Since the first Polynesians arrived back in 200 BC, hunting has been a way of life in Hawaii. The first Marquesans followed by the Tahitians brought with them animals including the Polynesian pig, an essential food source. Eurpoeans later brought other game animals including sheep, goat and axis deer. Mouflon sheep from Sardinia and Corsica arrived in the 1960s and are now endangered in their native land. This hunting tradition has been passed down through four generations of my family, which was essential, especially during the Great Depression days, when my grandfather and his family would not have survived were it not for the wild game my great-grandfather put on the table.
My own father taught me to hunt primarily the wild sheep via archery hunting and procure every edible portion of meat. However, in the 1970s, game management wasn’t ideal. These ungulates were blamed for forest degradation and subsequent native bird population decline. It was then that a special Hawaiian honeycreeper called the palila became of focus of conservationists.
This descendant of a finch-like bird is the last of its family of seed-eating honeycreepers. I personally have observed this bird eating the mamane’s orange seeds while hunting on Mauna Kea. I’ve also observed native creepers, iiwi, akepa, omao, amakihi, akiapolaau (the Hawaiian woodpecker) and the now extinct in the wild alala while hunting. In 1975, the state was taken to federal court to protect the 1,614 palila. Conservationist groups including the Sierra Club blamed our ungluates for deforestation of mamane trees, whose bright orange seeds are eaten by the palila bird. What followed was horrific.
Since 1981, a federal court has ordered the slaughter of nearly 47,000 sheep on Mauna Kea’s slopes. Helicopters are flown with marksmen “just doing our job” mercilessly slaughtering animals with high-powered rifles. As responsible hunters, we were forced to put many maggot and wasp infested suffering sheep out of their misery. Now only a large herd of sheep in the rolling hills of Hawaiian Homelands on the Saddle Road past Pohakuloa remain, but hunting isn’t allowed. (Goats also remain along our main highways, also in nonhunting areas.) Despite hunters’ concerns over the eradication, Bill Aila, chairman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources simply stated, “A federal judge told us to do so.” Moreover, though a program has been implemented to keep the public quiet, whereby carcasses are dropped off at a designated area for public pick up, on one particular day, only 150 were dropped off out of 796 sheep killed.
Despite the removal of ungulates and subsequent recovery of our mamane forests, the majestic palila still only stands at an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 birds. Other factors such as invasive wasps (which eat the Cydia mamane codling moth’s larvae — a food source for fledgling palila), feral cats which I’ve seen eating the eggs of palila and other native birds, mice, drought, nad more have been largely overlooked.
Fireweed, kikuyu grass and fountain grass, all invasive species that sheep once ate now choke out native trees, prevent seed regrowth and cover Mauna Kea’s and parts of Mauna Loa’s slopes. The Madagascar fireweed moth has been introduced to control the fireweed, initially in private Kohala and Kona ranches as cattle, unlike sheep are unable to tolerate eating the fireweed. But these inch-long grayish moths are now making messes at night in our neighborhoods where fireweed, little cape and German ivy are not found in abundance, so what are they thriving on? Do we have yet another problem like the coqui frog and mongoose? Further, despite only an estimated 2 to 3 percent of our public hunting lands are currently fenced as an “anti-migration” method of control as well “protecting our watershed,” according to state officials.
I’ve encountered fences every mile while hunting.The beauty of our natural forests and aina is being destroyed by these fencings. State Department of Forestry and Wildlife administrator Lisa Hadway has stated that this will increase to 25 percent and more over the next several years. Our public hunting lands are already extremely limited, so what are our keiki to hunt in the future? The public lands we do have are mostly scrub and aa lava with few animals. I had to walk 9 miles in Puuanahulu while archery hunting earlier this year before I saw the first sheep. Other than Kipuka Aunahou and Puuanahulu, which has few animals, Puuwaawaa is the only other public hunting that holds animals but is rarely opened for hunting. Pokukaloa’s small public hunting areas once held animals but 1,200 animals were eradicated there also recently.
What’s worse is that our state is attempting to legalize inhumane aerial shooting of ungulates throughout the state. This includes above the fences on Hualalai and Mauna Loa’s slopes though witnesses have reportedely observed eridication there already. Do we have enough state taxpayers’ money to maintain the now “natural forest” and protect it from being destroyed by the aforementioned invasive species plants? This is not what I’ve personally seen in areas eradicated thus far. And Bishop/Kamehameha Schools employees and volunteers, while they do a great job, can only do so much in maintaining the fenced areas.
In closing, when you look around at our environment below 2,000 feet, a good 80 to 90 percent of the “tropical” wildlife and plants you see are introduced. Extreme conservationists are unrealistic when they think they are going to return Hawaii to its natural state. As an outdoorsman, I lament the fact that more than half of our native species of birds have disappeared and the remaining are endangered. But we are in a new ecosystem — one that can be balanced between conservationists and hunting. However, we are catering only to the needs of extreme conservationists who could care less if a hunting lifestyle implemented here for 2,000 years is extinguished. I also feel that should the new proposed state law be passed to allow aerial eradication of unglates, public hunting will end as a lifestyle, and the merciless slaughter will continue.
Theron Ogata is a resident of Holualoa.
Viewpoint articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.