CAT TRACKS PARK SERVICE BIOLOGIST STUDY CARNIVORES AND THEIR HABITATS.

``Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,'' says Cass Bromley, a wildlife biologist with the National Park Service's Carnivore Project. She's not calling Fluffie, she's just hoping for better luck with the cage traps she's set for the bobcats that inhabit open space in Thousand Oaks and Agoura.

By trapping and outfitting animals with radio collars, NPS scientists are learning how wild carnivores, including bobcats, gray foxes and coyotes, cope with habitat fragmented by development. They are tracking the animals to identify critical wildlife corridors that link larger habitat areas.

But if you want to put a radio collar on a bobcat, first you have to catch it. I'm on the third day with Bromley, 27, as she checks the cage traps and still no joy. The traps are baited with sardines or a road-killed rabbit and sprinkled with essence of catnip and some bobcat urine that Bromley carries in a plastic bottle. An electronic squeaker makes injured bird sounds. The trap they call Litterbox is empty.

The traps are Rube Goldbergish contraptions. A bobcat entering the cage to check out the bait trips a fishing line attached to a rat trap. The trap springs and pulls the pin that holds the plywood door open. The door drops shut and you have an annoyed but unharmed bobcat.

We see an uncollared cat on the fourth day. Bobcats look like their domestic counterparts but larger and more buff, as if they've been working out. This cat watches us, its tufted ears alert. Apparently deciding we're not something to eat, the cat disappears into the brush in a graceful, athletic trot like a feline Mary Lou Retton.

Bromley is hoping to trap two females, Nos. 3 and 15. Their radio-collar batteries, which normally last three years, are about to give out. These cats were first tagged at the start of the project in 1996, and the scientists hope to continue receiving data on these animals. Bobcats can live to at least 12 years old, according to Bromley. A large male that hung out at the Calabasas Landfill was known as the ``Dump Lion,'' though most are just referred to by number.

After eight days of going out with the biologists as they check traps, I think I'm beginning to know the cat's numbers, too. We're still skunked, though in animal trapping, ``skunked'' has another meaning. Bromley tells me a skunk accidentally caught in a trap sprayed her. Bromley had to go home for a long shower and tomato-juice bath.

I first encountered Bromley on a street near my house when she was listening intently to her earphones while twirling a radio antenna.

``People ask me if I'm looking for a downed plane or checking on radioactivity,'' says Bromley. But what she's listening to is the steady tick, like a heartbeat, from a radio collar around the neck of a wild bobcat.

``All cats, all the time, 24-7,'' is how Bromley describes the NPS cat channels. Each animal has its own unique frequency, like a radio station. She tries to get three bearings on each animal from spots she's previously plotted using GPS equipment. At the NPS headquarters in Thousand Oaks, the researchers enter the data into a computer program that calculates the cat's position. Since the project's inception in 1996, 104 coyotes and 84 bobcats have been tagged and tracked.

The data is helping local planning boards consider the impact on wildlife of new development and helping aid organizations such as the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Nature Conservancy in making land-acquisition decisions.

``Most recently we provided information to the City of Agoura Hills about the importance of the Liberty Canyon area,'' says Dr. Ray Sauvajot of the NPS. ``That information, in addition to analysis by their planning staff, led them to re-evaluate development proposals and look at the site in a broader context. We've been meeting with them to evaluate options for protecting the corridor in that area.''

Driving through residential areas, I wonder if the residents realize just how many wild creatures live nearby. The biologists get to know each animal's behavior and where they're likely to be and when. The radios have a ``mortality switch,'' which sends out a different signal if the animals don't move for more than six hours.

Unfortunately, it's human activity, specifically cars, that cause the most deaths of the animals studied. Other animals die when people put rat poison outside their houses and the bobcats eat the rodents that have eaten the poison.

On our 10th morning of checking traps, Bromley and biologist Kim Asmus are tired after spending midnight to dawn doing radio telemetry on the cats. The SUV they use is starting to smell a bit funky, with lure scents and scat samples. The project leader, Seth Riley, a Ph.D. and wildlife ecologist for the NPS, is checking the second half of the trap line. The radio comes to life and we hear Riley calling us. Asmus and Bromley look at each other, hoping.

``We have an un-eartagged, uncollared bobcat in the Tumbleweed trap,'' says Riley. Asmus and Bromley, now wide awake, are grinning. We quickly head for the trap at Malibu State Park. The cat, a beautifully spotted male, is resting quietly in the cage.

The team goes to work setting out a blanket as a work space and the tools of their trade: measuring instruments, a radio collar, equipment for taking blood samples, a camera and a syringe with a muscle relaxant and sedative. They open the cage and slide in a board that reduces the space so the now-snarling and hissing cat doesn't injure itself. Riley gives it the tranquilizing shot in the butt.

A few minutes later Riley lifts the 3-foot-long, 19-pound bobcat out of the cage and lays it carefully on the blanket. They monitor the cat's temperature and vital signs and are prepared to apply cooling ice packs if the animal becomes stressed. As the cat doesn't blink when sedated, Asmus applies eye drops to protect its vision.

Working quickly, the biologists record the cat's weight and other physical measurements, obtain blood and scat samples, and check the cat for fleas and ticks.

The blood samples will be used to check for disease and to conduct DNA comparisons. The scientists are interested in studying the family relationships of the animals, and comparing this to home ranges. Several female bobcats have overlapping ranges and they want to find out if these are mother-daughter cats. The degree of dispersal and inbreeding affect the cat's long-term chances for survival.

Bromley punches holes in a radio collar to custom-fit it to the cat. They place a No. 84 on the bobcat and photograph it. Then they put it back in the cage to wake up. After an hour the cat is stirring. Bromley slowly slides the door open. The cat doesn't leave. I look into the cage and see the bobcat eyeing me. Then, in an instant, a tan blur streaks by me and the cat is gone.

The scientists want to find out whether this male crosses Malibu Canyon Road. There are several females in the area. Male bobcats seem to be more comfortable roaming more built-up areas, and the females appear to be more reclusive. Cars hit and killed two previous males in this area.

So, if you're driving near Malibu Creek Park and see him, please brake for Bobcat 84.

For more information or to make donations to support this program, contact: Charles Taylor, National Park Service, Santa Monica NRA, 401 Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) National Park Service scientists trapped Bobcat 84, above, at Malibu Creek State Park before fitting him with a radio collar and releasing him.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Above, wildlife biologist Kim Asmus applies eye drops to a sedated Bobcat 84. Later, Asmus measures his teeth, left. As part of the NPS' Carnivore Project, scientists are tracking animals and learning about their habitats.

(4) Hang in there, kitty: Biologists Cass Bromley, left, and Kim Asmus weigh Bobcat 84 at Malibu Creek State Park.

Bill Becher/Special to the Daily News