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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, February 14, 2002

Hunters decry plan for Kaua'i habitat

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — The deep anger expressed last night at a hearing on setting aside nearly 100,000 acres of Kaua'i County as critical habitat for rare plants almost concealed the love.

The love that hunters and hikers, environmentalists and bureaucrats, botanists and Native Hawaiians have for Hawai'i's wild country.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in the eyes of some of those folks, is threatening to take away their access to some of Kaua'i's most beautiful public lands.

"You have violated and invaded our critical habitat," said hunter and hiker Larry Saito. "Where are our children to go?"

The service and some conservationists say that all they want is to protect and preserve it.

"We can destroy a plant or animal habitat, but we can't replace a plant or animal that is extinct," said Hanalei resident Sunlight Hill.

The Fish and Wildlife Service was taken to federal court in the late 1990s for not aggressively designating critical habitat for endangered species. Critical habitat is the range species now occupy, plus additional unoccupied land that would be required for them to expand their numbers enough to be removed from the endangered species list.

A federal judge set deadlines and ordered the agency to get moving. An early proposal called for about 66,000 acres, but after reviewing more data, the service developed its new 100,000-acre proposal. It held public meetings on the proposal yesterday afternoon and last night at the Radisson Kaua'i Beach Resort.

The hunting community was aghast. Hunter Robert Cremer Jr. said officials should recognize that Hawai'i endangered species are endangered because they face threats today that they can't overcome.

"The best thing is to put the plants into a nursery where they will survive," Cremer said.

"Are there any dinosaurs left on this Earth? I don't think so. Things come and things go," he said.

While many complained that the 100,000 acres of proposed critical habitat — a quarter of the county's entire land area — is too much, David Henkin of Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, said it's simply what the federal endangered species law requires, no more.

If the service had just designated the land occupied by the 83 species of endangered plants covered under the proposed Kaua'i-Ni'ihau designations, the species would be stuck in limbo — unable to expand their range, he said.

"Everybody knows there isn't enough occupied habitat to recover the species," he said.

But he also said that the designation will dramatically benefit the state economy and will do far less to inhibit hunting than the hunting community fears.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service should be explaining what the effects are. Everyone in the state is going to benefit to the tune of millions of dollars," he said, referring to advantages such as improved watersheds and a better natural resource to attract tourists.

Jim Greenwell of the Hawai'i Cattlemen's Council said he didn't buy that. The designation effectively downzones and removes value from thousands of acres of agricultural lands and sends "a chilling message to landowners," he said.

In an afternoon information session, Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Paul Henson said that his experience is that property values sometimes go up and sometimes go down with critical habitat designation.

"It's very site-specific," he said.

Several speakers were critical of a Fish and Wildlife Service decision to bring security officers to the meeting. Some said they felt it was a sign of disrespect, that the federal officers feared that local residents would misbehave.

"Not because we kill one pig, we kill one human being. Jeez! Very insulting," Cremer said.

After the Fish and Wildlife Service completes an economic analysis of critical habitat designations on Kaua'i and Ni'ihau, there will be a public comment period.


Correction: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have a public comment period, but not a public hearing, on completion of an economic analysis of critical habitat designations on Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau. Because of a reporter’s error, an earlier version of this story contained incorrect information.