Visiting expert
on Maui to place
call to wild catThe state official plans to play
recordings of an animal's call
KAHULUI >> Wildlife experts are trying a new approach to determine what kind of "catlike animal" is roaming Upcountry Maui: They're playing wildcat call recordings over a megaphone through the countryside.
William Van Pelt, an Arizona state wildlife expert serving as a consultant to the State of Hawaii, said a wildcat will make vocalizations to announce that a certain area is its territory.
Van Pelt said he hopes the animal will respond to the recorded sounds of another cat that will be played in different lower Olinda areas where the animal has been seen.
"We're also going to have taping equipment to tape it if it does respond back," Van Pelt said.
From a recorded response, he hopes to be able to determine the kind of animal that has been seen and heard by a number of residents in lower Olinda.
Van Pelt, who arrived Saturday evening and will return to Arizona tomorrow, spoke at a news media conference yesterday at the state base yard in Kahului. His airplane fare and accommodations are being provided by Joseph Sugarman, owner of the Maui Weekly.
Since late July, state wildlife officials have established scent stations that use Velcro strips to gather fur for identification.
Officials have been soaking the strips with Ralph Lauren's Obsession for Women, an odor found to be the preferred scent for ocelots, said state wildlife biologist Fern Duvall.
Urine obtained from a serval, an African wildcat at the Honolulu Zoo, has been used as a scent since Aug. 3, Duvall said.
Duvall said yesterday that so far, state officials have not obtained fur samples from any of the scent stations.
Van Pelt said he will be showing state officials how to make a flat piece of metal with raised points to gather fur. He also plans to place sand chalk in a plate similar to a cookie sheet to gather footprints near the scent stations.
Van Pelt said cats are territorial and will urinate and defecate to mark their territory and eventually go back to check if any animal is challenging its boundaries.
"So this animal will, over time, establish a pattern of where it's going to check its territory boundaries," he said.
Van Pelt has already set up an infrared camera to take photographs of the animal. The setup includes a "squeaker" that sounds similar to an injured rat or rabbit.
Van Pelt said his objective while on Maui is to determine the kind of animal seen by residents and then determine how to capture it. If the animal is an adult cat, it would be unlikely to go inside a cage, such as the ones unsuccessfully used earlier by the state, he said.
"They don't go into box traps very readily," he said. "That type of trapping effort would not be very highly successful with a big cat."
Van Pelt said if it turned out to be an adult cat, he would probably recommend using a foot snare to capture it, rather than using hounds to "try to tree it."
Because of the steep terrain, he said, "It would be quite difficult to run dogs. With predatory animals, they usually see you before you see them. They know you're in their territory, and what you're trying to do is find a sign for them in the pattern in which they're behaving, so you can deploy traps in an area or snares or camera traps."
He said a tranquilizer gun would be used once the animal is snared.
Van Pelt said the animal is roaming within a narrow area, about 1 mile by 3 miles, and in three gulches with dense vegetation with several connecting paths.
Van Pelt said he has spoken to people who have seen the animal, and he believes it may be an African leopard, jaguar, mountain lion or puma.
"From the descriptions provided to me, the animal seems more catlike than doglike," he said.
The latest sighting occurred Saturday evening when a woman in a guest house heard dogs barking, looked outside and saw an animal crossing the lawn about 12 feet away from her window, he said.
"She just saw the top of the animal. She described it as a ... shiny, dark-colored animal with a long tail," he said.
Van Pelt said whenever the animal has seen a human being, it has fled. "I think that's significant in the sense that there is some fear of humans that this animal has."
Van Pelt and Duvall appealed to residents to continue to call the state if they see the animal or hear unusual sounds, so that officials can plot its movements and figure out where to place the equipment. Those seeing the animal or hearing unusual sounds in lower Olinda are asked to call Duvall on Maui, 873-3502.
