| We
all awoke to a chilly morning, and had to bundle up to go out
in the field. I was in a group with Tyler, and a volunteer named
Forrest. We were doing argali surveys by car, which meant we wouldn’t
be walking the usual distances; we would be traveling them by
motor vehicle.
The
one thing we were most excited to hopefully come across was a
baby argali calf. To our luck, we stumbled across a calf that
was traveling with its mother. We sighted the calf from a very
far distance away, which meant we had to jump out of the vehicle
and run down the mountain, only to run up another. The calf was
walking across the top of the ledge with its mother.
Once
we got close enough for comfort, the mother ran away, leaving
the baby hobbling as quickly as its little legs would take it.
It wasn’t quick enough because we were able to easily approach
it and lay a cloth over its eyes to calm it down. Once it was
calm and lying down, measurements were taken. We measured its
head, neck, length of foreleg, hind leg, tail, total height, girth,
and dimensions of the hooves. We also weighed it and once all
of data was collected, we placed a radio-tracking collar on its
neck. This will fall off in about a year, but in the year that
it is on, researchers will be able to track and locate the baby
as it grows.
All
the data we collected is recorded onto a general data sheet that
describes the calf and the encounter. Right before we were going
to set the calf free I was told that its name was recorded as
Jamie. I was so happy! Even though we found out that it was a
boy, it’s still really nice that it was named after me!
The whole thing took about 23 minutes, any more time and we would
be endangering the calf’s life. If, for instance, we took
40 minutes to work on the calf the mother would freak out, loose
hope, and run away even further from the calf. She would never
come back to get the calf if we took too much time. This is exactly
why it’s ideal that all the dimensions are taken and data
recorded in 20 minutes or less.We ended up finding another calf
a few hours later a performing the same tasks on it. Both calves
were only 3 or four days old, and it was absolutely amazing that
they were both up and walking around on their own.
The
calves were pretty much the highlight of the day because after
the second calf we didn’t find another one. So around 4
o’clock we just came back to camp and played some scrabble.
After dinner everyone settled down and now we are all getting
ready for bed. It is still very cold so I think I am going to
sleep in the main ger again tonight.
Peace,
Jamie |
