Bill 135 was introduced by Maui County Councilmember Kelly Takaya King, and was signed into law as Ordinance 5306 by Maui Mayor Michael Victorino on Dec. 6. It will take effect on Oct. 1, 2022.
There should not be any land mammals living in the wild on any of the Hawaiian islands. There shouldn’t be many wild mammals, period; the only endemic mammal in Hawaii, besides marine mammals, is a single species of bat. But there are many mammals traversing the eight main islands in the archipelago today. There are wild sheep, goats, cattle, mongoose, wild boar, rabbits, rats, mice and a small but stable population of brush-tailed rock wallabies on Oahu. None of them should be there.
But the most important invasive species for a few islands, especially Maui and Molokai, is the axis deer. On Molokai, an island of only around 7,000 people, there are somewhere around 70,000 axis deer. On Maui, there are around 50,000.
Axis deer, a species native to India that were presented as a gift from Hong Kong to the king of Hawaii in 1868, have fed hunters and their families on the rural island of Molokai for generations.