Applications for mouflon sheep hunting season open March 6

Applications for the 2023 Lanai mouflon sheep hunting season will be available beginning March 6, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife announced.

The season will consist of four hunts: an archery hunt, a youth hunt, a muzzleloader hunt and a general rifle hunt.

A $10 application fee will be assessed for each person applying for a hunt. All application fee sales are final and must be brought at the time of filing. A game mammal tag fee will be assessed at the time of hunter check-in. The costs for each mouflon sheep tags will be $20 for Hawaii residents and $125 for non-Hawaii residents. No tag fee will be assessed for the non-typical ram tag.

The bag limit will be three mouflon sheep — one ewe, one of either sex and one non-typical ram — per hunter per authorized hunt. Hunters may be required to purchase an ewe tag before being able to purchase or receive an either-sex tag and non-typical ram tag. Tags are not transferable and are valid only for the specific hunt for which it was issued.

Hunts may be subject to a lottery drawing. Public drawings for the archery, youth and muzzleloader hunts will be conducted at 10 a.m. May 5 at the Maui Economic Opportunity facility at the J. Walter Cameron Center in Wailuku. At noon, a public drawing will assign hunting dates, a going status and, if necessary, establish standby positions for the general rifle hunt lottery. The standby selection process will begin once the general rifle lottery is completed.

The Lanai resident public drawing will be conducted at 9 a.m. at the same location.

Hunter assistants will be allowed to accompany hunters who are senior citizens ages 65 or older, or hunters who have a disability. Proper documentation, along with the validated hunter assistant permit, must be made available to any DLNR representative upon request.

The deadline for submitting applications for the hunts will be 4 p.m. April 7.

To apply, or for additional conditions related to each hunt, visit dlnr.hawaii.gov/recreation/hunting. Or, call (808) 984-8100 on Maui, (808) 553-1745 on Molokai and (808) 565-7916 on Lanai.