Vanessa's Journal

Jan. 20

Well folks, we may have won a few battles with the water pipes in the last few days, but it appears that today we have officially lost the war.  Our water is now cut off.  We are now brushing our teeth outside and using what Lao Wang likes to call the “ecological toilet” (i.e. outhouse).  At breakfast, Lao Fan and Lao Yang discussed advanced engineering tactics to rectify the situation, but Lao Wang believes that all is lost and we have entered a new phase of roughing it in nature.  He is now washing all of his laundry because at the moment we sill have some water reserves from before.  I’m wondering if I should follow his lead.  After today, it will be more difficult because we will be carrying everything from 15 minutes away.  I say “we” but really that means Lao Wang, Lao Fan, and Lao Yang.  I asked them if they thought I could carry the water bucket contraption and they just laughed at me and said I am too skinny.  So I guess I will just be there for moral support.  Things are just starting to get interesting! The Wuyipeng field station in the 1980’s was just a bunch of tents.  It is suddenly apparent to me just how spoiled we are.  I asked Lao Wang when the water would be back and he said, “April”. 

Today there was some commotion when Lao Yang and Lao Fan came back from checking cages.  There was some news to be shared.  Apparently, a panda had come to the cage at Yaopengzi!  It had deposited feces right under a tree where the team had baited meat.  It was just 10 meters from the cage.  It was there two nights ago.  The team did not detect the panda feces yesterday because they walk right up to the cages only every few days rather than every day to avoid too much human odor permeating the area.  This panda had come right after fresh meat was deposited during the day.  And it also came the same night that Lao Fan had his dream when God told him the panda would come.  We are officially as close as we could possibly come to catching a panda without actually catching it.  I can see it in my mind standing in front of the cage and weighing its options of whether to go in or not.  For whatever reason, it did not go in.

This panda knows where the meat is now and knows that the cage is there.  Lao Yang and Lao Fan were upset that it did not go in the cage and are convinced that is because it is one of our metal cages and the odor is deterring the pandas.  When we detected that other panda a while back only 30 or so meters from the Baiyan cage, that one was also a metal cage.  Lao Yang and Lao Fan are convinced that if we had replaced the metal cages with wooden ones at the beginning of the field season, that we would have already trapped two pandas by now.  It’s impossible to know for sure if it is in fact the influence of the metal.  It is perhaps possible that it is just a ‘trap shy’ animal and does not like to enter into a confined space.  Other panda experts have told me that metal cages are fine and pandas are not scared of them.  But these metal cages that we have are not the best quality.  They rust excessively and rust gives off an odor. 

The issue is that we got these four metal cages last summer first when we were not sure if we could get permission to cut down trees to build wooden ones.  The locations that we chose for these first four metal cages are the best locations that one could choose up here.  And I think the team was right on their selection, as two of them attracted pandas to them so far.  And at least we know that the meat is working and pandas are attracted to it.  But now we are a little stuck on trying to actually get the panda into the cage.  Lao Yang and Lao Fan are convinced that the pandas have not yet discovered our wooden cages because they have not yet gotten close enough to them.  I think the plan for the near future is to put more meat at the Yaopengzi cage on the ground right outside the cage and hope the panda comes back and gets braver or more desperate for food.  From what they know about the ecology of the Yaopengzi area, they are sure that this one is not going anywhere in the near future.  So we wait.