First Person: Croaking Coqui

Die, die, die, you cute, melodious frogs!

I’d been dreading hearing this sound in my Big Island neighborhood for two years. Yet, when it finally came, I had to admit that the song of the coqui frog was sweet. Co-KEE! it says in a clear, high voice. Except it’s actually co-KEE?—every call a question, and the question always the same, the male asking the female what guys so often do: Can WE?

But it was impossible to enjoy the lovestruck melody of this horny frog (Eleutherodactylus coqui, native to Puerto Rico, where indigenous predators keep the population in check), because, in Hawai‘i, wherever there are one male and one female today, in just one year, there will be 10 ga-jillion, with all the boys loudly competing from dusk till dawn for a roll in the leaves with a coquette.

Which is why, one recent night, a neighbor had raised the alarm when she heard the first one on our street. I didn’t hesitate, strapping on my machete, grabbing my big flashlight and setting out to flay the little mutha.

Skulking around the house construction site (the frog no doubt rode up from Hilo on a lumber pallet), I finally heard it: co-KEE? For an hour I tiptoed closer. With each step, he’d fall silent, but soon start calling again, Can WE?

Finally, crouching in a ginger patch, I saw him a foot away. Root-beer brown, gumball-size, he had huge black eyes and an expectant smile. Even with my flashlight right on him, he beckoned: Can WE? I don’t think so! I grabbed with both hands and came away clutching torn ginger leaf and something squishy. I threw it as hard as I could on the street, raising my boot for the coup de grace.

Hawai‘i coqui control agencies recommend humanely dispatching the little critters thusly: Insert frog in baggie, place baggie in freezer. Have these folks never been stuck out in the snow while their fingers and toes stung with pins and needles? I, for one, would rather die by having a giant boot turn me into an instant ink spot. Which is what I had in mind for my amphibian. Except that he somehow escaped.

illustration: Michael Austin

To improve my hunting skills I attended a meeting in Volcano Village of an ad-hoc frog hunter whose members traded search-and-destroy stories. One gent explained his tarp trap: 1) hear frog in tree fern, 2) spread tarp beneath, 3) shake fronds like crazy till the little guy falls, 4) pounce.

High-tech hunting methods were also discussed. A farmer said he’d heard that maybe the frogs glow under ultraviolet light. Though black lights in the forest seemed trippy to everyone, the problem of really long electrical cords couldn’t be immediately solved.

Duly informed, I awaited my next coqui encounter.

High noon came a few nights later when neighbor Jesse called to report a loud Lothario. As luck would have it, Jesse and I had each been partaking of adult beverages, so, when we met at the same spot where I’d been hunting before, unlike former Gov. George Ariyoshi, we were not quiet, but may have been effective nonetheless. We heard the frog up in the ‘ohi‘a tree by the ginger patch and crashed into the overgrowth like blitzkrieg panzers. We fell down. We got up. We added our slobber to the dewy leaves. Hercules Jesse shook the little tree, which would have become uprooted had he not toppled over first. I stomped around hoping to catch the little invader under my boots. We paused ... silence.

The frog has not been heard from since.

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