Pet detectives reveal how they’d crack the Capybara case
With two capybaras still on the lam in Toronto, maybe it’s time to bring in a professional sleuth — a hardbitten skip tracer with an arsenal of high-tech spy equipment and a keen nose for the critters who don’t want to be found.
In the days since the two giant rodents escaped from the High Park Zoo on Tuesday, city staff combed the park, conducted evening stakeouts, left treats out as bait and even recruited another capybara to sniff out the fugitives. As of Saturday, to no avail.
Pet detectives Al Macllelan, of Petsearchers Canada, and Kat Albrecht, a former police dog handler, say they would do things a little differently.
MacLellan became a pet private eye after he lost and eventually found his dog in a snowstorm in Abbotsford, B.C. “I noticed some other people looking for their pets so I helped them out. That just blossomed until it was time for me to leave my office job and my suit, and get out there,” he said. He founded Petsearchers Canada, based in Surrey, B.C., in 2006.
“I’m a dog tracker,” he explained. “I use bloodhounds to track down lost dogs, lost cats. I get called in by the RCMP to find lost people once in a while.”
MacLellan says he’d start by setting up cameras. “I use cellular trail cameras, so, if the animal walks by, it sends me a picture to my cellphone. I use those a lot because I don’t want the animal sitting in a trap all night.
“I would take advantage of thermal imaging equipment.” That’s an infrared gun, he explains.
“I use them a lot in a wooded or bushy area. If I’m looking for a small dog or any kind of animal, I just hold this little camera in my hand and I aim it at the bush, and if there’s any body heat at all, it shows up. It can be as small as a fly, even.”
He’d also get a drone out there, with a camera and a live feed.
“We’re implementing those tools right now as we speak, so we can scan a larger area.”
His hardest catch, he says, was a dog that had been lost for 10 months. Raised by a hoarder, it had never had a real family and was feral, he said.
“I caught it twice. The first time, it bit me in the face. It was a bit of a battle, but I got him into the vehicle as I was bleeding all over the place.”
Albrecht began moonlighting as a pet detective while working as a cop in California in the late 1990s, she said. She “became disillusioned by a police career (after) her dog-tracking techniques and brilliant search dogs rarely got a chance to shine,” according to her website. She says she has taught pet detectives in the U.S., Canada and even Japan.
She said her main difficulty with the capybaras in High Park would be that they’re herbivores, “and there’s a big food source out there for them. It becomes more difficult to capture an animal when it’s not hungry and you can’t lure it into a trap.”
Catching a well-fed animal requires creativity, she said. The zoo folks may have been on the right track when they tried briefly to use another capybara, from an exotic animal shelter, as a lure.
“It’s not a bloodhound,” she points out. “It’s not going to track down the capybaras. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean it’s not going to work. What they really need (first) is a sighting.”
She figures capturing the South American rodents would be something “like catching a greased pig.”
“There are two methods that come to mind. There’s a specialized trap called the Missy Trap. It’s is a large fenced-in enclosure that an animal can walk into without feeling confined.” Albrecht explained the trap is made of horse-fence panels, with an electromagnetic switch that closes the gate when the animal goes inside.
“The only other way that I can personally think of that might be effective would be to use a snappy snare. It’s like an instant leash.”
Asked whether she gets tired of hearing Ace Ventura jokes in her job, Albrecht responds: “No, because I had to learn many years ago to not worry about what others think or say about my work. I’m blessed in that I’m being paid for my passion of working with animals and helping people (who’ve lost their pet). I once had a job that I absolutely hated, but as a pet detective, I’m blessed to have found my life’s purpose. Not many people can say that.”