Vanessa's Journal

Dec. 4

Meet with veterinarians in the a.m. They will be the ones anesthetizing the animals and putting the collars on them.  We went over the protocol for getting in contact with them after collecting data, anesthetizing the animal and collecting basic data on weight/body measurements/overall health of the animals.  They seem ‘ready to go’ and said they will be ready for my phone call to them from the mountain when I catch a panda and need them to hike up asap to do the anesthetization.

It snowed! Very beautiful.

Went up to see some friends that run a local shop.  They were happy to see me again.  While there, I happened to see the field station manager Lao Wang (who I like to affectionately call “my personal chef”).  He is the one who takes care of the station up on the mountain (cleaning, cooking, security, managing the purchasing of supplies, etc.).  I was ecstatic to see him.  We spent lots of time together last summer. 

Decided to bring all my stuff up the mountain tomorrow.  Will go with Lao Fan and Lao Yang. We will have a meeting with Lao Wang so that the four of us can make plans for the winter trapping period and discuss any issues that need to be dealt with upfront.  I will move in my stuff and get things situated and make sure Lao Wang puts in a phone call order for our food.  I will come down in the afternoon to finish up last minute things in town and then go back up there more ‘permanently’ the following day.