Big Island Report

[doccherry]

Even here in Hunting/Fishing Paradise there are days where nothing happens. I went out in my skiff 4 days ago and tried everything but didn't get a bite. Then a friend invited me out in his cabin cruiser and we trolled 5 lines and tried every lure and every speed and didn't get a bite. Then Friday a friend and I went up to Mauna Kea and hunted hard at 8500 feet for Mouflon sheep. I saw a ewe and two lambs the size of rabbits but that was it. Nada. Then last night I went up to the coffee tree estate and didn't see a pig and didn't hear a pig and didn't smell a pig. Pig sign everywhere but no pigs in the flesh.

The guy who owns the other place where I hunt pigs with my bow just sent me a generous gift certificate card to COSTCO and a thank you note for ridding his property of pigs. [What a great guy I am. Unlimited hunting on some beautiful property and he thanks me?] He also extended his invitation to come up at any time to hunt because he knows and I know and all of you reading this know the pigs will be back and they will be back soon. Life is tough.

Hawaii's ecosystem is so out of whack because of invasive animals and plants and intentional animal/plant introductions that have gone awry that any predator that arrives here [including me] has a field day. Such has recently become the case. An area that offers very good feral sheep [not Mouflon] hunting and good goat hunting and very good pig hunting will not have a hunting season for adults this year. Why? The sheep populations have plummeted because packs of wild dogs are roaming at will and killing the little ones, even the little pigs. These dogs often sleep at the foot of their masters' beds at night and are not sleeping out under the stars. Their owners are deadbeats who let the dogs come and go at their pleasure and these dogs team up during the day and do what wild dogs in packs will do, which is kill. The Fish and Wildlife people had to cancel the hunt and have informed a few of us that they will now do what is necessary to eliminate the threat. You can figure that statement out. I'm not blaming the dogs but I am blaming the owners. I've never shot a dog because I'm a dog lover and I'm not sure I could now, but beautiful bird dogs and lean, muscular pig hunting dogs and purebred dogs with prize pedigrees are running around killing everything [including wild turkeys] they can catch and it's out of control.

I met a Fish and Wildlife worker up on Mauna Kea on our sheep hunt who told us that feral cats are an enormous problem, even up on the dry, lava-crusted windswept slopes above 8000 feet. They kill a huge number of gamebirds because gamebirds nest on the ground within reach of the cats. We now see live traps with cans of cat food for bait next to all the bird guzzlers. I've seen as many as 50 feral cats along 3 miles of road after dark. Can you imagine what a million bobcats would do to the gamebird population in California? Spaying and neutering and controlling your animals don't seem to be at all popular over here and the effects are being seen. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is a feral cat season that opens soon. That sounds really weird but a cat that kills a gamebird a day to survive multiplied by thousands of cats times 365 days a year adds up to no more gamebirds.

Uncle Ji and Ev Bouret:

Are feral dogs and feral cats a problem on your islands? How about the mongoose [mongeese?]? There are mongooses/mongeese everywhere here, in fact, I see 3 or 4 everytime I hunt pigs in the residential areas. For those on the mainland, mongeese were introduced to kill the rats that sneaked over on fruit boats and were eating fruits and other crops here in Hawaii. Unfortunately, the mongeese/mongoose/mongooses preferred to eat the native birds and could care less about the rats. Now the rats and mongooses are buddies and are both getting fat.

Still, with all the challenges, the hunting here is great. I wonder, though [and Ev's and Uncle Ji's input would be welcome here], if the hunting tradition Hawaii will remain strong as more and more mainlanders move to this part of the universe. Even among the native Hawaiians, the young people seem to have little interest in hunting and fishing, preferring instead the same things that mainlander youth enjoy. Uncle Ji and Ev: Do you catch any crap because you are hunters and is there any anti-hunting sentiment growing on your islands?

Now if someone out there has an idea for getting the skunk off my back, please let me know.

Aloha for now.

 

[Orso]

boo hooo boo hooo, poor Doc. Poor, poor, poor Doc. I went fishing yesterday and didn't catch anything....booo hooo.... I even went out on a cabin cruiser and didn't catch anything....booo hooo... Then I went hunting 10 minutes from home and didn't shoot anything...booo hooo.... I've been living a dream the last 3 of the last 4 days and I didn't get to kill something.....booo hooo. I feel so bad for my self....

I know what's going on here... Doc is starting to feel guilty. So he's down playing life in PARADISE. LOL!!

Doc - I hope your next trip is a success.... I know you know "a bad day fishing is better than the best day working". Good luck to ya sir.

On a SERIOUS note, your comments about the pack of dogs that are family pets turned day time killers is interesting. Keep us posted of the fish and game happenings with them. Also, I wished they had a open season on cats here....They drive me crazy.

Good Sunday to all....

 

[Uncle Ji]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (doccherry @ Jul 15 2006, 06:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Uncle Ji and Ev Bouret:

Are feral dogs and feral cats a problem on your islands? How about the mongoose [mongeese?]? There are mongooses/mongeese everywhere here, in fact, I see 3 or 4 everytime I hunt pigs in the residential areas. For those on the mainland, mongeese were introduced to kill the rats that sneaked over on fruit boats and were eating fruits and other crops here in Hawaii. Unfortunately, the mongeese/mongoose/mongooses preferred to eat the native birds and could care less about the rats. Now the rats and mongooses are buddies and are both getting fat.

Still, with all the challenges, the hunting here is great. I wonder, though [and Ev's and Uncle Ji's input would be welcome here], if the hunting tradition Hawaii will remain strong as more and more mainlanders move to this part of the universe. Even among the native Hawaiians, the young people seem to have little interest in hunting and fishing, preferring instead the same things that mainlander youth enjoy. Uncle Ji and Ev: Do you catch any crap because you are hunters and is there any anti-hunting sentiment growing on your islands?

Now if someone out there has an idea for getting the skunk off my back, please let me know.

Aloha for now.[/b]

Aloha Bruce,
Keep them bananas off yer boat and fishing should improve. ;-) This is a sad state when 2 days of fishing skunk, and a day without pigs getys discouraging. Sometimes us islanders do get alittle spoiled.
The LARGE Norway rats were introduced by European ships visiting the islands but the smaller Polynesian rats came aboard the twin hull canoes (wa'a kaulua) with the first Polynesians to arrive as stowaways. The ancient Hawaiians had knowledge of bows & arrows but limited their use to the royal sport of hunting rats ('iole; ee-yo-le'). The main problem with the mongoose was no one did their homework before introduction or they would have found that the mongoose are diurnal (active during daylight hours), and the rats are nocternal (active at night) so rarely did their paths cross. Mongoose also feed on gamebirds so are competition with feral cats.
Feral cats are deffinately a problem but there is a crazy program here in which feral cats are captured, then neutered and returned to where they were captured to continue killing birds in the wild but without their jewels. I ilke cats, have 5 of them, all neutered and under control but I will kill every feral cat I see in hunting areas. I do pop mongoose on occasion too. I have not heard of any feral dogs problems here on Maui in recent years.
As far as opposition to hunting it is rare but when it does happen it's always from newly arrived mainlanders trying impose their values on us poor ignorant locals, trying to save us from our own stupidity according to their point of view.

I usually just ignore these stupid yuppies. As far as passing on the hunting traditions it IS getting more difficult. Too many kids are getting lazy in this video game instant gratification age so prefer electronic stimulation or worse yet chemical stimulation to kill the bordom. Also in Hawaii there isn't the "gun history" that the mainland US and especially the western US has as part of the culture so gun rights just are not that important to a higher percentage of the general public. What a PITA to purchase a gun here, which discourages some people from ever starting hunting. Fortunately on the more rural areas here like Hana & Kaupo the knife & hound hunters are still going pretty strong with family traditions carrying on the hunt though usually the kills made with knives, not firearms. My own 2 sons I have taken hunting in their youth even getting my older boy his own rifle & shotgun but neither presently show any real interest in hunting or fishing prefering internet and computer related activities over the outdoors. I lead them to water, they even drank a few sips but presently they are not thirsty. I have hope but won't force them, neither did my dad. I hunt, my brother does not.
Another problem here is public hunting land closures like Kula Forest Reserve with it cut in half a few years back and given to OHA with OHA leasing this land to a private hunting club thus making this formerly excellent hunting area exclusive to the rich. Hunting is getting out of reach of many a blue collar working man.

 

[beastslayer]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (doccherry @ Jul 15 2006, 07:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

I met a Fish and Wildlife worker up on Mauna Kea on our sheep hunt who told us that feral cats are an enormous problem, even up on the dry, lava-crusted windswept slopes above 8000 feet. They kill a huge number of gamebirds because gamebirds nest on the ground within reach of the cats. We now see live traps with cans of cat food for bait next to all the bird guzzlers. I've seen as many as 50 feral cats along 3 miles of road after dark.[/b]

The problem with cat is that it kill birds even if it is not hungry. Some obese cat in my backyard are doing that over my songbird bird-feeder that I am almost tempted to pop some of them with an air pistol.

 

[Nic Barca]

It always seemed to me like a lot of people hunted here. Not a whole lot of anti hunting efforts going on here as the game animals are actually bad for the environment here. Funny hting is that you actually see hunters an animal rights activists teaming up to keep game from being eradicated. Most people I know surf but on the big island, all the surfers do a little hunting too and I always great and talk story to the hikers I see on the Kalalau Trail. Some of them give me stink eye but a lot of them are curious and talk story.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a cat lover and I've owned a mess of them in my life but I absolutely hate feral cats. When we go camping, it always the cats that come into your camp at night to eat any food you might have left out. Just the other week, I hunted down the coast here on Kauai and brought along a big bag of Olympia trail mix to snack on. Well, it was my first time out in a while and I made the mistake of not putting my food up high. When morning came around, half my food was gone from right next to me and I found my bag of trail mix 30 yards away half eaten. I hope the little bastard died from chocolate poisoning.

Cats are widespread over all of Hawaii wreaking havoc on all sorts of wildlife. We have a zillion rats here and the cats apparently only eat them when they have to, preferring birds and insects over rats and mice. The cat problem began back in the 1800s. When Mark Train visited Hawaii, he made a comical report on how many cats there were in Honolulu. Cats have since gone feral and those cats in the city are under control, I assume due to spay and neutering practices. Game bird populations would certainly be much higher if it weren't for predations by cats, mongoose, and rats; probably dangerously high. The native birds are hit hard by those animals as well. There was a hole here on Kauai that used to be a pond but has since filled in preserving millennia of vegetation records. Apparently there was a huge change in vegetation when the Polynesians arrived sometime around 400AD. Many plants that we associate with the uplands today were once common right down to the sea. This chance in vegetation was attributed mostly to seed predation by the introduced Polynesian rat. It is not known for certain whether the rat was an unintentional introduction of not but as mentioned, the upper class did make small bows which they shot rats with for sport. Therefore, the rat may have been brought intentionally for sport, or perhaps it was allowed as a stowaway because it can be eaten as a last resort. To this day, rats pose a huge relatively unknown threat to native plants by girdling bark and seed predation. Rat eradication has not even been attempted yet in Hawaii due to the high cost of rat proof fences. Meanwhile, the native forests continue to shrink. Another interesting note: rats eat the fruit of Kahili Ginger, one of our worst forest invaders, and the seeds are damaged and not viable after passing through the rat. Therefore, perhaps this super weed would be even worse without rats. Back to Cats... do your part and shoot any wild cat that you see. They are skitso little buggers so it's not like you are shooting anyone's pet. We've stayed awake many a nights trying to kill cats around camp as they came for our food. And they have really nice pelts too!

Hawaii used to have much more wild dogs in the past. The last of them still exist on the Big Island but for the most part, wild dogs have been eliminated from the other islands. They are actually quite dangerous too, sort of how wolves were in the mainland US. There are some crazy stories floating around about wild dogs and wild dog puppies that started great pig hunting lines. A man was supposedly hunting deep in the hills between two mountains and came across a fierce dog who rushed him. He shot the dog and more came out of the wood-works after him. He supposedly shot most of them and then found a puppy den. Not sure how true these stories are. I did see a skitso wild dog once but she ran off from a distance. Another story was at a cabin at night where wild dogs were going crazy circling the cabin hungry and ready to kill. A state worker who was there carried a pistol and shot one of the dogs. The others pounced on the wounded dog and reportedly ate it on the spot. That is not an unlikely scenario as pack dogs will often gang up on one dog, so a whimpering dog could easily fall prey to its hungry buddies. Other stories are of hunters being treed by a pack after the wild dogs kill their hunting dogs. I just got out of Kalalau Valley which was filthy with goats a couple years ago. There were hardly any goats in there. I think I saw only 5 total and shot one small nanny for dinner. I thought somebody might have been illegally eradicating but it turned out that a man on the beach has a pack of dogs that run loose and slaughter goats whenever they want. One of the hippies hunts with them too. That's good for whatever native plants are still up there but bad for hunting. I cannot tell my hunting buddies this because they would shoot the dogs and that would just cause drama. The hunting was fun though. It was challenging and I still saw a big 28 inch billy, but they were smart.

Mongoose are found on every island except Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau. As mentioned, they were introduced as a biocontrol against the rat problem. The problem was that somebody didn't do their homework. It was a bone-headed maneuver. Rats are out at night while mongoose are out during the day and turned out to prefer ground nesting sea birds as well as other birds including game birds. Kauai is the only island without mongoose and thus still has some sea bird colonies. However, when the ferry system starts up, you will likely see mongoose make it to Kauai very quickly as well as other invasive species. It’s really a dire situation.

 

[Hogfest]

Thanks for the informative inputs on all of the problems associated with the feral and non-native animals. I hope solutions to these problems are in the woodwork so that hunting in paradise will continue to be as exciting as DocCherry's stories. Doc, although your recent hunting/fishing adventures slumped for a few days, your tales are still so worthwhile to read.