Posted on: Thursday, October 23, 2003

Group gets $50,000 to help keep animals off Maui land

Advertiser Staff

KAHULUI, Maui — The West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership yesterday received a $50,000 grant to help construct a fence to keep pigs, goats and wild cattle out of severely threatened areas of the watershed.

The Monsanto Fund grant will help construct the first section of a 2.5 mile fence that will separate the Kahakuloa Game Management Area from the Kahakuloa Natural Area Reserve in the West Maui Mountains.

"Animals, primarily pigs, are constantly moving into the natural area reserve, and a boundary fence must be completed to stop this ingress," said Anders Lyons, director of Maui programs for The Nature Conservancy.

The cost of the project is estimated at $200,000. So far, the West Maui partnership has obtained $60,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for three-quarters of a mile of fencing.

The Monsanto Fund money will be used to match the federal money and pay for another half-mile of fence for a total of 1.25 miles.

The fence will not be one contiguous section but will use natural barriers such as cliffs and waterfalls to keep pigs out of the Kahakuloa Natural Area Reserve, Lyons said.

The work is scheduled to be finished next year by the West Maui partnership crew, with help from The Nature Conservancy, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. and the state.

The West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership includes the state, Maui Land & Pineapple, Kamehameha Schools, C. Brewer & Co., The Nature Conservancy, Amfac Hawai'i, Kahoma Land, Makila Land Co. and Maui County.

The Monsanto Fund is the philanthropic arm of the Monsanto Co., a major international food and agricultural biotechnology firm based in St. Louis.