Property owners at their wits' end call him in to help them get rid of the frogs. Armed with a head lamp, he chirps under trees until the frogs jump into what he calls his "coqui wand," a tube with a plastic bottle at the end that passes as a trap.
"If you go into the forest at night, they're so loud, your ears start to ring," says Mr. Minami, whom colleagues have nicknamed the Frog Whisperer. He is part of the frog-busting team the state has dispatched to nab the tiny amphibians. He tries not to kill them, preferring to bring them back to the terrarium in his office near Honolulu's port, to live out their natural lives.
