Vanessa's Journal

Jan. 23

I checked traps today with Lao Yang.  Not much to report.  Lao Yang saw a yellow-throated marten eating meat from on of our Baiyan traps.  That trap has been closed a number of times with no animal inside and we have suspected squirrels from the beginning.  But perhaps it has been our friend the yellow-throated marten all along.  I think it is small enough to escape out of the small gaps between logs.  It ran away before I could get a good look at it. 

We put some more meat at the Yaopengzi trap again.  We also saw that a leopard cat had visited the trap last night and ate some of the fresh meat that Lao Yang had put out.  He told me that they have suspected the leopard cat in raiding the Yaopengzi trap many times before and it has apparently become a big fan of our free meat.  It is actually comforting to me to see other animals coming and eating the meat, firstly because it makes me feel like we aren’t putting huge amounts of meat out in the wild for nothing and secondly because it suggests that the meat is actually emitting an odor that animals are picking up and reacting to. 

Tomorrow I am going to go down the mountain.  I calculated that it has been two weeks since I have been down in town.  I have a list of errands that has been piling up, so it seems I cannot delay it any longer.  Stay tuned.