Vanessa's Journal

Oct. 22, 2009

Cabin Fever

This is my first October in Wolong and I think it is fair to say that I now have a better appreciation for why I have avoided this time period in the past. The weather has been positively depressing these last few weeks.

It has rained nearly every day. If it isn’t raining during the day, then it rains at night and you get wet while hiking the next day just the same. In the rare moments when the sun does come out, it feels like the sky is opening up and happiness is shining through. We are slowly watching the snow on the adjacent peaks creep lower and lower on the horizon. One day, it will sneak up on us at the field station when we least expect it. Snow would be welcomed at this point, as it is safe to say that we are all sick and tired of the rain.

We haven’t done as much field work lately on account of the bad weather and as a result, cabin fever has set in at the field station. I have so far read the same novel three times on this trip. I wonder how many times I can read it in the next month and still find it interesting.

Yesterday, when we went to check cages, I have never seen the team get ready so fast. Everyone was dying to just get out there and pass the time – myself included. To just put one foot in front of the other felt amazing. I relished the quietude of the experience of checking cages, as the silence is gentle and serene. It is a soothing experience to hike for hours and barely speak a word, while at the same time treading lightly on one’s feet. We are trying our very best to not scare away any pandas in our midst.

One interesting development in this trapping season is our use of trap site transmitters. These are devices you put on a trap with a trigger that is set off when the trap is closed. The devices send out radio signals that you can pick up from a fair distance away if you have a radio receiver device on hand. It turns out that our transmitters are working spectacularly and we can pick up the signal from the trap all the way back at the field station. It has been fun to wake up each morning and go out to listen to the signals, hoping that one of the traps will be tripped, meaning an animal such as a panda could be inside.

When I was listening to music last night as I was trying to fall asleep, I could have sworn I heard the sound that comes from my radio receiver when I’m checking to see if the trap transmitters have been set off by a panda. I almost got out of bed to go and check the receiver, but soon realized the sound was just a part of the song I was listening to. Panda trapping is all-consuming like that. It seems to take over all of your senses and seep into your consciousness when you least expect it.

The pandas themselves have been quiet this last week. Maybe they too are calmly waiting out the rain and are praying for sunnier weather. We will try to remain in tune with the weather, as one of the main tenets of panda trapping is that any change in weather means you should go and add new bait, as the pandas will respond to the new conditions in due course by moving to another location. We only hope that their movements will take them by our traps where they will be beckoned in to join our scientific explorations.