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Monday, Oct 29, 2001
Critter Encounters
October 28, 2001
Wildlife documentaries are rife with stunning examples of animal behavior. I've done a bit of hiking in my day, and recently did a few days of wildlife research, which is a tiny sample of a pursuit that can fill a lifetime. I’ve come to realize that any genuine wildlife encounters are rare and special. Here are some snippets of my interactions with critters, genuine and otherwise.
Raccoon Wrasslin'
As a prep to the camping in Sierra de la Ventana, I did some car camping in Big Basin. It's a big and old state park, just over the hill, known for virgin Coastal Redwoods forest.
As in most state parks, Big Basin places an emphasis on car camping. You can park your car, and walk 20 yards to a campsite in the middle of a grove of stately redwood giants, along a babbling creek. The campsite comes equipped with a bevy of raccoons, who also favor the babbling creek. While the other seven in our party were content to observe the raccoons, Ryan decided it would be a fine idea to feed one.
First, this sets off Yeager and Skye, two young and excitable Weimaraners. While Andy snored loudly, the dogs ran around his sleeping body, using the walls of his tent like a pair of stunt motorcyclists in a ball of death.
They barely made a noise, other than the rumble of their heavy feet around the tent and some plaintive whimpers to be turned loose on the raccoons. It was all fun and games until Skye stuck her nose through the tent's screen window. Dawn gets all stern, "You are so busted!" Andy never woke up throughout the whole ordeal.
Meanwhile, the commotion attracted other raccoons, who started surveying the campsite for food possibilities. We half-heartedly chased them back, but they just scampered a few yards into the underbrush, and turned to look at us.
They're nocturnal. They've got nothin' but time on their hands. Hell, the raccoons had tactics. They used waves of attacks, tag team fashion. “Yo dude, your go, I need a breather.”
After everyone retired, the chorus of raccoon sounds continued -- scratching, digging, and general scampering were in the game plan. They were even cussing and fighting amongst themselves. They couldn't get into any of the dozen or so food containers, but were content to keep trying all night.
I decided to drag my sorry ass out of bed and try one more time, but my efforts were met with the raccoon’s usual parry -- run to cover, turn and wait. “Tough break dude. You can’t get me while I mock you in this shrubbery five feet away from you.”
Finally I used the "I'm crazier than you think" defense, and ran wildly after them in the dark, through the underbrush, and down into the gulch carved by the creek. We slept in peace for the rest of that night and the next. They must have spread the news to the other furry ones throughout the camp. “Sure, there’s a lot of food, but one of ‘em is fuckin’ psycho."
Sierra de la Ventana
The rain prevented completion of the main goal, catching a fox or cat for installation of a radio collar. I did one session of radio tracking for foxes in the rain. We were able to determine which shelter “the Count” was chillin’ in during the soggy weather.
I saw perhaps the same fox the next day, or rather he saw me. I looked down the hill I was hiking and saw a bushy tail, 30 yards from me, sprinting away at a pretty high clip. Despite having developed a bit of dexterity with the binoculars, I was fumbling them, so never got a great look. Give me a year or two, I could have a good 15 minute highlight film.
We saw more types of birds than I could count, smelled and collected a “sample” where one of the cats had a spectacular mountainside shelter. And I saw the biggest herd of horses I’ve ever seen.
The feral horses of Sierra de la Ventana are a major attraction to Argentine’s in the area. This herd of 800 magnificent horses has been wild for about 50 years. The new colts were arriving, and the stallions were competing for the upcoming mating season. Territory and mares are the goals. The stamping, running, squaring off, and jostling of the stallions were quite a spectacle.
Young stallions hang in bachelor groups, sometimes pairs. Successful stallions may have an entourage of more than five mares plus their offspring. Old stallions are isolated and ignored. Their value is gone, even for mere social interaction. One young stallion did allow an older stallion to run with his group. That old gray-haired bugger had a demeanor like he knew he was getting away with something and was having trouble believing his luck.
I spent time around cattle as a child, so I know someting about their heading behavior. And I know how to use pack queues to interact with domestic dogs. (Hint: It's good to be alpha.) Even though it was tangential to the carnivor reseach project, I was curious about the group behavior of the horses.
The horses seem to recognize humans as carnivores -- something to be
wary of. I tested various horses’
boundaries, approaching groups or individuals.
They treated me as a slow, but potentially dangerous carnivore -- an
accurate assessment of most humans.
Despite my puny size, a stallion might be wary of my advances, but that same stallion would rush with ferocious energy to directly confront any of his peers who would test his resolve. At moments like this, I felt a bit like TV's Crocodile Hunter. “And now I’m going to do something incredibly stupid with this very dangerous animal.” I’m glad they were scared of me.
Even to a casual observer, it’s clear that the horses should go. They’re nice to look at, and someone should find them a good home. But the overgrazing of the feral horses makes it even harder for the native foxes and cats to cling to the refuge of the mountains.
Pantanoso Wildlife Reserve and Calilegua National Park
Pantanoso is privately held land adjacent to Calilegua. This territory is virgin subtropical jungle, home of over 100 species of trees. The tapir and jaguar make their homes here. Cougar, jaguarondi, and a wide variety of small carnivores live here.
Parts of Calilegua near the headquarters are work-a-day parklands, with picnic tables, graffiti, litter. A short hike off the main road through the park takes you into verdant, luscious, untouched forest. But there are truly remote places as well. It’s a least a four-day trek through the park, which climbs as high as 10,000 feet.
Pantanoso, a labor of love for Italian environmentalist Francesco Rocca, is a private reserve located on the remote side of Calilegua. It’s a long drive up a dirt road through a village, past cane and mango plantations, through logged forest and virgin forest, and finally the reserve. In October, a dryish part of the year, a few miles of the road were muddy, requiring proficient 4WD skills from Francesco. In the torrential summers the road is impassible, even with a tractor.
I was traveling to Pantanoso with a new friend from Scotland, who is keen on birds. Mary spotted over a dozen new species in Calilegua and Pantanoso, to raise her total for Argentina to over 50. She and I wandered up the same river. She was looking up for birds in the trees and sky, and I was looking down for signs of animals on the ground. I saw frogs, tadpoles, lizards and spiders, but of the larger animals I saw only tracks. The tracks could tell me tales.
I could see the tracks of foxes pacing up and down long stretches of the river in the evening and mornings, looking for prey. I could see raccoons tracking over a small patch of shoreline in the moonlight. I could see tapir getting a drink in the river, grazing on the banks, perhaps taking a nap during the day in a shady spot, and doing their impression of a mountain goat, by hauling their 800 lb bodies up soggy landslides that tested my hiking skills.
One diorama was of a fox and unknown prey. The fox’s steps were small and measured behind a small rock. I could see the fox crouching behind the rock to size up the prey. The tracks showed quick acceleration. After a few strides the fox was stretched out in a full run, leaving deep, long slashes in the mud as it scrambled for traction. Four legs or no, you need some serious balancing skills to run full tilt through deep, soft mud. The path faded into a small puddle. I couldn’t read the outcome, but there were no feathers in the vicinity.
There was no Jaguar to be seen, not even tracks. As I was following some tapir tracks from the riverbed into the forest, I thought to myself, “If I was a jaguar, and I wanted to eat some tapir, I’d find a good hiding spot somewhere around here.” I reviewed the size chart of the jaguar tracks, and I didn’t make it very far into the underbrush this time.
Saturday, Oct 27, 2001
One, Two, Three, What are We Fightin' For?
October 27, 2001
The justification for bombing Afghanistan goes like this ...
Osama is pure evil. The Taliban have been providing refuge for him, so they are evil by association. The Northern Alliance is the enemy of the Taliban. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Our new friends in the Northern Alliance need some air support so that they can sweep the Taliban out of power. (But let's not move too quickly, because we need time to broaden the alliance and bring the old king out of his retirement villa.)
As we manage to take out a helicopter here, a tank there, a hospital, and repeated direct hits on a Red Cross food warehouse, it becomes increasingly clear that the Northern Alliance couldn't get it up with a wide open IV line of Viagra.
In the meantime, the words of recently executed opposition leader Abdul Haq seem prophetic. To paraphrase: There are too many civilian casualties of the bombing campaign. You will weaken the position of the moderates within the Taliban regiem, and you will cause the people of Afghanistan to rally around the Taliban.
Back on the Fox News network, hawkish elements are blaming the failure of the war effort on a) politicians tying the hands of the commanders in the field, and b) insufficient use of force. When in doubt, use a bigger hammer!
Biology
October 25, 2001
While in Argentina's Sierra de la Ventana I spent time working with rodent traps. Out of 84 traps, only one little mouse was actually caught, but much time was spent deploying, pre-baiting, baiting, checking, and recovering the traps.
On the expedition I learned many new Spanish words which have limited value outside the context of camping and wildlife research. Among these are "trampa" (a trap) and "cebo" (a bait). We made little "cebitos" (my first coining of a Spanish word) out of a candy called Maricol, also known as halvah, or the crunchy stuff inside a Butterfinger.
If my audience had been a bit more tuned into American television, I could have used the line "Nobody better lay a finger on my cebito". But the ever popular "Halvah, I need the halvah, I need the halvah, I need the ha-alvah" did get a chuckle.
I've known about hantavirus for a number of years. This family of viruses causes particularly nasty and often fatal rodent-borne diseases little known until recently. The US medical community first became aware of hanta during an outbreak in 1993 in the Four Corners area of the southwest US. But hantaviruses have certainly been around much longer than that.
I first read about it in an article about nasty viruses we can't do much about, like HIV, hantavirus, and list of others longer than you would really like to think about. These "new" diseases can become widespread problems due to the convergence of two trends: people in large numbers venturing into and inhabiting parts of the world previously "unused", and the ease of global shipping and travel.
So there I was, spending hours working with dozens of rodent traps. The presence of strong light and strong breezes minimized the odds of survival of the hantavirus. And although hanta exists in Argentina, the particular geography and rodent species we were dealing with were not known to be hanta risks. And the mesh design of the box traps minimized the possibility of contamination with urine, feces or saliva. And jokes about "cebitos" helped keep my mind off hanta. But I wore a mask and two sets of latex gloves anyway.
Little did I know that postal workers would soon be treating mail with the same care I used with rodent traps.
I don't want to be alarmist, but here's something else to keep in mind: if you receive an envelope containing trace amounts of dried rodent saliva, don't open it.
Juan Manuel Fangio
October 24, 2001
Argentina has a few national heros which it holds in great reverence. Evita is perhaps the most famous of these. Her husband, some guy named Peron, is a few notches down from Evita.
Despite the passage of over 40 years since his retirement, fIve-time world champion driverJuan Manuel Fangio is one of the bright stars in this national pantheon. Fangio's greatness is that he was dominant for several years at a time when simply surviving a single year of racing was quite a feat.
I think at least half of Argentina's drivers are inspired by Fangio. And the premium grade of one brand of gasoline is called
"Fangio XXI". A large billboard near the rough equivalent of Times Square in Buenos Aires features an oversized scale model of Fangio at the wheel of a 50's gran prix car.
For most of my trip I travelled by bus, air, taxi or on foot, so I only experienced Argentine driving as a spectator. But for the last few days, I decided to rent a vehicle. The Argentines are very personable, and relationship oriented. So an introduction as a "friend of a friend" held great value at the car rental shop I visited in Salta.
Sadly, they were out of cars. But Fernando did have an SUV to offer me. It still wasn't cheap, but Fernando let me rent it at half the list price. And he recommended a route which gave his truck quite a workout. At first it felt unwieldy, but after crossing some high mountains, and driving on winding unpaved roads for a couple dozen kilometers, I seemed to have the measure of the Nissan Patrol.
I thought about Fangio as I chased a bus up a twisty mountain road from Cafayete to Tafi del Valle. Granted, it was a very small bus, based on a van frame. And the driver knew every nuance of the road. And I was driving an unfamiliar vehicle with a high center of gravity. But still, it surprised me how hard I had to work to catch up with the bus.
The advantage of chasing another driver is that you can learn much of what they know just by observation. The road was twisty, with rough pavement, and had numerous hairpins. But the lack of large vegetation on this arid mountain yielded excellent visibility. The bus driver carefully plotted a line through each corner, considering not only the geometry of the turn, but its unique pattern of bumps, dips and gravel. And he used the entire available surface of the highway. The lack of a stripe down the middle of this particular highway may have provided extra encouragement, but in general the stripes on Argentine roads are considered suggestions.
As I learned his technique, I was easily able to better the speed of the bus driver. But being able to drive faster and being able to pass are entirely different things. A couple of times I backed off to give him a lead, and then reeled him back in. But I just didn't have the huevos to attempt a pass, and he certainly wasn't going to make it easy.
As we drove on towards Tafi, the mountain rose up into the clouds. I had slowed down a bit to give the bus driver a bit of a lead again, so as I entered the clouds, the bus was out of sight. I realized that he now had the advantage. He could drive by braille, while I was suddenly blind, unable to see 10 meters in front of me. Although I made a feeble attempt to continue giving chase, I never even saw a distant tail light of the bus in the mist. Perhaps it was the ghost of Fangio I was chasing that night.
I decided that Tafi was not worth the effort of driving 30 km in the clouds, so I turned back to Cafayete as darkness fell. A red Peugeot sedan, driven at a brisk pace, appeared in my mirrors. I yielded some room for a pass, and then proceeded to give chase down the mountain. Now it was the Peugeot pilot's turn to be surprised. Despite obvious efforts, he was unable to prevent the Nissan Patrol from shadowing him down the mountain. I kept a respectful distance, and had to reel him back a couple of times when he slipped away a bit, but matched his speed for a good 10 km's until we reached the populated stretch at the bottom of the valley.
And like an addict who had just gotten a nice, clean fix after a dry spell, I had a broad smile planted on my face.
Military Checkpoints
October 24, 2001
Israel
The Tel Aviv airport is also a military base. The same runways are used by the Israeli airforce and civilian aircraft. Military hangers and aircraft are visible from the passenger waiting areas.
The security points are manned by uniformed and non-uniformed military personnel. I say non-uniformed, because I saw a man in business attire who was lingering in the taxi drop-off area eyeing people. Some of the personnel are armed with small automatic weapons.
In addition to the metal detector and xray checks common in US airports, arriving and departing passengers are subject to interrogation. Arriving passengers typically are not interrogated, unless they appear to be of Arab, Turkish, etc., extraction. But each departing passenger is interrogated for 15-30 minutes.
The questions I was asked were of a confidential nature. Normally I would not have revealed the nature of my business discussions without a non-disclosure agreement in force. Since I was eager to get home, I spilled all sorts of information about business negotiations -- who, where, why, what.
Argentina
The government of Argentina doesn't have a lot of money. In fact, a couple of provinces have started printing their own money. This is reflected in the vehicles, or lack thereof, in the police force. Rather than patrolling the highways, they set up checkpoints along the road, and let the traffic come to them. These check points are notorious for corruption.
The military also has its own check points. On my way from the town of Libertador General San Martin to the city of Salta, I used a free-lance remis (aka taxi) rather than waiting a few hours for the bus. At a military check point en route, the remis was stopped for inspection. Each passenger and the driver showed ID papers, and submitted to a search of their belongings. In a country with a recent history of military dictatorship, people don't backtalk at these check points.
A middle-aged officer was in charge of a small squad of young men, who looked not much older than 18, and who appeared to be local boys. They went through my knapsack and backpack, opening the smaller packages they found inside: binoculars case, toiletries kit, first aid kit, etc. I had to explain the purpose of some mysterious objects, such as dental floss and a lint brush.
I have a theory, backed by my Lonely Planet guide book, that our remis was singled out for inspection because of the novelty of a Norte Americano travelling in a private car. I provided much more entertainment value than just another Salteño on the road.
I was polite, friendly and submissive. This seemed an effective strategy to get me through the process without any exchange of funds.
USA
In addition to the crews of underpaid security workers, the federal government has reinforced the checkpoints in our nation's airports with armed military personnel. They carry enormous assault rifles, which seem ill-suited to the task of close quarters fire. Their body language indicated they weren't quite sure of their role, other than as symbols. They certainly didn't have the focused and deliberate demeanor I encountered in Israel.
The Congress is on the verge of passing broad new powers for the government in the war on terrorism. As the government assumes much greater power to search and detain people, I wonder just how much freedom the American public is willing to relinquish.