August 13
Today, finally, we caught something new. Trap checks in JBA that I wasn't along on always seemed to be turning up Morris, a wild cat that had been captured and collared previously, and had figured out that you could get a free chicken if you were willing to sit in a cage for a while until the crazy white people showed up and let you out. We had, however, not captured any new animals yet.
The morning of the 13th, however, we were doing a routine trap check in JBA when, up on the savannah near the radio tower, we came across this.
One
of the traps had captured a new wild cat. I stayed behind to keep an eye on
it, without getting so close as to frighten it, while Rolande and Robin went
back to camp to report. After about an hour, Shawn returned, with Liza in tow.
Shawn had brought a blowgun and a small box of drug-release darts.
It took three darts to subdue the cat, because the first one missed and the second one only gave him a half-dose. Finally, he was all drugged up and Shawn took him out of the cage and we began a brisk, strenuous walk out of JBA, carrying a huge stoned cat, a heavy (rather outdated) radio, and in Liza's case the notebook in which she was recording the cat's condition as we went.
For
the record, the Latin on Shawn's shirt says "If you can read this, you
have too much education."
Once
we got to the road, we were picked up in the truck and hurried back to camp,
where Luke took various samples and bits from the cat he named Heathcliff. He
was then radio-collared and allowed to recuperate from the drugs in a cage,
before being returned to the woods.
After that, the remainder of the day was relatively uneventful.