Vanessa's Journal

Sept. 25, 2009

Jiayou

One might wonder from reading the last journal entry if any of my equipment was damaged in the downpour we faced as we hiked up the mountain on the first day. I wondered the same thing myself as I took stock of my soggy supplies after arriving up at the field station.

I had double wrapped our most water-sensitive equipment and it turned out that it weathered the storm without a problem. My soggy computer and camera cases were worrisome to say the least, but after a few days of intense drying, they were no worse for wear. I breathed a sigh of relief and made a mental note to buy some waterproof, airtight bags for next season. So much for a stress-free start to field station life.

It was refreshing and yet humbling to get out and hike around our study site again after my long absence. I always find it difficult to describe to other people who have never been here what navigating this area of panda habitat is like as an awkward bipedal human. The best way to describe it would be to imagine yourself constantly being slapped in the face by bamboo as you walk through endless dense thickets. You cannot see your own feet below you and have no idea what is ahead of you, but you just keep putting one foot in front of the other hoping that you stay upright. And your hands just keep trying to push the bamboo out of the way as you perform some warped kind of freestyle swimming stroke.

Actually, to be honest, we usually cut narrow swaths of trail to make it more manageable for months of wearing down the same paths over and over again while checking traps. This is one of the tasks at hand for the next week or so.

One of the other tasks at hand is building new panda traps. If there was one phrase I could use to describe the attitude that the field crew has this year in what will be our last chance to try to catch a panda, it would be the Chinese phrase “jiayou.” Jiayou is a very useful term in Chinese that literally translates to “add gasoline” but is generally used to express the desire to “kick it into high gear.” With this attitude, we put our heads together to come up with an ambitious plan to build six new panda traps in various locations of the study area.

So far we have two out of fivetraps built. I must say that the trap building process has been interesting to watch. It is more like an art than a science. Tree parts of certain diameters need to be cut and melded together using loops of shiny wire. I have watched my team painstakingly assemble one wall at a time, alternating between sawing logs, carrying parts and sandwiching pieces together. They always save the door of the cage for last. The door is the most crucial and delicate part. It needs to fit into the front open window of the trap just so, with no room for gaps that would allow a panda to escape. Seeing the doors close on the traps after construction makes me feel a sense of foreshadowing of things to come.

I’m sure you may also be wondering if we have seen the precious creatures we so diligently seek to understand. The answer to that is no. In fact, team members have seen no giant panda signs up here in the last few weeks. The pandas have gone to greener pastures at higher elevations, but we are expecting them to come back here in a little less than a month. The timing seems perfect. The pandas are not here to be disturbed or scared off by our stumbling around in the forest and making a racket with our trap building. We will have everything ready before they come and will be quietly waiting for their arrival.