The Animals You Meet, the People You See

I’ve only been in the field for 13 days and I’ve already met 3 very interesting people and seen some animals that I’ll never forget.

Brady told me off the bat that I’d meet some really neat people while on the river. He wasn’t lying. The first guy I met is named Les. He’s in his 60’s and comes from both a ranching and Native American background. He actually worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the Gray wolf and Black-footed ferret reintroductions, and he’s currently trying to get back into the FWS. We met him on the first day out sampling. He has a truck with a camper on it and just sort of sauntered over to where we were unloading the raft from Brady’s truck and started talking to us. I was really excited because he asked us what we were doing and then told us he had to go up to Nebraska the next day to do a necropsy on a young wolf, which led to many questions on my part on what he did with wolves. He mainly lobbied during the wolf reintroduction, but he has written a couple papers on wolf diseases and still does necropsies to figure out what happened to the wolves. He’s REALLY knowledgeable…and chatty. “It’s not that I like to talk, I just like conversation with people who know what I’m talking about,” is his explanation, which is totally understandable. Whenever we start sampling on our first half of river, we always see Les’s truck and he always comes over to chat. Les is SUCH a cool guy. He has 2 dogs (a Labrador Retriever and a German Shorthaired Pointer), he hasn’t eaten processed meat in 20 years (only wild game that either he’s shot or he’s gotten from friends), and his dream is to see the plains in the West just opened up to all the native species so everything can roam the way it once did, from the buffalo to the wolves. He gave us some buffalo chunks one time that were DELICIOUS. He should be camping around for another month or so, so we’ll see him a good bit more. I can’t wait to hear and learn more from him. Heck, Brady may learn to fly fish from him!

            The second person we met was a man named Fred. He was loading his sea kayak onto the Green River as we were pulling up to do the same with our raft. This is on the second half of the river that we sample. Anyways, we all exchanged pleasantries (weather talk, what’re you doing here, etc.) and talked about different animals we had seen on the river. He may not know which species are on the river because he described a hawk that we can’t find Brady’s bird field guide and talked about a family of ferrets swam across the river and how one attacked his paddle along the way (it was probably a family of minks, ferrets aren’t in our area). Then we discovered that he made his own kayaks! The one he was using that day was beautiful. It was honey colored wood with all the necessary bits and pieces (rudder, covered compartments, and seat) and it all fit together perfectly, and evidently that was his BEAT UP one. I’d love to see his good kayak. Anyways, he offered to let us use his kayaks one day since he’s on the Green River all the time during the warmer months. He and Brady exchanged phone numbers and we may go kayaking down the river over the summer!

The third person actually is one of Brady’s friends/classmates. Her name is Riley and she’s AWESOME. She’s in her 30’s, working on her PhD, and does triathlons and ultra-marathons! On top of that, she lived in Ireland for 4 years working on frogs and HAS MY OLD CAR (not literally, but she still has a green Subaru Outback Legacy from the late 90’s). SO COOL. I already thought she was cool when I found out she was doing her PhD work on Horned lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum) and ant mounds, but then I found out she does triathlons and that was that. She stayed with us for 2 days and I ran with her at 6:30am both days (I think that’s going to be my game plan from now on because I’m just too tired to do anything when we get back from the field, plus the weather is generally nicer in the mornings). I seriously cannot get over how awesome this chick is. I want to kind of be like that in the future. She left earlier today (the 28^th, when I wrote this), but before she left, I gave her a couple easy recipes (vegetarian chili, cheese muffins, and lasagna) and she gave me a bunch of really good bluegrass/folk music (Mumford and Sons, Broken Bells, Trampled by Turtles, and Hot Buttered Rum).

Now on to the animals. I didn’t believe it at first, but EAGLES ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE HERE. I see adults and juveniles flying all over (which makes Brady nervous because he doesn’t want Blue to get snatched) and have seen 3 or 4 nests on the river.  I can’t wait to see baby eagles grow up! It’s really neat to see a Bald eagle soaring overhead, especially considering the fact that they were endangered not so long ago because of DDT. I also saw a mother moose (Alces alces) and her calf! They were crossing the river ahead of us, so we had to back-paddle to give the baby enough time to get across (you don’t exactly want an angry mother moose charging you). The moose here are evidently a smaller subspecies of moose than the ones up in Alaska. The best comparison of size I can think of is that the moose here are about the size of normal horses (Thoroughbreds, Quarter horses, etc.) and the moose up in Alaska and Canada are the size of draft horses (Clydesdales, Shires, etc.). The only difference is that moose are leggier. Seriously, it’s like they’re on stilts, which really contrasts with their huge heads (specifically the noses) and bodies. I love it! Sadly, we have seen some dead things. There have been plenty of dead Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), which isn’t surprising since they’re like the super fast Whitetail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) of the West. Evidently they’re really dumb and will stand in the road while cars come at them. See why I made that comparison? We also found some dead raven chicks (or what we think are ravens). We have a “barn” near the house and I went to check it out and found the nest on the ground (it WAS in the rafters because there are still sticks and bird poop there, but it was a SUPER windy day so it must’ve fallen) and the dead chicks. They must have died recently because there was no sign of decay or bloating and later that evening when the parent came back, it made a HUGE ruckus. The chicks are currently in plastic bags in our freezer (“Now it’s REALLY a field freezer!” –Brady) so I have to watch what I grab to cook. We both felt bad for the parents (and regretted that we didn’t find them sooner so we both could raise a pet raven), but today we saw the ravens flying back to the barn with sticks. They must be rebuilding, which is pretty awesome. Go nature and GO RAVENS! They’re such cool birds…I really hope they can successfully raise another brood. I’ll try to take some pics and let you guys know how they’re doing. In the meantime, I’m going to bed because I have to wake up early and run, if it’s not still raining and miserable (which it is right now at 9:22pm Mountain time).