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“I Don’t Like Spiders and Snakes…” (Ferrets–Part Two)
So where was I? Wyoming, summer of ’91? Check. Trundling across the prairie in search of prairie dog poo indicating potential black-footed ferret release sites? Check. Running into monster rattlesnake bent on swallowing me whole? OK, probably not. Screaming in terror? Check. (If you’ve just tuned in, scroll down to read the previous entry so you can catch up. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.) (Got it? Okay, here we go…Oh, and I’ve switched tense from present–in the previous post–to past. It’s just more natural for me when writing. Okay, continue…)
I’m not sure the Wyoming prairie had seen anything like my terrified self back peddling through sage while dragging a metal wheel with a 2 meter long pole attached to it. Wheel and pole got hung up in the shrubbery as I high-tailed it to the dirt track near the edge of the plateau. Why didn’t I drop the wheel? Perhaps it was my sense of duty to be responsible for my equipment, but I’m guessing it was more along the lines of all muscles except those required for flight freezing with rigor-like paralysis.
I stopped at the track, panting and shaking as I searched for signs of Glen’s truck. There! A cloud of dust trailing a white pick-up. Thank the gods of fools and biologists! As Glen made his way toward me, I started dismantling my wheel. He stopped and got out, a quizzical look on his face.
“Are you done with this area already?”
“No,” I said, “but I’m finished.”
I told Glen about my encounters. When I was finished, he gazed toward the rocky outcropping and said in complete and unbelievable seriousness, “Let’s go look.”
I blinked up at him (Glen was over 6′, and quite well-built) as if he’d suggested we douse ourselves with honey and find an anthill to dance on. “Wha?” was all that came out of my mouth.
“Come on,” he said, and started walking to the rocks.
Now, Glen had no love for snakes either. In fact, he carried a 22 pistol with bird shot cartridges just in case he ran into one that was a problem. Why he was compelled to “go look” is still a mystery to me after 17 years. But I went, because it was either follow the big guy with the gun or stay alone with the truck. Plus, I was starting to calm down a little, allowing my more logical side to have a stronger vote.
So I followed Glen, staying close, but not too close. Why? Because it’s usually not the first person disturbing a snoozing rattlesnake who gets bit, it’s the second. But I didn’t want to be first either. That logical side was starting to sound a bit flaky at that point.
I walked with my hands clenched together up near my chest. I’m not sure what I was protecting, as snakes usually don’t leap up like that (if you know otherwise, please, don’t tell me. I felt somewhat secure with my hands in such a defensive posture.). We paralleled the rocky outcropping but found no snakes. Relieved, I was about to go back to the truck when Glen suggested we check the other side.
“Wha?” I said.
“It’ll be fine.” He found a low spot and passed through. Now I REALLY didn’t have much choice but to follow him.
About halfway along the outcropping, Glen stopped and pointed. “There’s a little one.”
Sure enough, about ten feet ahead of us was a 3′ rattler. Standing just behind Glen, my insides quivered and my hands tightened.
“You’ve never heard one rattle before, right?” he asked. I shook my head, eyes locked on the brown and black patterned snake. Glen crouched down and picked up a small rock. “Here, let’s have him rattle for you.”
He chucked the rock at the snake, but the snake gave hardly a twitch before curling up in its defensive posture. At least its posture made sense. “That wasn’t very good,” Glen said. “Let’s try again.”
He bent down for another rock, and as he did so, glanced back past me. And yelped like a girl. He drew his pistol and shot as I turned. A 5′ long rattlesnake was twitching its death throes less than six feet from us. Glen turned to shoot the other snake, the one he’d clunked with the rock, but it had slithered off.
My hands plastered themselves to my mouth and my entire body trembled. Glen’s eyes were wide behind his tinted glasses, and his hands shook as he holstered the pistol.
“You okay?” he asked. I could only nod, not wanting or unable to move my hands away from my mouth.
Glen walked over to the now still snake. He took out his pocket knife and opened the blade. Stepping on the head, he decapitated it and let some blood drain. “We’ll leave the head,” he explained, “because a scratch from the fangs could be dangerous.”
I wasn’t about to argue.
Glen carried the snake, bloody end up, as we made our way back to the truck. Neither of us were in the mood to finish our sites. We’d come back the next day, after our hearts had a chance to settle down. All was quiet across the prairie until Glen let out another yelp and dropped the snake. I jumped about a dozen feet straight up, looking around for the rattler that surely had bitten Glen. But none were in sight. Only the headless carcass.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“Stupid snake doesn’t know it’s dead,” he said as he bend down to retrieve the snake body. When he looked at me, his cheeks were bright red with embarrassment. “The tail curled up and touched my hand.”
I’d like to say we got a good laugh out of that, and we did, eventually. But not that day.
I still haven’t heard a rattlesnake rattle in person. And you know what? I’m in no big rush.
More on prairie dogs and maybe even ferrets to come!
Six Degrees of Separation—Ferret Style, Part One
The recent kafuffle with Cassie Edwards’ alleged plagiarism sparked my interest NOT because of the…kafuffle itself, but because of an extremely thin thread that sort of leads to me. (Yes, yes, it’s all about me. Just keep reading.)
It’s alleged that in her book Shadow Bear, Ms. Edwards allegedly used information about black-footed ferrets found in an article by the Defenders of Wildlife. Because I worked with black-footed ferrets, I was interested in seeing what the article said. Hey, I’m still a biologist at heart, what can I tell you.
The article is from the summer of 2005, out of South Dakota. I didn’t recognize the names mentioned in the article, but I was involved in the initial release in Shirley Basin, WY, back in 1991. In ’91, our first assignment was assessing potential release sites for the ferrets. Somewhere they could find food and shelter, and eventually each other for wild breeding (versus the captive breeding program—but that’ll be addressed in a different post, if I remember). Ferrets hunt prairie dogs, so we looked for areas of high prairie dog populations. Not an easy task since, as the article mentions, prairie dogs were virtually wiped out by ranchers. How did we determine acceptable population densities? We counted prairie dog poop. And avoided snakes. Mostly.
Summer 1991: The Wyoming Prairie
First thing in the morning, our research group–biology grunts, mostly fresh out of or still in college–meets in one of the travel trailers we occupy in a trailer court in Shirley Basin, WY. I’m one of two women in the group of six. Kim and I share one good-sized trailer, the guys share another plus a smaller trailer. (Sorry, I can’t recall where everyone slept.) Pat, our leader, assigns us our search areas for the day. There’s a lot of land to cover. A lot. Glen and I are given areas near each other so we share one of the trucks and head out to our sites. Glen drops me off with my equipment on top of a plateau, saying he’ll be back about lunch time to see how it’s going. We have no radios, but I can see his site down below mine.
I get to work putting my transect wheel together. The wheel has a handle, a distance counter and a two meter long metal bar secured cross-wise. My job is to walk up and down my site, making transects of however many meters so long by two meters wide. As I walk, I use another counter to count prairie dog scat (which looks like large hamster turds) that fell within the two meter width of the transect. I did quite a bit of walking that summer and got into great shape : )
So, I’m trundling up and down the prairie, counting poop and keeping an eye out for snakes. Yes, we were in rattlesnake country, and I hated that part of it. Like all good little mammals, snakes bring out an immediate “GAH! Get away! Get away! Get away!” reaction in me. I call it a survival technique, my husband calls it a phobia. Potatoes, potahtoes. Either way, I’m on alert because I have to go past much sage and other small shrubbery as well as approach and, theoretically, cross a rocky outcropping further along to do my job. Where do snakes like to hang out? Under shrubbery and on rocky outcroppings, depending on the temperature.
And yes, as I’m about half way through my site, I see serpentine movement out of the corner of my eye. In the area I have yet to cover. In the direction I will soon be heading. I stop and turn my head. The 3′ snake is perhaps ten feet away and slightly in front of me.
“Move along, snake,” I say to it. “I need to go over there and I know you’re as afraid of me as I am of you.” Though I doubted the “more afraid of me” thing. I just said it to make myself feel better and to let the snake know I had seen him.
The snake doesn’t move for a moment then slithers toward the area I’d already covered. I repress a shudder but I’m relieved. Yay! And apparently I speak snake. That could come in handy.
Still cautious, because where there’s one snake, there are usually more, I continue walking and counting. As I approach the rocky outcropping, I slow down and take careful inventory of what’s around me. No telltale rattle, thank goodness. In fact, I’ve never heard a rattlesnake rattle in real life. I take a step, look, take another, look, glance up, and my heart stops. Right in front of me, sunning itself on the rocks is a five foot long rattler. It looks at me and wags its forked tongue. I don’t know if it rattled because I screamed.
to be continued….
Exercise: It’s for the Dogs
(This post is related to writing. Really. Sort of. Just bear with me.)
Yesterday, I started a 30 minute walking routine with our dogs. Okay, it’s not routine yet, but I plan on making it one. I should have done it sooner, as we all need to move our copious butts more often. Bailey is a black lab/border collie cross with lots of energy. She requires several rounds of chase the ball during the day to keep her from getting stir crazy. Any time, any weather. Why she is not the svelte canine she ought to be is a mystery. Yes, we’ve had her thyroid and such checked. No, she doesn’t eat more than our other dog, Holly (a rottweiler/golden retriever–that’s her picture there. I’ll get one of Bailey on here as an “after” shot. She’s a bit embarrassed by her current state of–ahem–thickness.). Granted, we don’t exercise her as much as she needs, but she shouldn’t be as “big boned” as she is.
It’s scary how Bailey and I have the same problems–thyroid’s fine, eating no more than most, big bones. And since neither of us is keen on dieting, the solution is to move. Hence, our new “walkies” program.
We walk the kids down to the bus stop then go for a 15 minute jaunt along the highway. It’s a highway in name only. With one lane in each direction, sporadic traffic, and a nice wide shoulder, it’s probably one of the safest roads around. The highway follows a huge lake and is bordered by green, woodsy foothills. Other than the potential to meet a bear, it’s quite lovely. At the 15 minute mark, we turn around and head home, feeling the twinge of under-used muscles reawakening.
So how is this related to writing? Though fine companions, dogs aren’t much help in that department. But the walking is important to my routine. My life as a writer lends itself to two unhealthy pitfalls: being sedentary and lacking contact with the outside world. You see, up until we moved, I’d go to the gym 3 or 4 mornings a week. This got me healthier (though I never lost more than a few pounds I did have a better cholesterol count and lower blood pressure, and I felt great) and it was a chance to socialize with other members. After working out, I’d go home and get my day of writing started. Physical exercise and human companionship prepared me for the mental tasks ahead.
But since moving, I haven’t seen the inside of a gym. Okay, that’s not quite true. I looked in the window of the local recreation center and saw their weight room. I have a DVD and some odd looking ring someone gave me for a pilates workout, but I have yet to pop the thing into the player. Maybe I will when the weather is too nasty to walk. Though I doubt the dogs will find it as pleasurable as walking, even in the rain.
I still need to get more human contact to keep me sane. That will probably come with volunteering at school. Eventually. I’m not quite ready for jumping into that fray, as I’m still reveling in the absence of kid-sounds in my day. Let’s not push it, ‘kay?
Cat Tale
One of our cats, Frosty (guess what color he is) decided to go on a bit of an adventure. I know most of you are thinking, well, that’s not too unusual. Cats are like that. Yes, but let me give you a little background.
Frosty is, perhaps, the most skittish, most wussy cat I know. In our old place, he was an indoor only kitty, venturing outside no more than three feet from the door that had better be open or he’d panic. No, really. If he happened to be outside (accompanied by an adult human) and someone accidentally shut the door, he’d freak.
I preferred the cats staying in at our old place because we were close to a somewhat busy road. Not to mention the occasional eagle cruising overhead. But when we moved, our new house offered less traffic danger, so my husband let the cats out.
I was nervous about this, even without the risk of them being run over, because we still had eagles and the added threat of bears. Yes, bears. In the neighborhood. But with plenty of hiding places and Frosty’s tendency to dash from cover to cover, I figured he was safe despite his “unnatural” white “Here I am! Eat me!” fur. It was the bolder cat, Mouse, I was concerned with. Knowing her, she’d walk up to a bear and become kitty vittles.
So anyway, Frosty and Mouse were outside, with the front doors ajar in case they needed to come in. Mouse wandered in on Saturday evening, but not Frosty. I stayed up until midnight, periodically calling to him. Nothing. Next day, nothing. Day after that, gulp, nothing.
Crap.
The kids were upset, but my husband and I told them that cats do this sort of thing, that perhaps he was at someone else’s house (unlikely, given his skittishness about strangers), anything we could come up with to ease their fears. He even told them of a cat he had in Nome when he was a kid that disappeared for three weeks in the dead of winter. The cat returned with frostbitten ears and a bit on the thin side, but she was fine. Great inspirational story, hon. But inside, I figured Frosty was a gonner. I was sad, as he’s a decent enough cat. The kids were sad. Mouse was sad, but I think mostly because we didn’t let her out anymore. All in all, a sad household.
Until last night. Yep, Frosty wandered up to the porch yesterday evening, none the worse for wear. His ears are a bit red, perhaps from mites, but otherwise he looks fine. We believe he was under the house, but why didn’t he come out? Why didn’t he make any noise? What did he eat? And my husbands biggest question: if he was under there, what did he tear up?
Frosty may be answering those questions, as he has been quite yammery since coming home. My girls want to celebrate by giving him tuna water today at lunch. He’ll like that.
And he and his compadre, Mouse, better like the view from inside. No more outdoor cats.
The Nature of Things
As I walked up the driveway this morning (on my way home from working out—go me!) I spied something under our boat trailer. A Northern Saw-whet owl stared at me with large yellow eyes. It had caught a small bird. I stopped, not wanting to scare the little guy (?) off his meal, backed up and took a more circuitous route to my porch through the heavy, wet snow that had fallen yesterday. I crept along the porch, against the wall, and peered around the corner. Still there, the owl had returned his attention to his breakfast. Or dinner.
Quiet as I could be in my clunky boots, I went inside and told my daughters what I’d seen. They were excited about the idea of an owl in our yard, even if it was chowing on one of the birds we’d probably been feeding for the past two months. Such is the way of nature, and my girls accept the facts of eat and be eaten with more maturity than I can give some adults credit for.
Now, most folks wouldn’t be fascinated by watching an owl tear into a song bird, but as a wildlife biologist-type, the natural order doesn’t gross me out in the least. My husband and I passed our matter-of-fact attitude about such things to our girls when they were old enough to understand that you have to eat to live. We’ve never forced them to watch a lion rip into a bloody zebra, but they know a lion’s got to eat something and grass just isn’t on their menu.
When our oldest was about 3, she had a fascination with sharks. With all marine life, really, but sharks in particular. Somewhere along the line, she received a bunch of plastic sharks as a gift. The Great White was her favorite, and when she asked us what they ate we told her seals, sea lions, fish, whatever they wanted, really. She took that in stride, despite the fact she thought seals were the cutest things around.
That summer, we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. She took her favorite shark, of course, and happily watched sea otters dive for clams in their enclosure, touched sea stars, and marveled at the floor to ceiling tank of moon jellies. Then we went to the seal and sea lion exhibit. The exhibit was set up with windows to watch the pinnepeds swim in their underwater enclosure. They’d come right up to the windows then swim off to make their circuit around the pool. Lots of people crowded around to see the cute seals. My curly-haired, blue-eyed three year old squeezed her way between the other visitors to get a look. Folks were nice enough to let her through. After all, who can resist an adorable (if I do say so myself) small child wishing to see an equally adorable animal? As a seal approached, she whipped out her plastic shark, held it in front of the glass and, in front of fifteen or so mostly grandma and grandpa types, made loud munching and lip smacking sounds, “Ar ar ar ar!”
I thought the people around her were going to pass out from horror. Holding back a chuckle at their reaction, I gently moved my daughter away from the window, saying, “Yes, honey, sharks eat seals. Let’s go look at the sea birds now.”
There is a certain order to nature that I accept and respect. Not that I’m all “Let’s go live with Nature and be one with Her” or anything. I like modern conveniences as much as the next person. But I can explain to my kids how an owl and a pine siskin or a Great White and a seal fit into their places. It’s the “civilized” world I have a hard time with.
But that’s a rant for another time.
Here’s wishing you a Happy 2007!