Hawaii conducts feral cattle hunt by helicopter

At least one member of the Big Island's county council is angry that the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife conducted helicopter-borne hunts of feral cattle in mid-April. North Kona Councilman Kelly Greenwell said the forestry division and its parent state agency, the Department of Land and Natural Resources, ignored a consensus against the hunts in a portion of the Honuaula Forest Preserve among council members worried about harm to the public. But Paul Conry, administrator of the forestry division, said the helicopter hunts on April 15 and 16 were authorized by the board of the Department of Land and Natural Resources and were conducted only after safety measures were taken. Generations of feral cattle have roamed the preserve, mostly the progeny of animals that escaped nearby ranches. "They are a large animal that really is destroying the forest," Conry said. "They trample, they consume. They basically can destroy the koa forest by just constantly eating any of the regeneration that comes up, new koa seedlings trying to get established." Koa is a native hardwood tree that grows in the preserve. There had been about 550 to 600 feral cattle within a 2,650-acre portion of the preserve, Conry said. Over the last two years, the division worked with a nearby rancher to remove about 400 of them with the use of traps. But more than 150 remained in fairly inaccessible areas, he added...High Plains Journal