August 18
In the morning, myself, Radu, and Liza set off for JBA to collect the traps. This involved setting the chickens free and hauling the heavy-ass traps all the way down from the savannah. However, on the way up, as we approached one of the traps, we heard a rattling, banging noise from it.
Inside the trap, and not happy about it, was a previously captured male fossa name of Quintus. Note his big funky radio collar.
We wished that we could call the rest of the team to see, but aside from being unconscionably stressful to poor Quintus, it would have taken hours. Procedure with an already-collared animal was just to open the cage and let it go. I was elected to open the cage.
As I approached the cage, Quintus squirmed over onto his back like a cat wanting its belly scratched. This was unintentionally very cute. Quintus's actual intention was to point all four of his paws at me, so that if I touched him he could rip me open like a FedEx envelope.
At this point, I set the camera to video mode, and set it down in front of the cage, pointed in what I hoped was the right direction. I knew it had only about fifteen seconds of footage available, and I hoped that would give Quintus time to, Houdini-like, squirm from his defensive position to a hauling-butt-out-of-the-cage position. I hit the start button and went to the cage.
For me, personally, that fifteen seconds, part of the very small amount of moving footage of fossas ever captured, justifies every bit of effort and expense involved in the trip. Every mile, muscle, dollar and shot involved in getting to that point is well worth that fifteen-second film, even though Quintus only really appears at the end of it. In the end, (the very end, just about) I got what I came for.
After that, the rest of the day's work was almost anticlimactic. Sure, hauling those steel traps all the way down the sandy trails was an enormous pain, but who cared?