Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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as we get further in, we haven’t reached that area yet to take care of, but when…we
cannot get the bulls out. During breeding season we have maybe a seventy-five to ninety
day breeding season, where the bulls are out with the cows and then the cowboys go in
and take the bulls, pull ‘em out of the cows. [chuckles] The bulls, they just go in the
gorse, “Come get me [chuckling]!” You can’t get them out. That’s why you see off season
calves now.
Yes.
That’s all State land down below there, we used to have that under lease.
I guess that’s Sugi pine, the redwood, the Japanese redwood like, Shipman planted all
that.
Yes. The State and Hawaiian Homes land here. Our boundary is right below this road to
the fence line and that’s in Pu‘u ‘Ö‘ö, makai, that’s the boundary.
Oh, wow look at the gorse!
That’s what this whole country looked like, thick.
See, on the other side, how thick that gorse is. You said it’s about ten feet
It can get ten to twelve feet high. Dust your shoes off before you go home.
[all chuckles]
A constant battle, you can’t give up, you got to just keep after it, keep after it. Now, this
portion here we did not…we aerial sprayed it, but we didn’t burn it and here’s where, this
is the area where we have our experimental plots that we’re trying to do with this
program. I’ll explain it to everybody, but basically, what we’re trying to do is scientifically
determine…are we really, truly making progress with what we’re doing The spray, the
burn, follow up spray Are there better ways to try to do it New Zealand used a little
different method. And so, we’re trying to do that on a real scientific model and come up
with, this is the best way to control gorse here. These are the ways to do it, you know and
have a…. So, anybody, a land owner, can use this to take care of gorse on his property.
That’s basically what we’re doing. There are four experimental plots that we’ve got
designated and we just want to make sure where there’s nothing culturally significant in
them, so that we can go ahead with the project.
You know, it is interesting when you say, “Culturally significant,” because one other entire
aspect of cultural significance, is the landscape itself. The things that belong on the land.
Yes.
Or things which we may lose. You may not even know it’s here, there could be
something under here, some unique plant, and if they have their body forms or kinolau.
Those are cultural resources also. So stewardship, good stewardship, is a way of life.
Yes. It’s just that when you’ve got gorse, you’re kind of right behind the eight ball to start
with. It’s choked out a lot of that stuff already. Somebody started this fire recently. I don’t
know who, you know lot of people drive by…”Hey, lets try burn.”
Just malicious then
Oh, yeah.
‘Auwë! And see, look at this little clump of ‘öhi‘a.
Yes, see, this is my little clump and it grows in this little pocket and some of it burned
from these guys. Some koa burned too.
Gees [shaking her head].
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:150