawai`i <\/i>in an email that his ranch does not have pure mouflon, but \u201cwe only have cross breed sheep, mostly Texas dall and Barbados.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes there are rams with similar colors like a mouflon,\u201d he said, but he insisted there were no pure mouflon sheep. \u201cThe only place you can hunt a pure mouflon sheep now is on Lana`i and maybe there\u2019s a couple of places on the Big Island.\u201d<\/p>\n Devil Weed:<\/b> The dreaded weed Chromolaena odorata,<\/i> which the U.S. Army\u2019s environmental crew recently discovered on O`ahu\u2019s North Shore, may not pose a huge threat to Hawai`i\u2019s wild habitats, according to University of Hawai`i forester J.B. Friday.<\/p>\n Although the weed \u2013 toxic to humans, livestock, and other plants \u2013 is considered one of the worst in the world, it struggles in the shade.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I don\u2019t see Chromolaena becoming a major problem in natural areas, but it could be a real problem for ranches,\u201d Friday stated in an email he recently posted on an invasive species list serve.<\/p>\n The weed, which forms dense, monotypic stands, has overwhelmed grazing lands in dry and mesic areas in East Timor, he added, but seemed outcompeted by grass in west areas.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also present in the Philippines \u201cbut I never heard it referred to as a problem. Farmers find it easy to clear for cultivation,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n The Army, the O`ahu Invasive Species Committee, the state Department of Agriculture, and the Bishop Museum\u2019s O`ahu Early Detection program are mapping the weed\u2019s locations and developing a management strategy.<\/p>\n Although the plant can produce annually 800,000 seeds that can last up to a year in the soil, effective control methods, including several biocontrol agents, exist.<\/p>\n Military training most likely introduced the weed to Hawai`i, according to an article by the Army\u2019s Jane Beachy in the May\/June 2011 issue of Public Works Digest.<\/i>\u00a0<\/p>\n Chromolaena is found throughout Asia, Australia, Africa, and Oceania. So far, surveyors have spotted the weed on at least 150 acres on O`ahu.<\/p>\n Eureka!<\/b> A few months ago a state contractor determined through genetic testing that the Myoporum thrip, a pest that poses a threat to native naio, is originally from Tasmania. That\u2019s according to Cynthia King, an entomologist with the state Department of Natural Resources\u2019 Division of Forestry and Wildlife.<\/p>\n Now that managers here know the insect\u2019s home range, they can search for its natural enemies and test whether any of them can be used as biocontrol agents.<\/p>\n The thrips were found to be attacking naio (Myoporum sandwicense<\/i>) at Waikoloa in March 2009, and the infestation has since spread to other areas in the northwestern part of the Big Island.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing in the field, it\u2019s pretty bad,\u201d King told the Natural Area Reserve System Commission in June. She added that a grant application has been filed to fund biocontrol research.<\/p>\n Volume 22, Number 2 — August 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maui Mouflon? Investigations into how axis deer arrived on the Big Island have turned up one intriguing theory: that at least some of the deer were brought from Maui in exchange for mouflon from the Big Island. Lending credibility to … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-august-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}