Work Activities: Trapping for the Other 99%

   If our readers haven't noticed, over the past month or so we've been a bit slack on the blog.  This was mainly because we lost internet for 10 days, and then I went home for a couple of weeks.  That being said, we'll summarize the activities that took place during this time in the coming days.   
   The first couple of weeks when we got here involved trapping the native rats, which means traipsing around the enclosures that are part of this project, laying out traps at each of the specified sites.  These are opened at night, and checked in the morning before it gets too hot.  This is repeated for 6 nights to ensure that a good estimate of the total population is obtained.  By the end of this time, we were definitely over the smell of a big rat in a trap.

One of our rats caught on the camera trap.

  During this time, we also collected the infrared cameras that had been deployed throughout the enclosures in February.  Camera traps are great tools that let you see things you cannot, like cats and lizards and LOTS of waving grass that unintentionally sets off the sensor (more coming on that one).  Let's just say that sorting through 10,000 photos from ONE camera is not the most riveting of activities.  You literally watch the grass grow.
  In the time that I was at home, Tegan had the task of conducting the first reptile survey (she'll tell you all about that soon).  This meant picking up 2 volunteers that had previously signed up, digging in the trapping sites, and recording captures.  Reptile trapping is always exciting though, as you approach the traps every morning and afternoon in anticipation of what might be there.  Will it be something never before seen on Earth?  Or will it be another boring brown skink that you've seen a thousand times previously?  Before this adrenaline rush, however, comes the digging.  In this particular case, it involves digging for the better part of an entire day, just to do a quarter of it all.  For those that don't know what we're talking about, I'll give you a quick introduction to reptile trapping.  

Lizard's-eye view of the drift fence.

   You have a trapping site, usually a square, and within this site there are buckets that have been previously dug in so the lid is level with the ground.  A shallow trench is dug, connecting the buckets; in the case of Wongalara, you connect the buckets to form a T.  This T is 30 meters at the top by 30 meters at the bottom.  Next, a 'drift fence', a 30-40cm (1+ foot) high plastic fence, is unrolled the length of the T.  In this case, you have 60 meters of fence. Once this is unrolled you hammer in one end and pull the fence tight to hammer in the other. You then go from one end to the other hammering in smaller 'pegs' that hold the fence in place and along your trench. This task is made easier if the person digging the trench has actually made you a straight line between the two buckets. Otherwise you end up a ridiculously tight fence that wants nothing more than to be above ground or horizontal with the ground. This is not ideal. To successfully act as a barrier for wildlife and direct them into one of your buckets, the fence must not have any daylight showing underneath. So to make sure of this, you go back along and fill the trench back in along the fence.

Funnel traps.

Lastly for our set up we have funnel traps, which are ideal for catching the larger reptiles…particularly snakes.  We have two pairs of these on each fence and they are covered in a sheet of insulation to keep our reptiles cool during the heat of the day.  

   When you check traps, you go along and see what may have fallen into the buckets or crawled into the funnels.  How many reptiles do you get on any given day?  There are a few external factors that contribute to this, so we can't really say.  For more answers, stay tuned for Tegan's report on the survey effort while I was at home. 

   Well, it doesn't seem like much, but these activities have basically filled up our days since we arrived.  In the months ahead, we'll have a few more tasks to complete, the most exciting of which will be cat trapping.  We'll explain more as the event draws near, but let's just say we'll be up all night to probably catch a whole lot of nothing.  

   

Ant Wars: Originally to be Published in April...

   In our time here so far, we’ve been in the midst of a bloody, never-ending war against a cunning enemy, the ants.  Their guerilla tactics, covert operations, and persistence have worn our defenses thin, but we believe that we are finally winning.  It has been a difficult struggle at times, losing some food along the way.  No doubt they will always be remembered for their brave sacrifice. 

Ground zero for ant attacks

   It all started the day after we arrived here at Wongalara.  There had been some talk about how there was ‘an ant problem’, but we figured it was something we would deal with as it came.  In the meantime, we unpacked our food, and resolved to clean up food scraps quickly and do other things that would not attract any unwanted dinner guests.  In a matter of hours, however, with a full pantry stocked and organized, we realized that the ants were on the march.  We figured that since everything was new and sealed, it was in the clear.  This is where their guerilla operations got the upper hand, since this particular species can chew through chip packets, granola bar wrappers, and other soft plastics.  By dinner that night we found that they had gotten into some granola bars, crackers, chips, and nuts.  A frantic offensive was launched to rid these packets of their visitors, and save the contents without losing too much.  Tegan and I fought bravely; shaking, blowing, and crushing our opponents with speed and tactics rivaled only by international militaries.  In the end, the counter and sink were strewn with ant bodies, some still writhing in their death throes.  It was a grizzly sight, but this is war.  This is hell.  It was not without casualties on our side, though, as we lost one granola bar, a packet of mi goreng instant noodles, and nearly lost an entire box of Cheds, which would have made me weep if not for a quick application of tape over the holes.  We took the vulnerable food from the shelves and packed it into one of our bins, a big latched one that was well away from the battlefield and offered additional security.  We also plugged their entry/exit holes in the wall with blu-tack, which is impossible for them to chew through.

   It wasn’t much after their opening offensive that they invaded again, this time around some of the bread mix that we thought was safe on another shelf.  They were fierce in their attack and unfortunately we lost a packet of gluten free mix, which became too overrun with ants to fight back.  It was not a well-liked variety, however, so the loss did not affect our resolve in the slightest; not a tear was shed.  The same night, in what was believed to be a psychological attack, perhaps 2 dozen ants entered our bedroom through the air conditioning and crawled all over Tegan during the night.  She told me the next morning that she had dreams about ants, and then woke to bites all over and realized that they had actually been a frightening reality.  I believe they avoided me simply because of my fierce temperament, and the fact that when I’m asleep, drooling, the frightening stink of morning breath is enough to repel anything.

Chemical warfare? Sometimes it's necessary.

   The moment they started appearing out of the keyboards of our MacBooks, we decided that blu-tack and fly spray were not sufficient enough weapons for this war.  We came to find out that over the wet season, these ants had successfully chewed their way through the electrics in the Jackaroo sleeping quarters next door and put the rooms out of commission until further notice.  This was the last straw.  You may attack our food, but our computers are another story.  We needed something dirtier, deadlier, and with an element of danger. We paid a visit to the trapping caravan, where we spied a jar of the most lethal ant killer; the weapon to turn the tides of this war.

   There have been various attacks since, but we are slowly gaining the upper hand with a mixture of cunning bravery and this lethal pesticide.  It’s a powder that’s supposed to be diluted with water, but we have created traps using peanut butter as a lure, covered in the powder itself.  No doubt this may be a little over the top and we have to be careful not to poison ourselves, but in such an ugly war there is room for these dirty tactics.  We remain vigilant, slowly migrating our food back to the shelves, the scene of the largest battle to date.  They have not revisited said shelf, and we believe they regard this as a kind of sacred site now, with so much bloodshed (and now pesticide) upon it.  The war may not be over just yet, but we remain confident.

      

Hello, Wongalara. Hello, work.

   For those that may be wondering, where exactly are we?  To begin with, in the Northern Territory.  For our American friends, that's like being in the upper mid-west.  Wisconsin, except tropical and without the cheese.  If you care to look it up, simply type the following GPS coordinates into Google Earth or Maps: -14.13993, 134.47457.  You'll find the homestead, and our house (it's one of the buildings you can see).  Zoom out and you'll see where we are in relation to the rest of the country, as well as just how far away from any other civilization we actually are.  We're tiny dots within the 427,000 acres that this property encompasses.  If you want to find out more general info on Wongalara sanctuary, just visit this link for the official website.  If you want to contact us or send us something special, the mailing address and phone number are on the right hand side of the blog webpage.  

   Formalities aside, what are we actually doing?  Our formal titles are "Research Assistants".  Basically, the peons.  We're doing the hard labor for a research project looking at the relationships between native wildlife (mainly rats and reptiles) and feral cats.  For those who may not know, feral cats (as well as numerous other invasive species) have decimated native Australian wildlife over the years.  We could explain at length the problems with feral cats in this country, but for now all you need to know is that they eat all kinds of other animals and with no real natural predators, they just keep multiplying.  We're the on-ground labor that collects the raw data for the project and feeds it to the research team to analyze.  In the end, it is hoped that this research can help to better understand the relationships between ferals and native populations of wildlife.  Stay tuned for future posts about our specific tasks, including trapping rats, reptiles, cats (luckily not at the same time), and our dealings with remote infrared cameras.