By Rod Thompson, Star-Bulletin
For the four generations of the Medeiros family, (clockwise
from top left) Thomas Jr., Antone, Thomas III and Thomas,
hunting is a family tradition. Antone has been fighting
against eradication hunting since the 1970s.

---

As preservation
efforts rise, hunters
fear own extinction

The state plans to rid
Mauna Kea of game mammals
to help the endangered
palila bird

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

HILO -- The state Division of Forestry and Wildlife is preparing to offer hunters four-wheel-drive rides on Mauna Kea to kill the last 235 sheep on the mountain, part of an effort to save the endangered palila bird.

Hunters don't like it.

The death of the last game mammals on the mountain would mean the end of hunting there, part of a trend toward decreased hunting areas -- which has some Big Island hunters feeling that they are the ones becoming an endangered species.

"I'm sad to hear it again," responded Papaikou hunter Tommy Medeiros to the Mauna Kea hunt.

His father Antone, 77 and still hunting every weekend, was among those who opposed eradication of sheep and goats on Mauna Kea in the 1970s and 1980s. A federal judge in Honolulu ordered the action because herds, which once numbered 40,000 sheep, were destroying the mamane forest on which the palila depended.

Tom Lodge, vice president of Pig Hunters of Hawaii, saw no benefit in the new hunt designed to eliminate game animals. "We're being forced out of our forests, and we're being legislated out of our forests," he said.

The draft environmental impact statement for Saddle Road improvements lists six areas besides Mauna Kea where hunting has been ended since 1970.

"The escalating conflict between promoting hunting and managing land for endangered species and the habitats that sustain them bodes more loss of hunting areas," the study says.

Former sugar worker Jeffrey Dias of Hamakua, past president of the 800-member Wildlife Conservation Association of Hawaii, said many former sugar workers hunt to feed their families.

"Plenty guys no more job, so they turn to the mountain," he said.

The immediate concern of Hamakua hunters is the 33,000-acre Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge, where pigs and wild cattle are being eliminated.

Pigs are especially destructive because they create places for breeding of Culex mosquitoes that carry diseases fatal to native birds, said Larry Katahira of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which has long tried to eradicate its pigs.

Hunters are still angry about Mauna Kea, where under federal court orders, state hunters cleared animals from 50,000 acres by shooting them from helicopters and leaving their carcasses to rot.

While mamane is now recovering, most palila die when federal officials try to promote their spread, said hunter Lodge. "They kill more palila than any other hazard," he said.

Biological consultant Reggie David responded, "It's not like moving chickens from one area to another. It's not uncommon (in trying to re-establish a species) that it takes many tries to get it going."

Lodge also said the lack of sheep and goats has allowed the spread of plant pests German ivy and fountain grass.

The answer is not to reintroduce sheep, David said. "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Linda Pratt, Big Island member of the state Natural Area Reserve System Commission, said the group nominated 30,000 acres at the Waiakea Forest Reserve in 1996 as a new reserve. Pigs are not consistent with a natural area, she said.

But Betsy Gagne, acting administrator of the natural area program, said, "It's going to be years, if it ever happens."

Hunters also distrust the state's Forest Planning Process, now underway.

State forestry official Jon Giffin said the process includes some eradication, some control of game by hunters and, for the first time, some increases in game animals.

With many losses, hunters have been slow to see gains. While 100 acres along Saddle Road may be closed to hunting if a new alignment is chosen, about 5,000 acres on the other side of Mauna Kea, now used for pasture, is proposed for a combined palila habitat and game bird hunting area.

But no mammal hunting would be allowed, and the area is difficult to get to.

Another promising area is Puuwaawaa about 12 miles north of Kailua-Kona.

Proposals are afloat to increase both environmental protection and hunting in the general area.

While the Nature Conservancy is proposing to manage part of the area for endangered species, a draft concept also supports a state-managed part for bird and mammal hunters.

The conservancy draft says, "It is important that these groups know that they are partners in resource management and that there will be a place for them to perpetuate and pass on their skills and traditions to future generations."