Tag: Invasive Species

November 15, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Axis deer hunter feels unfairly targeted

Axis deer hunter feels unfairly targeted

By TOM CALLIS

Stephens Media

tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com

Shortly before Christmas 2009, a helicopter carrying four axis deer — three alive, one dead — landed on a Ka‘u ranch.

Its cargo, brought in a metal crate from Maui, was unloaded and replaced with several mouflon sheep for the return trip.

With the duct tape around their legs removed, the surviving ungulates needed little coaching to exit.

Sensing freedom after the interisland flight, they bounded toward the safety and familiarity of the nearby brush.

For the men involved, that moment marked the start of a new food source for hunters on the Big Island, long frustrated by state efforts to slaughter animals considered harmful to native plants.

But for state and federal officials who would discover their presence in 2011, the prospect of an invasive species here proved concerning.

The south Asian deer, already well-established on Maui, Oahu, Lanai and Molokai after being first introduced in 1868, have frustrated ranchers and farmers for generations but have been prized by hunters.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife investigation would later trace their Big Island introduction to a hunter from Mountain View, and a rancher and a pilot from Maui who arranged a sheep-for-deer swap between the two islands.

Eager to punish the act, yet unable to declare the deer introduction itself illegal, federal prosecutors successfully convicted the trio last month for possessing game animals without a permit and under the Lacey Act, which governs interstate commerce.

Each was fined and sentenced to community service helping battle invasive species or educate hunters.

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October 20, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Monsanto Fund Donates $20,000 for Molokai Watershed Protection

Monsanto Fund Donates $20,000 for Molokai Watershed Protection

Monsanto Molokai News Release

The Monsanto Fund awarded a $20,000 grant to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) of Hawaii for watershed protection at Kamakou Preserve on Molokai. Since 2006, the Monsanto Fund has contributed a total of $130,000 to TNC’s protection and restoration efforts of critical watershed and fragile ecosystems on Molokai.

Located high in the mountains of East Molokai, the 2,774-acre Kamakou Preserve is a rainforest like no other on the planet. This magnificent natural treasure not only shelters hundreds of native plants and animals, but also serves as an important source of water for the island and its people.

TNC’s work at Kamakou Preserve, in collaboration with the public and private landowners of the East Molokai Watershed Partnership, is focused on invasive animal and weed control.

“Molokai’s forested watersheds today are under constant assault from established and new invasive species,” said Ed Misaki, TNC’s Molokai Program Director. “Feral ungulates (hoofed animals) like wild pigs, goats and deer are steadily eroding fragile topsoil. Once this soil disturbance occurs, invasive plants that did not evolve here, like blackberry and strawberry guava, steadily displace our native forests and watersheds. Once lost, they may be impossible to fully restore at any price.”

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October 11, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

County Begins Deer Harvest Cooperative

Imagine higher agricultural yields, fewer invasive species, and a new economic product that’s as versatile as it is plentiful: venison. That was the vision of the founders of the Maui Axis Deer Harvesting Cooperative (MADHC), a new initiative organized by the County of Maui. Its goal is to help farmers, ranchers and landowners control invasive axis deer on their property while addressing food security with zero waste. MADHC members are a group of certified, trained, hunters who can provide harvesting services to those receiving damage from axis deer. The meat will be shared between hunters and landowners, and in some cases, local slaughterhouses will process meat for resale.

While the cooperative is already active on Maui, some Molokai residents are looking at the possibilities for the Friendly Isle — turning venison into a trademark specialty while helping out farmers with deer problems. Phyllis Robinson, one of MADHC’s founders and pilot coordinator, said it’s still early in the process, but her goal is to be able to incorporate Molokai and Lanai into the program.

“We’d like to plant the seed of awareness,” she said. “It could be helpful to have a coordinated effort county-wide but unique efforts on each island.”

Robinson said she has been in communication with Molokai axis deer rancher and hunter Desmond Manaba to explore the possibility of establishing an auxiliary board on Molokai to organize similar services on the island and be part of the cooperative umbrella.

Manaba, who has been deer ranching on Molokai for 18 years, said he sees tremendous potential economic benefit axis deer.

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October 2, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Hawaii hunters sentenced in deer smuggling case

A federal judge sentenced two Hawaii hunters to community service today after an investigation into the interisland smuggling of axis deer by helicopter.

Neither man was charged with the smuggling itself, but prosecutors said their actions introduced axis deer to the Big Island for the first time and harmed the environment as a result.

Daniel Rocha of Mountain View on the Big Island was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for having sheep in his possession without a permit. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Richard Puglisi also ordered Rocha to pay a $1,000 fine.

Puglisi ordered Jeffrey Grundhauser to perform 100 hours of community service for taking an unlicensed hunter to shoot game animals on his ranch in upcountry Maui. Grundhauser must also pay a $15,000 fine and will be on probation for one year.

The deer were introduced to the Big Island as part of a trade in December 2009.

Rocha provided Grundhauser’s hunting ranch with about a dozen mouflon sheep that he raised at his small farm in Mountain View. In exchange, Grundhauser gave Rocha four axis deer from Maui that Rocha released on a private ranch on the Big Island.

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September 12, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Group asks for help fighting alien frogs on Oahu

The Oahu Invasive Species Committee is asking Oahu residents to participate tonight in “Go Out and Listen Night!” to help listen for invasive coqui frogs and report if they hear coqui frogs in their area or not.

Twenty coqui frogs have been captured on Oahu since the beginning of 2012, the committee said.

The frogs are known for their sharp “ko-Kee” calls. There are no established populations of coqui frogs on Oahu, but they continue to “hitchhike” to the island in shipments from the Big Island.

The Oahu Invasive Species Committee is asking residents with smartphones to go outside tonight between 7:30 and 8 p.m., listen for 15 minutes for the signature “ko-KEE” call of the coqui frog, and report what they heard using the free “Honolulu 311” smartphone app. The group is asking residents to report if they did or did not hear a coqui frog in their area.

Details on how to participate, what a coqui frog sounds and looks like, and step by step instructions on how to use the “Honolulu 311” app can be found at www.coqui311.blogspot.com.

Residents without a smartphone can report coqui frogs by emailing the Oahu Invasive Species Committee at oisc@hawaii.edu or by calling the State Pest Hotline, 643-PEST (643-7378).

Group asks for help fighting alien frogs on Oahu – Hawaii News – Honolulu Star-Advertiser

June 10, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Invasive species ride tsunami debris to U.S. shore

When a floating dock the size of a boxcar washed up on a sandy beach in Oregon, beachcombers got excited because it was the largest piece of debris from last year’s tsunami in Japan to show up on the West Coast.

But scientists worried it represented a whole new way for invasive species of seaweed, crabs and other marine organisms to break the earth’s natural barriers and further muck up the West Coast’s marine environments. And more invasive species could be hitching rides on tsunami debris expected to arrive in the weeks and months to come.

“We know extinctions occur with invasions,” said John Chapman, assistant professor of fisheries and invasive species specialist at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center. “This is like arrows shot into the dark. Some of them could hit a mark.”

Though the global economy has accelerated the process in recent decades by the sheer volume of ships, most from Asia, entering West Coast ports, the marine invasion has been in full swing since 1869, when the transcontinental railroad brought the first shipment of East Coast oysters packed in seaweed and mud to San Francisco, said Andrew Cohen, director of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions in Richmond, Calif. For nearly a century before then, ships sailing up the coast carried barnacles and seaweeds.

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