Friday, June 16, 2006
Not Such a Nice Day
6/8/2006
Here's just a nice picture of the cabin I took yesterday (when it was nice out). If it were closer up you would notice that the roof is attached to ground with cables (to keep it from blowing away in the wind).
Today we didn't do much. The weather was pretty nasty, and we were exhausted after yesterday's marathon in the driving rain and hail, so we decided to wait and see if it cleared up. We made a BIG breakfast since we had time, and it was so good! We had eggs, potatos, and sausage. Every single bite of it got eaten. Lem had the brilliant idea to dig a hole in the ground to keep food cool, and it worked great! It was nice to have eggs and cheese and things.
The biologists went out radiotracking and found one mortality for us, which I necropsied (below). It was a young calf with an infected umbilicus, which may have weakened it and made it easy prey. Unfortunately most of the abdominal viscera had been eaten by the wolves that killed it, so we didn't get a very good sample set.
Here's just a nice picture of the cabin I took yesterday (when it was nice out). If it were closer up you would notice that the roof is attached to ground with cables (to keep it from blowing away in the wind).
Today we didn't do much. The weather was pretty nasty, and we were exhausted after yesterday's marathon in the driving rain and hail, so we decided to wait and see if it cleared up. We made a BIG breakfast since we had time, and it was so good! We had eggs, potatos, and sausage. Every single bite of it got eaten. Lem had the brilliant idea to dig a hole in the ground to keep food cool, and it worked great! It was nice to have eggs and cheese and things.
The biologists went out radiotracking and found one mortality for us, which I necropsied (below). It was a young calf with an infected umbilicus, which may have weakened it and made it easy prey. Unfortunately most of the abdominal viscera had been eaten by the wolves that killed it, so we didn't get a very good sample set.
They also went out looking for wolves, which they planned on collaring. There are 4 packs on the peninsula between King Salmon and Pumice Creek, and they would eventually like to radio-collar 3 animals in each pack. Unfortunately they didn't see a single wolf after several hours of looking. I still have not seen a wolf in Alaska. I was here all summer last year, and I've been for a week now this year, and...nothing. I have anti-wolf radar or something, they know I'm around and they run for cover. Everyone else at camp has seen them, I guess I just have bad luck.
That's pretty much all we did today. We ended the day playing cards, like most days.
