Sorry Folks...

I've been a desk jockey for a while now and have run out of stories and time to blog. So sadly, I am taking a hiatus. I'll also be looking for a job soon! So if there are any employers reading my blog who want to hire a snarky wildlife bio, drop me a line.

Sometimes even my best techs piss me off.

Several years ago, I offered one of my best techs the opportunity to get his Masters degree. He jumped at the opportunity. Smart boy. But when I realized the project may not work, I decided to give him a backup project…just in case. When I told him about my brilliant idea, he flew off the handle. Instead of understanding the project was flawed, he heard, “You’re simply not good enough to do it right.”
Though I explained things to him over and over, he could not be reasoned with.

So what did I do?

Like the mature woman I am, I quit speaking to him.

Not my brightest move considering we were camping.

Just the two of us.

For days.

Open Mouth. Insert Foot. Now Swallow.

Sorry for not posting last week. What can I say? Sometimes life happens.

This week’s story is again from the conference and relates to the previous story. Same boss. Same tech. Flash forward seven years. Both of them are at the conference.

Bossman gives a talk and posts a picture on the screen of a tiny woman fixing a fence. After explaining what is going on in the picture, Bossman points to it and says, “If you can believe it, that is Baby Face Nelson. As you can see, she was lot thinner then.”

Some Days Bosses Deserve to be Shot.

Imagine:

A young woman—-who shall be dubbed Baby Face Nelson after the famous car thief–-starts a new government job as a grizzly bear technician. Her new boss sends her to a cattle ranch by herself to check on a report of a problem grizzly bear in the area.

Keep in mind, she’s a female bear biologist working for the government in Montana. What could possibly go wrong?

At sundown, after sitting in her truck all day and seeing no bear, she prepares to leave. Only her truck won’t start.

What does she do?

She grabs her bear spray and prays the bear doesn’t show up while she checks under the hood. She can’t for the life of her figure out how to get the truck to work…

…nor can she get back in the truck because the doors are locked. And the keys are inside.

Shit.

By now it's completely dark. With no other option, she dashes across the field to the house and pounds on the door. No one’s home. She runs to the barn, finds a phone and calls her boss. He doesn’t answer. She waits for hours, calling, and hoping the bear doesn’t show up. Figuring she’s going to spend the night there, she decides she’s needs more substantial shelter than an open barn. She sees an old car and runs to it.

By some small miracle it’s open, the keys are inside, and it starts!

So on one of her first days of work, she becomes a car thief. Praying she can return the car before the rancher gets home and notices it’s missing, she pulls into her boss’s driveway and bangs on the door. She explains what happened then says, “Quick, we can make it back before they notice the car is missing!”

So what does her boss—the one who sent her out alone, in a broken down truck and refused to answer his phone because he thought it was his ex-wife calling—do?

That’s right, he calls the rancher and tells him, his new tech stole the car.

Did you say bare conference?

While at the bear conference, a biologist heard our story of Jasmine’s reenactment of a bear and decided to share his story.

He and a colleague were on a ferry when they met two women and struck up a conversation. When the women asked where they were headed, they said, “To a bear conference.”

The women lit up and said they too were going to the bare conference…

Then they proceeded to strip.

Super Troopers

Sorry folks. I had internet problems in the morning yesterday and was traveling to a bear conference in the afternoon. During our travels, Jasmine, who has a problem with speeding, got pulled over. Though the state trooper did give Jasmine a ticket—a whopping twenty bucks payable on the roadside in Big Sky Country for us out-of-staters—he was very nice.

After collecting Jasmine’s money, he asked, “Where are you ladies heading?”

“Missoula,” Jasmine said.

“To a bear conference,” I added.

The trooper gave us a blank look so Jasmine clarified. “You know, bears.” She made a claw with her hand and swiped at him. Then she roared.

For a split second, everything went silent. Had Jasmine really swiped at and then roared at the cop? Why yes, yes she had.

When the cop said, “I think I’m going to have you step out of the car…” I was sure she was going to be taking a sobriety test. I was also pretty sure she’d fail because we were so giddy…and Jasmine was…well, Jasmine. “…and have you reenact that on the roadside for the passersby to see ‘cause that was the worst impression of a bear I’ve ever seen.”

Energizer Bunnies are no Weebles…

Warning: If gross injuries make you queasy, do not scroll down to view the picture at the bottom of the blog. It’s quite disgusting!



In today’s blog, I introduce a new character dubbed EB because he has the energy of the Energizer Bunny. EB is a woodsman and an athlete. He hikes. He hunts. He runs. He rock climbs. With his background, one would think he could survive a weekend fieldtrip to retrieve radio collars without any major catastrophes.

Alas, EB may have boundless energy, but he is not a Weeble. So when he was hiking through steep and rugged country and slipped, he not only wobbled, he fell down. Hard.

And landed himself in the hospital…

With no radio collar to show for his effort.

Suckie.

Oh Shit!

People who work with animals deal with a lot of shit…I mean poop. So much so, they can often identify animals by their poop. For example, elk poop looks like Milk Duds while Panda poop looks like a woody football. Some grizzly bear poop looks suspiciously like the food they’ve eaten, which is why we can often identify what a bear eats by looking at its poop.

One day, a technician working at a captive bear facility was shoveling shit when he saw something round and red in the pile of poop. Wondering what it was, he picked it up. The size and shape of a cherry, it was not a cherry, but it was some kind of fruit. A fruit he could not identify.

So what did he do?

He started to put it in his mouth. After all, when you can’t identify something that is obviously edible, why not taste it?

Horrified with what he was about to do, he stopped…

And realized he was far too comfortable with poop.

My Life:

As I struggled with what I was going to write this week because I haven’t been in the field lately, someone sent me this:

‘nough said.

Day Two Comes to a Close...

Fortunately, we had a cat in a tree at the end of our epic hike—-had there not been a cat, Jasmine would’ve killed Cougar Hunter.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. The cat fell out of the tree—-after being darted—-and took off running. Cougar Hunter, being tough and stupid, ran after the cat and tried to grab it by the tail, missing by a few inches…because the cat turned to face him. The cat and Cougar Hunter engaged in a game of cat and hunter until Cougar Hunter injected the cat with more drug.

At which point Jasmine and I, who were watching from a safe distance, breathed a sigh of relief.

That was, until Cougar Hunter yelled for help. Then I sprinted into action, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on a snowy mountain, holding a not completely sleeping cougar by the collar as it tried to get away from me.

And all I could think was, I’m not tough enough to be this stupid.

Day Two Continues...

After crossing the river, we realized we weren’t on the trail of a cat, so we aborted the mission. And crossed the freaking river again.

No biggie. I did it.

And then the dogs got a track that went straight up the mountain.

So we slogged up the mountain through deep snow for over an hour. The only time we were not slogging through several feet of snow was when we were no longer hiking. We were rock climbing.

Have I mentioned I’m afraid of heights? And so is Jasmine. And apparently so is Cougar Hunter. But none of us said a word. We just went up.

When Cougar Hunter and I reached the top of the ridge, I stopped and looked back at Jasmine, who was hanging from the rock face.

“You okay?” I called to her.

“Yeah.” Her voice shook as she let go of the rock with one hand and reached in her pocket to pull out her camera. “Just taking a picture.”

She took it then climbed the rest of the way up and admitted, “I just did that to cover up the fact that I was going to pee my pants from fear.”

A Weekend in the Field with Cougar Hunter: Day Two

Day two in the field started out not so swell. At least, not for me. Because I can’t cross a river to save my life. I have no balance. So walking across a log from one river bank to another is akin to walking a tightrope. As if walking across a downed tree isn’t bad enough, Cougar Hunter picked a tree a good ten feet above the rushing river-—have I mentioned I’m afraid of heights? Granted the tree was wide, but it was covered in snow and ice.

As I watched Cougar Hunter cross with ease, I gave myself a pep talk. I could do this. It wasn’t that bad. Just one foot in front of the other.

Next to go was the houndsman—-with a dog in tow—-not an easy feat, but he made it look easy.

I could do this. I really could.

And I tried. I really did. I stood on the edge of the log, willing my feet to move, but they wouldn't. They were cemented to the snow and ice, frozen with fear.

So how did I get across?

I, the experienced and professional wildlife biologist, straddled the freaking log and scooted my way across. Mind you, I was petrified and my entire body was trembling. And it took what felt like a day for me to get across. Nothing like coming out to "help" and holding up the show.

To make matters worse, Jasmine, my dear friend who has spent but a handful of days in the woods, skipped across the stupid log like she was playing freaking hopscotch.

A Weekend in the Field with Cougar Hunter...

Last weekend, Jasmine and I went into the field to help Cougar Hunter. In those two days, we learned just how “tough” we are.

And I got several weeks’ worth of blogs.

The first day, Cougar Hunter took us out on snowmobiles. Jasmine rode with the houndsman (not THE HOUNDSMAN) while I rode with Cougar Hunter. Jasmine was excited. This was her first time on a snowmobile. I was not--I’m certain I’ve blogged about what a great snowmobiler I am.

But once I realized how skilled Cougar Hunter was at driving a snow machine, I relaxed. He was so good at driving the snow machine, I didn’t flinch when he drove onto a steep and narrow path on the side of the mountain. A mountain we could’ve tumbled down. Hell, I was so confident in Cougar Hunter, I stayed relaxed when we were no longer snowmobiling, but speed boating with snowmobiles on ponds of water.

So yeah, I was proud of him and me, ’cause I was relaxed.

That was, until he launched the snowmobile off a “bump” in the “road” and I almost went hurtling off the back end.

Oh yeah, it promised to be fun weekend.

YOU BETTER BE TOUGH IF YOU’RE GONNA BE STUPID:

This is Cougar Hunter’s motto. And for good reason. Sometimes he’s not too bright. But he sure is tough.

Last week Cougar Hunter darted a cougar in a tree next to a stream. For those of you who do not understand the problem with darting a cat next to a stream, you’ll soon find out.

To give Cougar Hunter credit, in his study area, every tree is near a stream, but just as Cougar Hunter feared, the cat jumped from the tree and ran…after it was darted. Cougar Hunter tracked the cat through a foot of snow and across the stream roughly eight times. The last time he came to the stream, he didn’t see tracks on the other side. But when he looked upriver, he saw the cat hanging over a log, face down in the water.

Just as he had feared.

Cougar Hunter ran up the creek—-in thigh-high, freezing cold water—-grabbed the cat by the collar and pulled its head out of the stream, only to have the cat turn on him and try to take his face off. Somehow Cougar Hunter kept hold of the cat, while standing in the middle of the rushing water, and injected it with more drug. Then he dragged the 165 pound male cougar to an island in the middle of the stream and recollared it. Fifty minutes later, his “help” showed up. They carried the cat across the stream to a spot far enough away from the water that it wouldn’t drown itself as it woke up.

I’m not that tough. Had this been me, I’d have died from hypothermia. Or I would’ve been cougar bait. But then again, I’m not that stupid.

NOT FUNNY, BUT TRUE:

This weekend I realized, as I was flying to California, that I pretty much hate motorized transportation. It just scares me. I also realized I will never be a great wildlife biologist for one very important reason: I hate flying. I hate flying more than I hate snowshoes and snowmobiles. I hate flying so much, I have to drug myself to get on a commercial airplane.

When I was younger, I rode in many helicopters, but now that I’m older, I refuse to get into a helicopter or a fixed-wing aircraft. Too many people in my field die this way.

About five years ago, I was radio-collaring deer. To capture the deer, a wildlife biologist would hang out of a helicopter and shoot a deer with a net. Then the pilot would land the ship so two muggers could jump out and tie the netted deer to the helicopter. Then they would fly it back to those of us on the ground so we could put a radio collar on it. One of the guys in charge, for some reason, really, really, really wanted me to get in the helicopter and be a mugger. He spent the entire day, telling me how safe it was and how good the pilot was. I didn’t doubt the pilot was good, but I KNOW helicopters are not safe. And he didn’t know me. If he did, he wouldn’t have wasted his breath. There was no way I was getting on that thing.

Four weeks later—this is not a joke—that specific helicopter, working on the same project, with the same pilot and gunner, crashed.

Thankfully, everyone survived…

And no one has tried to get me into a helicopter since.

Near Miss:

I have worked at many zoos and captive animal facilities and have seen and done many stupid things. I count myself fortunate enough to have friends who, though normally smart, do stupid things as well. Then they do an even dumber thing by telling me about it.

Several years ago, one such friend was working as a bear keeper at a zoo. He brought the bears inside to feed them then went to the outside exhibit to clean.

Then he heard something behind him.

He turned to see two bears running at him and realized he’d forgotten to put all the bears inside. As the bears raced toward him, he pressed himself against a wall of the exhibit, sure he was a goner. But the bears didn’t touch him. Instead they ran past him, stood on their hind legs and banged on the door to be let inside. Before he had a chance to make a break for it, both bears stopped pounding and turned to look at him as if to say, “Well, what are you waiting for? Get in there and feed us!”

HOLY SHEEP!

I’ve seen a lot of people do stupid shit around wild animals. And no, they’re not just wildlife biologists. Wildlife biologists are trained professionals. We take calculated risks. And yes, many times we screw up and do stupid shit. But we don’t think wild animals are our friends. We don’t think we have a special bond with them. And we don’t try to pet them.

Stupid people do.

One day, when I was in the wilds of Canada, riding my bike, I was forced to stop behind a car parked in the middle of the road. The driver was taking pictures of a herd of bighorn sheep. But he wasn’t stupid. He stayed in the car.

I didn’t have a car. I had a bike, spandex, and funny biking shoes that I could barely walk in.

So when the sheep—did I mention they had big horns?—swarmed me, licked my arms and legs, and then peeled the handlebar tape off my bike, what do you think I did?

That’s right, I, the big brave professionally trained wildlife biologist, dropped my bike, waded through the herd, and jumped into a complete stranger’s car…

…while my dumbass boyfriend—who was not a trained professional—took pictures and tried to pet the sheep.