As we wired all the traps open on Wednesday, Thursday the dogs went through them, ate the oats, and had no problems. 30 and 92 even checked one out together, best buds that they are....today, however, we had a whole 'nother story when the traps were actually set.
I set 24 traps behind me, baited with oats to encourage the dogs to check them out. The only problem is that while prairie dogs can't necessarily be called 'oataholics', ground squirrels can. With this in mind, I challenged the rest of the team to guess how many gs we would catch today, with the winner going to the Virgin Islands (we had a similar contest a few days ago, with the winner going to Hawaii...gotta make the stakes high). My personal guess of 14 (out of 102 traps) was on the upper tier of guesses; John's was the only one higher than mine at 17. With the bets in place, I sat back in my tower and awaited the results....they were soon forthcoming. I caught my first gs exactly 3 minutes after I settled in my seat, and that included walking quite a ways from the burrows to do so; so more like 10 seconds after I left. I next bagged 92, who started out checking the traps by herself, but was soon joined by her partner in crime, thus also entrapping himself....in the same trap. Two at one go! Unfortunately, as they're both marked, they weren't the ones I really wanted, although we needed to get their stats. I radioed John, released the 10 squirrels and one horned lark I had caught, and took the pals over to the van for evaluation. Turns out 30 needed a new ear tag, which he promptly ripped out after replaced, although that's for another time. We put the duo in respective traps, placed them under a cart to keep them out the sun, and retired to our towers.
Once in my tower, it was maddening watching the dog I really wanted, X6un, coyly eye the traps than skip down the hill to the only burrow without traps around it, and set up camp there. I dealt with it, albeit poorly, for the next few hours, and then at trap check, added six traps around WC, the burrow she thought she was so smart about. I smirked to myself as I sat the traps, until I realized that I was competing with a rodent. Somewhat sobered, I went back and waited for the games to begin. They did.
2, big tough guy that he is, causing havoc to all of the male pd persuasion, got himself caught. I watched his break-down as it happened. It took him a minute to realize he was trapped (duh), where upon he attempted to dig himself out. Fail. He tried biting the bars (they're metal). Fail. He clawed a few times more, and then I looked away to see if X6un was around (she wasn't). When I turned back, I saw that the big, strong deuce was upside down clawing ineffectually at the top of the trap with all four paws....and...Fail. It was while I was watching 2 that X6un lost her freedom, and around the same moment a new dog popped up in front of me; by the looks of it, a female. At least things were looking up for some of us.
Oh yes, almost forgot...we caught 51 ground squirrels today.
No comments:
Post a Comment