You're Doing It Wrong

In the early days of the California Condor reintroduction program, there were several birds that died from  unfortunate run-ins with power lines. To remedy this, the captive birds were treated with electrified mock power poles in their flight pens, which administer a shock to any bird daring enough to land on them. The condors seem to have learned their lesson in recent years, and there have since been no reported condor deaths by power pole. However. Someone (not naming any names * cough * 462 

* cough *) unplugged the solar power to the mock power pole in the Hopper flight pen. And while I don't know how long the power was off, it wasn't long before the younger birds were perched on the pole. 

Lesson: not learned. 

Young'uns

We got a new shipment of juvenile condors in the flight pen.

The one on the right looks miffed.

The young'uns and one old dude. 

Intern Angela, in the flight pen, with an axe

What you are about to read may be shocking to your sensibilities. Tonight, I had to do something contrary to my nature, habits, vegetarianism, and skill.

Tonight I had to cut off a cow's leg.

"Good God, why?!" you cry out. Well, here's the story. I had orders for the next day to trap three currently stealth birds with the goal of replacing their dropped transmitters. Trapping requires placing a calf in the double-door trap of the Bitter Creek Flight Pen. However, a tasty little morsel must be chained up outside the pen to entice birds inside.

Cut to the leg. Geoff had told me, when I innocently inquired over the phone "Just how does one proceed to divorce a calf from its hindlimb?"that if I was lucky, it would still be frozen enough for me to use an axe. However, if the calf was well-thawed, I'd have to use my knife to cut around the join at the hip, then pop the leg from the hip socket. Delightful. Care to guess if I was lucky or not?

The axe bounced off the calf's springy skin. Oh, so it was going to be the knife then. Neither was particularly sharp, and the knife made for a messy job. I sawed away for what seemed like the longest time, mentally apologizing to the calf for the whole to-do. When at last I pulled the leg out of its socket with a pop that will surely haunt my dreams tonight, it was with a mix of satisfaction and guilt at my pride in something so gruesome, that I held the limb and beheld my handiwork. It is amazing the things one can get used to.