Vanessa's Journal

Feb. 28

Today I did an overhaul on the mountains of equipment in my room. I tried to get some of my stuff packed up to gradually be brought down the mountain prior to my departure.  It is a somewhat overwhelming, but necessary process.

The exciting news from the field team is that they spotted giant panda footprints and feces about 30 meters from the trap at Baiyan. Lao Yang and Lao Fan aptly noted that these giant pandas always seem to keep us guessing! Who knows what they will do next. It was surprising, and somewhat nerve-wracking, to get this news so close to the supposed end of our trapping season. I feel like I will always second-guess myself and wonder whether we should have done this or that. But it is always important to remember that this project is very much a long-term one. It requires patience and nothing is going to come easy. We’ve just got to keep at it for the rest of this trapping season and apply what we have learned to next winter’s trapping season.