Day 3: More Mongoose

Woke up around 7:30 am, had breakfast and coffee, and then took a dip in the ocean for my shower. The water was a bit cool, but felt great nonetheless. After rinsing the salt off and getting dressed, I did some school work until it was time for Katie Matt and I to check the mongoose traps. We went out to the refuge around 10:30 and again started with the traps along the beach. Katie and I found three mongoose in our first four traps. (For videos about trapping mongoose click here.) All of these were really angry (I would be too if I was trapped in a small metal cage). We then moved on to the 20 spread out along the road. We captured six today, bring our three day total to 21. It was really warm out there traipsing through the brush and it tires you out.

We brought the six back to the cottages and after lunch we began examining them. Four of them were recaptures (1 from yesterday, 3 from previous years) and four were males. Two of the males were big boys, over 800 grams each. Katie tried again today to draw blood, but she still couldn't get any. After getting all the data and tagging the two new captures, we took a break. I was exhausted from the morning and took a long nap. When I woke up, everyone was gone. Buzz and Katie were headed off to return the mongoose and use a microscope at the Department of Fish and Wildlife; and Matt and Jonathan were swimming.

I sat down and did some grading and uploaded photos to my Facebook page. Buzz and Katie came back and unfortunately the microscope didn't work well so all the fecal samples will have to wait until we get back.

It is now about 6;30 pm and we just watched the sunset. It is amazing how quickly it goes down here. I also saw the "green flash". Just as the sun disappears, the sun looks green for a moment. It is very cool.

A great ending to a beautiful day. My only regret is that Annie isn't here to share this with me.