Are You Grousing Me?

Okay, so grouse isn’t a verb. It’s a bird. And grousing isn’t a word, but so what. This is my blog. Get over it.

If you know what a grouse is, then you might know they eat vegetation. When they’re young, they even eat insects. But they don’t eat salmon. So when I was in a meeting earlier this year and a wildlife biologist said he and his team wanted to study the effects of adding dead salmon to streams on grouse, I was stunned. There were so many things wrong with that statement, but I managed to keep my argument simple.

“We need to study the effects of throwing dead salmon in streams on bears (or some other fish-eating animal), because we already know how bears respond in a natural salmon system,” I said. “If bears don’t respond as we would expect, our management strategy may not be working for wildlife species that are known to use salmon in intact systems. Because no one has ever studied the effects of salmon on grouse, you must first study grouse in an intact salmon system, not in a management area where salmon no longer occur.”

“But everyone knows bears eat salmon,” he said. “We want to study grouse.”

“But grouse don’t eat salmon. And the question isn’t just will the bears eat the dead fish, it’s will the bears consume enough to effect growth rates, reproduction, survival, etc.”

“We want to study grouse.”

And I want to win the lottery, but it ain’t gonna happen...just like the grouse study.

TSWB

Irony’s a bitch.

This weekend I was reminded of what an idiot the Gnome truly was. A friend of mine stopped to pick some apples from a tree with a sign posted next to it that said, “Do not pick my apples.” My friend ignored the sign, picked some apples then twisted his ankle. We both said, “That’s karma for you.”

Whenever something like this happened to the Gnome, he always said, “Irony’s a bitch.” I’m sure the first few times he said it, my face went slack with stupidity. I couldn’t understand what he meant. Then it hit me. He meant karma not irony.

I don’t know if irony’s a bitch, but stupid is entertaining.

And karma will surely come after me for writing this blog.

TSWB

Why do I bother?

So I was in a meeting yesterday, figuring I’d get some good material for the blog. The meeting was filled to the gills with fish biologists. Not one wildlife biologist (with the exception of yours truly and her boss). We presented our proposal asking for more funding. At the end, one fish bio said, “There’s a lot of great science going on here...except this bear stuff. Why don’t you study the ENTIRE FOOD WEB instead of focusing on bears?” My boss and I looked at each other in absolute confusion. How can we possibly study the whole food web? It’s ginormous!

The fish biologist associated with our project explained to him that we have studied the food web. Admittedly, I was still confused. There’s no way we’ve studied the whole food web. Later, I found out that from a fish biologist’s perspective the entire food web consists of everything from biofilm to fish and insects. Anything beyond that (apparently) doesn’t exist.

Do I really need to explain what’s wrong with that? If I do, you must be a fish biologist.

TSWB

Attack of the Killer Slinkys

Before everyone thinks I never say good things about techs, let me say this: without two spectacular techs, I wouldn’t have survived my first field season on this project. These techs were completely invested in the study and helped me problem solve virtually every day. I am especially grateful for one of these techs because he has suffered through the years with me. The other was a little brighter. He moved on to bigger and better pastures.

But let’s face it. Telling sappy stories about good techs isn’t nearly as fun as snark...so back to it!

This next blog is hard for me, because it forces me to admit I don’t know everything. I work with a lot of different personalities. One personality (who I only work with on occasion) has a VERY dry sense of humor. Unless you know him well, which I don’t, you can’t tell if he’s joking. So when he asked me if I knew how to properly roll barbed-wire, I snorted and said, “Who doesn’t,” thinking he was joking. I mean, how hard can rolling barbed-wire be?

The next the day, three of my four techs and I rolled hundreds and hundreds of feet of barbed-wire. Little did I know, there is a right way to roll barbed-wire…and many wrong ways. Two of my techs knew how to roll barbed-wire. They also knew my other tech and I did NOT, but instead of saying anything, they watched us roll hundreds of feet improperly.

I still had no idea there was a right way and a wrong way to roll the wire until we unrolled it. Turns out, if the wire unrolls in a neat and controlled manner, you did it right. If it springs at your face like a giant killer Slinky trying to scratch out your eyeballs with its barbs, you did it wrong.

Needless to say, we spent many weeks dodging life-sized barbed Slinkys. The two wonderful techs that didn’t think to point out our error before we rolled hundreds of feet of wire incorrectly?

They didn’t last long.

TSWB

The Gnome was NOT the sharpest tool in the shed:

This is a short and sweet lesson about your State Fish and Wildlife Agency.

For those of you who are unaware, your state Fish and Wildlife Agency (or whatever it calls itself) has Law Enforcement Officers. To those of us in the business they’re known as L-E-Os or LEOs. LEOs do as their name suggests. They enforce laws. So it’s NOT advisable to scream by a LEO—who is doing 60 in a 55—virtually blowing off its doors, 'cause he or she is gonna pull you over (and wonder if you’re drunk or stupid). It’s also NOT advisable to fish without a license when you work for the agency that enforces fishing and hunting laws. ‘Cause that’s gonna get you fined…then fired.

The Gnome

I can only be nice for so long. So back to the snark with yet another story about a wonderful wildlife technician. The first year of this project, I hired three technicians. Two were awesome; one provided me enough stories to write a book, or at least supply material for a few blog posts. Our first meeting went something like this:

My crew leader and I were in our office when someone announced, “Dick has arrived.” (No, Dick is not his real name, but it should be, and yes, he really did announce his presence in this way.) My crew leader and I looked at each other—trying not to laugh or roll our eyes, because we were professionals—then turned toward the door to greet our new tech, Dick.

It was hard to hide my shock, and honestly, I’m not sure I did. Standing in the doorway, leaning against the door jamb with ankles and arms crossed was a pouty, five-foot-five elf, wearing designer jeans, shiny leather shoes and a pointy fleece hat. He was bejeweled with silver rings on both hands and his face was covered with a Travelocity Gnome-like beard.

I’d like to say I didn’t judge him on the spot, but anyone who knows me knows that would be a bald-faced lie. Unfairly, I had a picture of this kid in my head when I hired him. He was six feet, burly, wore Carhartts and flannel. In my mind, he was a mountain man. But when I saw him, I couldn’t help but think I’d hired a kid who wasn’t sure if he belonged on MTV or in the woods. His confusion had the unfortunate outcome of making him resemble a gnome...one having an identity crisis.

I admit it. I had a slight panic attack, right there in the office. My gut told me I’d made a mistake, but it was too late. Then I chided myself for not giving him a chance. It was unfair to judge him in the first ten seconds of meeting him. But a nagging voice in the back of my mind kept saying, “Your gut is never wrong. Don’t fight the gut.” But I had to, so I slapped a smile on my face and forged ahead.

Straight into a brick wall I like to call hell.

Hey Bear!

Taking a break from my snarky self to tell a story that made me laugh…in a good way.

Lesson of the day: If you encounter a bear in the woods, stay calm. Don’t panic and don’t run. Remember ninety-nine percent of the time it’s more afraid of you than you are of it. I spend so much time with people who are comfortable with wildlife encounters that I forget many, if not most, are NOT comfortable with them.

A few days ago, I was on a mountain bike ride with a group of friends. The second person to come down the hill, I heard something crashing through the brush on the bank above so I stopped. The bushes above me were moving, and I realized, whatever we had spooked was coming toward us.

This has happened to me before. I’m walking through the woods and spook an animal. Most of the time the animal runs away, but sometimes it runs at me. Not because it’s attacking. Because it was sleeping, heard something scary, and started running.

I figured that’s what happened with this animal. So I stopped and yelled, “Hey bear!” I didn’t know if it was a bear. “Hey bear” is simply something to say to alert whatever is running toward you that you’re there.

My friend in the lead had also stopped, but she didn’t stand still. I have never in my life seen a woman get off a bike so fast and run backward with bike in hand like a shield. With one eye on her and the other on the bank above, I smiled…because I knew exactly what she was doing.

I watched a little black bear jump off the bank and onto the trail in front of us, running as fast as its little legs could carry it...AWAY from us. The bear was terrified.

A few moments later, after everyone calmed down, my friend confessed her thought process. She said, “I knew it was a bear so I thought I’d put you, the bear biologist, between me and the bear, because you’d know what to do.” True, but still, it made me laugh and realize that the true lesson of the day was this: when hiking or biking in the woods, always bring someone slower than you, because you don’t need to outrun the bear. You need to outrun your friend.

Cheers,

TSWB