A proposal to help subsidize the installation of animal control fences is the only survivor of four bills in the state Legislature aimed at controlling pigs, goats and sheep.
Senate Bill 523, co-introduced by Kohala Sen. Tim Richards and Puna Sen. Joy San Buenaventura, would require the state Department of Agriculture to establish a biosecurity fencing cost-sharing program that would reimburse farmers up to a certain percentage of the cost of installing animal control fences.
As currently written, farmers who can demonstrate their active agricultural operations and have developed an “approved conservation plan” can apply to have “not less than 50%” of fencing expenses reimbursed.
The bill currently has a blank spot where an upper reimbursement limit per person would be established. Similarly, it does not yet specify what the program’s total yearly budget would be.
“People are afraid to go into their own back yards,” said San Buenaventura. “But the fencing cost per acre is huge.”
Bob Duerr, commissioner on the Big Island Game Management Advisory Commission, said the cost of fencing can reach $1 million per mile in some places. He added that fences have proven to be effective for animal management, driving problem animals from areas with fences to areas without.
“Large swaths of mauka lands in the hands of federal, state and private landowners are fenced and game animals eradicated,” Duerr said.
However, Duerr said, this also has interfered with hunters, who can no longer rely on access to their common hunting grounds.
“Hunting game animals for food is an effective population control that is disappearing,” Duerr said. “Fencing with access corridors is a must for game management.”
Other pig-related bills have failed to move through the Legislature. Another San Buenaventura bill, SB 315, died Wednesday when two Senate committees deferred the measure.
That bill would have expedited the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ permitting process to allow for the destruction of feral pigs on private land, if the animals have caused or are likely to cause substantial damage to crops.
House Bill 347, which would have prohibited the DLNR from establishing bag limits for goats in public hunting areas, also was deferred earlier this month, and a companion bill in the Senate hasn’t moved at all since being introduced.
Finally, Senate Bill 568 would have designated the DLNR as the state’s primary agency for trapping feral goats and sheep, and would require it to establish a program to humanely manage feral animal populations. That bill also has failed to move at all since its introduction, to Duerr’s chagrin.
“Though looking like having no chance of passing, this bill puts its finger on the game animal problem’s pulse,” Duerr said. “No one is responsible for the conservation and control of game animals in the state of Hawaii. At GMAC, we have only seen DLNR talk about eradication which means fencing tens of thousands of acres and killing all the ‘invasive’ game animals within.
“For years now at GMAC, we have not seen DLNR nuisance animal population studies or game management plans for problems beyond fence and kill.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
