Our first 10-night trapping run is kicking my ass. 4-5 hours of sleep each morning is starting to catch up. It’s all I can do to keep up with data (never mind data checking), and trapping needs and preparation.
The fact that I doubled my Shermans in the last three days may have something to do with the sheer fatigue I’m battling at the moment; or perhaps it’s the telemetry project I volunteered for that is about to take over my afternoons.
Voles, bleepin’ voles. If they are out there, I will find them, track them down, trap them and vaccinate them. Now it’s entirely possible that they have been plagued out – this is a plague study after all – but I don’t actually know that. So I proceed as if I’m missing some magical formula that will miraculously materialize voles before me. Hence I’m trapping at 6 plots consecutively with 120 Shermans. And no, of course I haven’t stopped trapping my woodrats.
Where are you, my measly, mean-tempered Microtus munchkins?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
< Pause >
Flood warning, tornado watch and severe thunderstorms: guess it’s time for a break.
In 14 trapping nights, we’ve caught 60+ individual woodrats. Not too shabby. We have vaccine arriving in a few days, and hopefully, the transponders will begin working too so we can start pit tagging, because trying to read tiny ear tags via headlamp is not advisable for a pair of 30-something-year-old eyes.
Vole trapping has a taken a bit of a back seat but is about to hit center stage pronto. It seems every time I reach some level of comfort, I throw myself neck-deep into something new.
Julie (volunteer) has been a welcome addition (note: she’s also a meat-loving, elk-hunting Texan mother of four, with a surprising fascination with my bone-crunching, cartilage-munching, marrow-sucking eating habits). She has been coping well considering I have been moving traps around on her almost daily. She started working on arrival, giving up the option of taking a day to adjust to the night schedule (bonus point #1), and then bare-handed a grab on a suddenly-awake, recently-anesthetized woodrat two nights ago (bonus point #2).
It *almost* feels like I know what I’m doing.
In 14 trapping nights, we’ve caught 60+ individual woodrats. Not too shabby. We have vaccine arriving in a few days, and hopefully, the transponders will begin working too so we can start pit tagging, because trying to read tiny ear tags via headlamp is not advisable for a pair of 30-something-year-old eyes.
Vole trapping has a taken a bit of a back seat but is about to hit center stage pronto. It seems every time I reach some level of comfort, I throw myself neck-deep into something new.
Julie (volunteer) has been a welcome addition (note: she’s also a meat-loving, elk-hunting Texan mother of four, with a surprising fascination with my bone-crunching, cartilage-munching, marrow-sucking eating habits). She has been coping well considering I have been moving traps around on her almost daily. She started working on arrival, giving up the option of taking a day to adjust to the night schedule (bonus point #1), and then bare-handed a grab on a suddenly-awake, recently-anesthetized woodrat two nights ago (bonus point #2).
It *almost* feels like I know what I’m doing.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Stalked by Night
There’s something slightly unnerving about a pair of widely spaced eyes, set high off the ground, following you around at night. But like so many things, it just takes a little getting used to. Ironically I was just listening an old “This American Life” from 2003, with the theme “Cat & Mouse” earlier in the evening, and here I was getting approached from behind by a rather ballsy elk, probably the buck that was following me around two days ago when I opened and baited my plots. It’d run off every time I turned around or move to my next trap. The game continued for about an hour before I suppose I bored it and it moved on. Just one hour…must be losing my touch out here in the boonies. Maybe an hour is equivalent to seven elk years or something.
It’s been a whole five days since my last fatality, so it looks like half-night trapping is here to stay. It hasn’t been too hard a transition, and working with live animals has the tendency to keep my spirits up. Although my chocolate intake hasn’t eased one bit. I just baked a couple of chocolate cakes, been cooking for three days, 200 crunches last night, and am about to head out for a run. It appears I’m still stressing about something, or everything.
My volunteer arrives tomorrow. I wonder what she’ll think about a freezer partially filled with dead critters, about getting stalked at night, about having to chase off the great horned owl that’s messing with traps, about starting work at midnight and wrapping up whenever we get done, about the photo of a ferret over a dead (and tagged!) juvie PD that I have tacked on the fridge. I know what she’ll say … I’ve asked. But just in case she’s being polite, I cooked a stew and baked a cake. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s not vegetarian.
She’s bringing a portable grill. Surely that isn’t for grilled veggies, right? Don’t they throw you out of Texas for being a vegetarian?
It’s time for my run…
It’s been a whole five days since my last fatality, so it looks like half-night trapping is here to stay. It hasn’t been too hard a transition, and working with live animals has the tendency to keep my spirits up. Although my chocolate intake hasn’t eased one bit. I just baked a couple of chocolate cakes, been cooking for three days, 200 crunches last night, and am about to head out for a run. It appears I’m still stressing about something, or everything.
My volunteer arrives tomorrow. I wonder what she’ll think about a freezer partially filled with dead critters, about getting stalked at night, about having to chase off the great horned owl that’s messing with traps, about starting work at midnight and wrapping up whenever we get done, about the photo of a ferret over a dead (and tagged!) juvie PD that I have tacked on the fridge. I know what she’ll say … I’ve asked. But just in case she’s being polite, I cooked a stew and baked a cake. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s not vegetarian.
She’s bringing a portable grill. Surely that isn’t for grilled veggies, right? Don’t they throw you out of Texas for being a vegetarian?
It’s time for my run…
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