Vanessa's Journal

Feb. 4

Today Lao Wang and I joked about the fact that the fast approaching Chinese New Year holiday is also called the “Spring Festival.” It is supposed to welcome the coming of spring. It seems strange to celebrate spring when we still feel like we are in the midst of a winter wonderland.  

Tomorrow we will all hike down the mountain for the holiday festivities.  We will take about three days off from trapping. I don’t think it is detrimental to our trapping efforts.  There could be a benefit to taking a respite from our walks along the trails for a few days. If people walk by the traps every day, in a way they become marked as “human territory.”  We always worry about scaring off a panda approaching a trap at the same time that we are coming to check it. We will leave the traps open with the meat inside so that if animals want to come and eat the meat, they are welcome to without the door closing on them. According to prior trapping experts, an animal that comes to a trap once and enjoys “free meat” will no doubt come again later. To be honest, I don’t think that the team morale would survive February after two months of being up here without a short break for the biggest holiday of the year. We could all use some recharging of our batteries. This is my first Chinese New Year that I’ve spent in China and I am pretty excited about it. I will rotate among Lao Wang, Lao Fan and Lao Yang’s houses. I’m not sure exactly how that will work, but it should be a wonderful cultural experience all the way around. I will do my best to take lots of pictures and some video.