OutFoxed:

When I worked on Cactus Island, I was not only issued a Leatherman, I was given a pair of leather gloves.

“What are these for?” I naively asked.

“You’ll see,” said my boss.

For this job, we live-trapped feral cats. Occasionally, we’d catch an Island fox. When we caught our first fox, our boss put on his gloves, made a fist and stuck his hand in the trap. Though the fox opened his mouth to bite him, the fox’s mouth was too small to get around his fist. My boss grabbed the fox by the scruff of the neck and pulled it out of the trap. Then he set it in his lap on its back. He kept the fox still with one hand pressing lightly around its neck. The fox just laid there and let us check it over before we released it. Easy.

“Don’t worry if it tries to bite you,” he said as I prepared to pull my first fox out of a trap. “Its mouth isn’t big and his teeth aren’t sharp enough to get through the gloves.”

“Okay,” I said, then stuck my fist into the trap. Sure enough the fox snapped at me, but I held steady. I’d watch my boss do it, and he said the gloves would protect me. I had complete faith.

Idiot.

Sure enough, the fox got his mouth around my much smaller fist with no problem. Then it sunk its tiny teeth through the glove into my flesh.

“Ow!” I pulled my hand out of the trap and ripped off my glove. Blood flowed out of several tooth marks. I shot an angry look at my boss.

He simply laughed. “Yeah…I might’ve lied about them not being able to bite through the glove.”

Tucker...the Little You Know What.

I could write a book about my dogs that would make Marley and Me look like a day at the beach. Granted, dogs are not wildlife, but they’re animals, and mine provide an endless supply of stories. Anyone who knows me (and my dogs) will vouch for this.

Tucker is a twelve-year-old Aussie. I hoped by twelve he would’ve calmed down or gained some sense. But no, he still howls every time I leave the house. I can hear him a block away. He’s still petrified of thunder, lightning, fireworks and his shadow. If I’m home during a thunderstorm, he shakes and pants uncontrollably. If I’m not and there’s a loud noise, his only goal is to run. If he’s outside, he jumps the fence or digs under it. If he’s inside, he digs at the windows and the doors, trying to break free. He has dug all the way through the wall of a house…twice. Several weeks ago, he actually opened the back door.

Last week, I came home to a redecorated house. Tucker had taken down the blinds and destroyed them.

Why?

There was no rain, no thunder, no lightning, but I believe there was a cloud in the sky that day.

My Stupid Sense of Humor

Insight into how my brain works…or doesn’t.

Last week, a friend of mine, who is highly intelligent, told me HER BOSS sent an email with a SYNAPSES (his word, not hers) of their meeting.

I laughed so hard then got angry because he is her boss! He shouldn’t be so stupid!

My response?

“He’s such a NEURON.”

Un-bee-lievable

Last week I, along with some co-workers, were feeding dead salmon to bears. As you can probably imagine, the fish reeks (and so do we). The lovely smell attracts a zillion yellow jackets. They gather on the fish, the sidewalk, and us. A real pain for anyone, but especially if you’re allergic to bees, which I am.

At one point, I was using a garden hose to spray off my hands, which were covered in fish guts. Several yellow jackets kept coming at me. So what do I do? I spray them with the hose. One pesky fellow is only inches from the nozzle and I can’t quite get him, so I change my aim, waving the hose back and forth, trying to zap him away.

Then I realize what I’ve done.

In changing my aim, I’m no longer spraying toward the ground. I’m spraying my friend JT. In the face. And he’s just standing there. In silence. Wondering what he’s done to piss me off.

Lightning Peak

My almost fearless tech, SP, who had been with me for four years and got his Master’s degree, left this weekend for a real job. Silly boy. A group of us went to dinner on Thursday to say good-bye, and someone asked if anyone knew any good/embarrassing stories about him.

I don’t know why everyone looked at me.

Another friend said, “Tell the story about Lightning Peak.”

So I did.

Last year, SP and I killed ourselves to put in the most beautiful barbed-wire hair snares anyone has ever seen. And we hiked them far off the roads to increase our chances of getting bears to come into them. Hiking them off roads in our study area meant hiking straight up. Our study area is not only very steep, it gets things called micro-cells, tiny storms that blaze through the area in minutes. When I say tiny, I mean one cloud. When I say storm, I mean full on thunder, lightning and a downpour of rain or hail. When I say minutes, I mean like five. And sometimes you will see the storm, but it will NEVER COME YOUR WAY.

One day, while SP and I were pounding barbed-wire into trees on top of a rather high ridge, I felt the wind kick up. I looked out over the horizon and saw IN THE FAR OFF DISTANCE a black cloud and a single bolt of lightning. Stupidly and quite casually, I said, “Hmm…lightning.”

SP looked up from what he was doing and said, “Oh, shit, lightning? Where? I’m out of here.” Then he dropped his tools and ran down the ridge, leaving me alone.

“Uh…Okay, I’ll just finish up,” I said as he disappeared from sight.

To this day that story makes me laugh because SP is a six-foot-tall, two-hundred pound, twenty-something male who left a five-foot-five, one hundred and thirty pound, forty-something female alone on a ridge to get struck by lightning…that never came our way.

Glamour

Being a wildlife biologist isn't as glamorous as you may think. Yes, we have seriously cool moments, but more times than not, we’re either sitting at a desk, or sweating, freezing or something to death in the great outdoors. In my case, lately, I smell. Bad. So bad in fact that when I stopped at a rest area, a little kid sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“What stinks?” he said.

I looked down at myself, my pants and shirt covered in red goo, and shook my head. What stinks? That would be me and my truck full of bear bait.

Yep, it’s a glamorous job.

I Have No Idea How I Got Here.

I went to a barbeque this weekend and someone asked how I became a wildlife biologist. Hell if I know. I didn’t grow up in the outdoors, doing outdoor sports, and given one of my first outdoor experiences, I’m surprised I ever went back into the woods.

When I was in college, I spent a year in Australia. My first week there, my fellow Americans wanted to go for a hike. I decided to tag along, even though I’d never been hiking before. Admittedly, I was quite intimidated by everyone’s gear. I had on a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, while everyone else had on moisture-wicking tank-tops, outdoor pants and hiking boots. Hiking boots? I didn’t know there was such a thing!

Because I had no idea how to read a map, I had to rely on everyone else to tell me where we were going. When we got to the trailhead and started down the trail, I got more comfortable. I was fit and kept up just fine, even though my clothes were not “field worthy.”

After several miles, one of the girls wearing shorts screamed. She had looked at her legs and noticed black worms along her sock-line. At closer observation, we realized they were attached to her…sucking her blood. Then we realized we were all covered with them.

While most of the others screamed (even the guys) and threw hissy fits, I quietly removed the black worms. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t pleased, but I didn’t scream and throw a fit.

Several miles later, we came to a lodge. THE ACTUAL TRAILHEAD! Had we started here, we would’ve learned all about these little black LEECHES! We would’ve also gotten salt packets to help ward them off. But because the so-called outdoorsmen and women of the group couldn’t actually read a map and took us to the wrong “trailhead,” we didn’t get this information until we were half-way through our hike.

So no, this was NOT when I decided that working in the woods for a living would be cool, but it was when I realized two things about myself that helped me succeed in this business: I’m not prone to panic in crappy situations, and I like being in charge.

Years later, I learned how to read a map…and got some super cool hiking boots.