KANE'OHE — A Makaha woman yesterday pleaded not guilty to a charge of animal cruelty for killing a peacock with a baseball bat.

Sandra Maloney, 68, appeared in court wearing a big floppy white hat and sunglasses. She shied away from still and video cameras, pulling the brim of the hat over her face.

Circuit Judge Glenn Kim told Maloney and her attorney, Randy Oyama, that she was to appear before Judge Derrick Chan Aug. 31 at Circuit Court on Punchbowl Street. Trial would begin sometime after that.

Maloney has acknowledged that she killed the bird on the grounds of her Makaha Valley Towers condominium because of its incessant loud mating calls that left her sleep-deprived.

She and others had complained to the condominium association, which has a permit to cull and eradicate the peacocks but did nothing about the peacock noise, Oyama said.

"These people go through sleep deprivation, and that has an effect on people," Oyama said. "They're irritable, and it affects their lives."

Culling or eradicating animals such as chickens, goats and cattle occurs throughout the Islands to ensure quality of life for people and to protect the environment, Oyama said. The state pays $60,000 a year to rid neighborhoods of wild chickens, and acid is used to eliminate the noisy coqui frog, he said.

A law allows the culling of pests, vermin and insects, but it's not clear what is prohibited, Oyama said.

"I would think all these examples where the state pays people to do these things, by definition, they would have to be considered pests, or they would be violating this law, too," he said.

Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle has said his office would pursue the case vigorously and that using a baseball bat to kill the peacock is not tolerated by the law.

Jim Fulton, spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said the statute clearly says a person has committed a crime if he or she "tortures, cruelly beats, causes substantial bodily injury."

If convicted, Maloney faces up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.