MOUNTAIN LION LADY Chapter 6 (first half)

Winter of Our Discontent

Word had gone out to the guide-and-outfitters and ranchers in the area that we were doing a mountain lion study. Most of them were all for it but one old goat said we could hunt on his land but he would follow us and kill every lion we caught. We didn't think he meant it but avoided his land anyway. Several outfitters volunteered to show us good lion country when they weren't guiding paying customers. 

Ray, me and Ray's favorite hound

Although I heard an urban legend-type story (country legend doesn't have the same connotations!) that a woman many years ago used a pack of dachshunds in the area to tree lions, most outfitters use Walkers, blueticks, redbones, black and tans, Plott hounds or mixed breed hounds. The houndsmen I met tended to breed for traits rather than for the breed purity that's important in the show dogs. Our first houndsman, Ray, had a favorite bluetick/redbone cross. Joe had some Walker mixes and a Plott hound. Chuck, our houndsman for the last two seasons had some Walker mixes, a black and tan and a couple of Plott mixes. What they looked like wasn't nearly as important as what their noses could do coupled with a high degree of stick-to-it-iveness. Brains were also a big plus.

The daily routine we followed while we were on the study area was pretty much the same. My alarm clock would ring at 5 am. I would get up, have a bowl of cereal for breakfast (gone were the days of camp coffee and Ray's breakfast cooking!) and make a sandwich for lunch which, along with a canteen of water, an apple or orange and maybe some cookies, would go in a saddlebag. Then I would fix stew or something in the Crock-Pot. I used a plug-in timer set so dinner would be ready at 6 pm and would turn off if we hadn't made it back by then. The Crock-Pot was a very handy item. Since the oven in the trailer drew too much power I even made a birthday cake in the Crock-Pot for Gray when he was visiting for his birthday! The cake was kind of heavy but tasted fine. 

Joe would get his own breakfast and load the horses in the trailer. We kept the saddles in the truck so we could drive to a promising area and start hunting at about day break. 

We thought our luck had changed when four days after Francois was caught in the trap we caught another lion. An area houndsman named Don had made arrangements to meet us at a local ranch where we'd been given permission to hunt. Joe and I had our rented horses saddled and were waiting when the rancher came out and said Don had just called. He had cut a very fresh lion track on the way to meet us. We unsaddled the horses, left them at the ranch, and followed Don's directions to meet him. 

It was thrilling to see a beautiful, big, fresh track in the snow! The weather and conditions were just perfect. We turned Joe's three hounds loose and took off on foot behind them. Joe had one walkie-talkie and I had the other just in case we got separated. Which we did. We chased the cat for about two and a half hours but the lion wouldn't tree. Don and I could see the chase taking place on the hill opposite us as we came over the top of a ridge. The hounds would corner the lion on a rocky outcropping, he would stand there snarling and catch his breath then he would make a massive swipe with his paw and continue running. There were plenty of trees around for him to climb but he didn't want to and the hounds couldn't make him.

Dart and Cap-Chur gun

Occasionally we would hear a pain-filled, drawn-out yelp from a hound. Don was sure one of them was dead. The snow was deep in places but we hurried as fast as we could. I was grateful for my sturdy high-topped pack boots because the country was pretty rough. Just as Don and I were getting close Joe came over another ridge and we zeroed in on the chase. There was blood all over the snow but no dead bodies. The scene was a mad house. The lion trotted past Joe two times and approached Don once. He never seemed to be in much of a hurry although the hounds were always right on his tail. They had developed a certain respect for his claws. During one of his passes I darted him for 100 pounds which only slowed him down a bit so I tried to dose him again for another 80. The dart wasn't balanced and after it left the gun tumbled and bumped him with the yarn end. I don't think he even noticed it. The third one, also dosed for 80 more pounds, hit him in the neck and made him loose control. 

The hounds were delighted to be on the winning side this time and tried to pile on top of him. Bugle grabbed him by the throat before Joe could pull him off. We each grabbed a frantic hound and pulled them over to a tree to tie them up. We got blood all over us. Bugle and Prince were both pretty badly sliced up. Joe took them back to his truck and off the mountain to the vet that had patched up Speck's broken leg. Bugle ended up with ten stitches and Prince three.  

Weighing a lion

Meanwhile Don helped me gather data. The lion didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects from the mouths of the dogs, so we strung up the scales and weighed him: one hundred forty pounds! I had modified a fishing vest to hold most of the equipment for the rest of the body measurements and blood and hair collection.

My doctoral project was to determine blood normals for mountain lions and to develop a method to estimate the ages of wild-caught lions.  I had researched morphological and physiological things that change with age. Have you heard the expression "long in the tooth" to describe someone who is old? Your teeth don't actually grow during your lifetime but your gums recede so they look longer. I decided to measure gum line recession using a dental probe. I had read that humans' hairs get more brittle as they age because the protein chains get shorter so I decided to collect hair and whisker samples to test for tensile strength. Another thing that appears to change with age is the percentage of neutrophils in the blood. All these things seemed pretty easy to measure although testing tensile strength of hairs and whiskers in an engineering materials lab raised quite a few chuckles from the engineers.

Measuring the skull arch

We made five body measurements in addition to the weight: total body length, tail length, girth, rear tarsal length and skull arch.  

I snipped off a few whiskers and taped them into a paper straw (I later distributed the unused whiskers when I gave mountain lion talks to kids). I trimmed the hair samples from the area above the lion's knee which needed to be trimmed anyway for blood collection. That was easy. The blood collection was not. Mountain lions' forelegs are massively muscled so they can bring down their prey. The vein in the hind leg is easier to find. But not always easy. Don blocked off the blood vessel above the clipped area on the lion's leg. I was delighted to see the vein pop up so I could stabilize it with my left hand and poke the needle into the vein (without going through it!) with my right. With a sigh of relief I watched the dark blood flow into the syringe as I pulled slowly back on the plunger (the blood cells can burst and the vein collapse if you pull back too quickly). I collected about 10 cc's of blood which I divided into a test tube to be allowed to clot for a serum sample, a test tube with heparin for a plasma sample, and the remaining few drops to make several slides of blood smears for white blood cell differentiation. All of these I packed carefully back into my vest and back pack. I made an ink print (red for females and blue for males) of the lion's hind foot (the print you are most likely to see in the snow) then measured gum line recession, put a red numbered nylon collar on the lion and tattooed the same number in his ear, and the lion was ready to be left alone to recover. He was stirring about three hours later so we left him.

Contents of my vest

Don took me back to the ranch where we had left the horses. We explained the situation to the rancher and asked if we could leave them there overnight. He found the situation amusing and granted us permission. Then Don took me back to camp. I thanked him and spun the serum and plasma samples down in my centrifuge while I waited anxiously until Joe got back with his two rather subdued and probably aching pups. We were down to one hound with a pretty good nose but not as committed to the hunt as we would like her to be and an inexperienced youngster. Joe had more hounds at home, so we took a break for a week to enable him to fetch them.

The rest of the season was miserable. Day after day we saddled up and rode, looking for tracks. Nature had dumped 2 1/2 times the normal amount of snow on the area in December which had probably driven the deer further down the mountains earlier than usual so the lions had most likely followed them. We just didn't find many tracks and the tracks that we did find weren't productive. Gray was still in school so he wasn't able to join us often, but my sister Julie flew a small plane up from Albuquerque to the Fremont County Airport east of Canon City to hunt with us for a couple of days. We saddled up and had a very pleasant though fruitless ride. Julie was surprised and amused at the hounds reaction to our lunch break. They had been very serious while we were looking for tracks but when we dismounted and sat down to eat our sandwiches they flopped down next to us with friendly, silly grins, happy to have their ears scratched. It was fun having her with us but it didn't bring us luck. We actively hunted on 54 days that season and treed a lion on only one.

Things were also discouraging at home during one break. I always looked forward to a long hot shower and a soft bed. Gray had decided to fix the shower just before I got home and had it in pieces and the water turned off. We went to a motel.

The Division of Wildlife was a major sponsor of the study and there was grumbling in that august organization that the reason we weren't capturing more lions was because a woman was in charge. The next year I delighted in pointing out to them that we had the best record of catching lions in all of the seven lion studies going on in the western states and a woman was in charge! But that first year I couldn't refute their assertion and had to ignore it. I was learning quickly that I was in a man's field where women weren't always welcomed. I wouldn't have been able to buck the whole system without the reassuring support and encouragement of my adviser, Ken. 

Memory of Elephants

One of Aesop's fables tells about a man and a lion that were travelling through the forest together. Each boasted about how superior his own species was. When they came upon a statue representing Hercules tearing the jaws of the Nemean Lion the man said, "See how strong we are! The King of Beasts is like wax in our hands!" "Ho!" laughed the lion, "a man made that statue. It would have been quite a different scene had a lion made it!" We each see things a little differently. We also each remember events differently. If someone heard my sister and me recalling an event from our childhood he might think we were talking about different events as we argue about the way something really happened! 

Another parable in a similar vein is told in several Eastern religions is about six blind men and an elephant. John Godfrey Saxe in the 19th century wrote a poem about it:

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),

that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and happening to fall

against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl:

'God bless me! but the elephant, is nothing but a wall!

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: 'Ho! what have we here,

so very round and smooth and sharp? to me 'tis mighty clear,

this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!'

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take,

the squirming trunk within his hands, 'I see,' quoth he,

the elephant is very like a snake!'

The fourth reached out his eager hand, and felt about the knee:

'What most this wondrous beast is like, is mighty plain,' quoth he;

'Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree.'

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: 'E'en the blindest man

can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant, is very like a fan!'

The sixth no sooner had begun, about the beast to grope,

than seizing on the swinging tail, that fell within his scope,

'I see,' quoth he, 'the elephant is very like a rope!'

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,

each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,

tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,

and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!

I wonder if elephants share the same recollections. It doesn't really matter since they don't talk about it with each other. Whatever the reality of recollections a person who has the ability to remember things for a long time is said to have the memory of an elephant. Since an elephant is intelligent, seems to have a good memory (especially about a person who has caused it harm) and lives up to sixty years, we often praise its memory.

The African and Asian elephants are members of different species. The scientific name of the African bush elephant is Loxodonta africana, which means African slanting (Greek loxos) tooth (Greek dontos). The African forest elephant, Loxodonta cyclotis (cyclotis might come from the Greek kyklon which means revolving and otikos which means ear, so it might mean "round-eared", or it might not; this is my own speculation), a slightly smaller animal, was considered a subspecies until 2001. DNA analysis in 2010 proved it to be a separate species. The Asian elephant is Elephas maximus, which means ivory or elephant (Elephas) largest (maximus), which isn't true because the African elephant is larger. 

The Asian elephant was first domesticated in India about 3000 B.C. It was used for hauling timber, hunting tigers, and in battle. Some effort was made by Ptolemy to domesticate the African elephant in Egypt in 300 A.D. In the battle of Raphia for control of what is now Syria the Asian elephants of Antiochus III the Great were pitted against the African elephants of Ptolemy IV. In an account of the battle by the contemporary historian, Polybius, the elephants from India were larger and stronger. It was speculated the African elephants were the smaller species of forest elephants but DNA evidence refutes this idea. Another guess is that they came from a smaller subspecies that is now extinct. I think they could have just been juvenile individuals that hadn't attained their full growth (they aren't fully adult size until they are 15 to 20 years old). Whatever the case the Indian elephants routed the African ones. In the end it didn't matter because Ptolemy won the battle. The African elephant as a species has never successfully been domesticated although individuals have been tamed.

Both sexes of African elephants sport tusks (elongated incisors) but only the male Asian elephant has them. The Asian females have stubby incisors called tushes.

Elephantiasis is a disease that causes gross enlargement of various body parts, most commonly the legs,  due to the blockage of lymph ducts often caused by a parasitic nematode worm that is spread by mosquitoes. It can be treated with antiparasitic drugs. The Elephant Man was a movie about a man who was thus afflicted.

 A white elephant is a gift that is not particularly useful but costs too much to throw away. In Thailand a white elephant (actually a light reddish-brown with fair eyelashes and toenails) is a rarity and considered by some to be sacred and a symbol of royal power. It is interesting that they are also known there as pink elephants. The king is still called "Lord of the White Elephant". In days past if a king wanted to ruin a noble he could give him a white elephant. Because of its status it could not be used for work but would have to be cared for as the law prescribed including provision of expensive ceremonial trappings. This could easily bankrupt a person.

If you see pink elephants and are not in Thailand, watch out! Before 1890 the idiom was "seeing snakes" but later writers added all sorts of animals and colors to the list. "Pink elephants" became the favorite after about 1905. In 1913 Jack London described a type of drunk in John Barleycorn as a man "who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants."

You might say a friend's drinking habit is the elephant in the room, which means an embarrassing fact is being ignored. This idiom could have originated in the 1814 story by Ivan Andreevich Krylov entitled "The Inquisitive Man". This is a fable about a man who goes into a museum of natural history and notices all of the exquisite little creatures. Then his friend asks him, "And of course you saw the elephant?" He responds, "Elephant? Are you quite sure they have an elephant?" When his friend assures him that it is there he is much chagrined that he didn't see it. Mark Twain also liked using the example of an elephant as something obvious.

A German idiom is "Ein Elefant im Porzellanladen" or "An elephant in a china shop". We ideate a bit smaller and talk about the bull in a china shop. Germans also say "Aus einer Műcke eine Elefanten machen" or "An elephant made out of a fly". We would probably say to make a mountain out of a molehill. An Indonesian idiom is "Semut diseberang lautan tampak, gajah dipelupukmata tak tampak", which translates to "An ant across the sea is visible, an elephant on the eyelid is invisible." It means that you can easily see the flaws in others, but it is harder to see your own. A Thai idiom is "Kèe cháang jàp dták-gá-dtaen" which is "Ride an elephant to catch a grasshopper". We might say to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Thomas Nast: "Third Term Panic"

In an earlier blog I mentioned how the symbol for the Democratic Party came to be a donkey. Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist for Harper's Weekly associated the Republican Party with the elephant in 1874 and other political cartoonists have been using it ever since.

You've probably heard of a gaggle of geese or perhaps an exaltation of larks, but did you know the collective noun for pachyderms (from the Greek pakhús, thick, and dermus, skin) is a memory of elephants?

MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 5 (second half)

Ray took the snowmobile out for a practice run. It was a government one and, true to form, it broke down. After much exertion he jury-rigged it enough to make it back to the truck then hauled it into Canon City, the only nearby town with a garage that could fix such beasts. On the way the brakes on his truck jammed and burned through costing him $170 to repair. Exhausted, he returned to camp late that evening.

Ray woke up at 12:30 am short of breath and with chest pains. Ken pounded on my door until I was awake and fairly lucid then left me with Ray while he went to Ed's to phone the doctor. I tried to keep Ray calm and talked all manner of nonsense to try to keep his mind occupied but it's about as possible to not be worried about a heart attack as it is to not be worried when you're swimming in the ocean and see a triangular fin coming your way! All of us made it through the night and at first light headed down the canyon to the nearest hospital.

After extensive testing the doctors decided it had not been a typical heart attack but Ray would have to take it easy for a while. Wrestling snow mobiles and lions was not in the cards for him any time soon.

Although we were happy that Ray was not in as bad shape as we feared, we were bummed that we would have to find another houndsman pretty late in the season. Most of them were already booked up with hunters. We headed back to Fort Collins and Ken started calling men that Ray had suggested. We thought our luck had changed when we found one of his friends was available. We arranged to meet Joe at camp the following Sunday.

A nicer guy than Joe didn't exist. He never had a bad word to say about anyone even when we met with further hardships.

The first day out we broke through a four-inch crust of iced snow and high-centered in the foot or so of soft snow underneath. It took us about three hours with two shovels going continuously to heave the wretched stuff away enough to back out. My muscles complained for days afterwards.

While Ray had been waiting for his brakes to be fixed on his truck he had struck up a conversation with a young fellow who offered to show us some good lion country and supply us with horses.  He gave Ray his phone number which Ray had left with us. We called him up and made arrangements to meet. With that one phone call we landed ourselves in the middle of an old-fashioned, no-holds-barred family feud. We didn't realize it for a while but wondered why Lee's aunt wasn't more cordial. Most of the folks in the area were friendly and nice. We later contacted Lee's cousin about looking for lion sign on his land which was next to Lee's. He screwed up his face into a scowl and snarled. "You can but if you bring one of those #*&#!*&* horses I'll shoot it!"

We never found out what the feud was about but the lines were certainly drawn.

Four days later Specks, Joe's best dry-ground dog (the dog with the best sense of smell) got too close to a horse's heels and was kicked for her efforts. Her femur was neatly snapped in two. The vet set it but Specks like Ray was out for the season.

Birds were plentiful. We saw a pair of golden eagles almost daily and spotted a great horned owl, several spruce grouse and quite a few wild turkeys. Lion tracks were not as plentiful. We hunted for six days. The hounds got some lion scent from a couple of old tracks but not enough to follow very far. We heard via the grapevine that some people didn't think we were working very hard. If getting up at 5 am and riding until late afternoon but finding only a few unproductive tracks isn't working, I'd hate to really work! One of the accusers was an arm-chair expert to whom his coffee break was the most important part of his day. Or maybe lunch was - he was developing quite a paunch! I think he was jealous that I, a mere woman, was getting to scout for lions.

After an abortive two weeks I returned to the welcoming arms of my husband for five days then prepared to brave the mountains once more.

Six days after we returned we had a lion, albeit not in an orthodox way. We had hunted all day without success and had just settled down to the crock pot dinner I had left cooking. Our neighbor John was late in arriving and came running over shouting that we had a phone call. It was the local game warden and he said a lion was caught in a leg-hold trap set for bobcat west of Canon City and asked us to come immobilize it. We skipped supper, grabbed our gear and the three of us headed down the canyon. We met the game warden Dwayne in town and he directed us to a little box canyon just off the Arkansas River. The road ran across a bridge quite a ways above the floor of the ravine. Dwayne had a spot light that he aimed down the draw. We could barely detect the glow of the lion's eyes in some bushes but we could hear it thrash around. I asked Dwayne how big it was. 

"Oh it's a whopper - 140 pounds at least!" he answered. I loaded the dart with enough drug for a big animal.

We asked Dwayne to accompany us down the faint trail to the canyon floor but he demurred.

"I'll stay up here and shine the light on him so you can find him." he volunteered.

Joe, John and I scrambled down the little trail and cautiously crept forward, losing sight of the cat until we almost stumbled over it. It was scared and hurting.

The first shot immobilized a nearby rock, but the second shot was a good one in the shoulder. The lion was down in five minutes. We gently removed the trap and discovered it was a female, not a whopping big male. We doctored her toes with an antiseptic salve. When we weighed her we discovered she was only 80 pounds! She had gotten almost twice the dose that she should have!

I named her Francois since names are easier to remember than numbers, but officially she had #1 tattooed in her ear. I was afraid my first lion would be a mortality and there were plenty of folks around for a wake. Quite a crowd had gathered on the bridge, including a newspaper reporter and photographer.

Dwayne left his post by the light and helpfully brought the newspaper reporter and photographer down, but not before he had posed for a few pictures ("local hero radioing for help", "local hero holding the spotlight". etc.)

We had made most of the easy measurements we needed but I had left the blood draw for the last. I had only drawn blood from one zoo lion and was not feeling very confident. I trimmed the hair away from inside her knee, tied a rubber tube around her leg and miraculously a vein popped up! I surprised myself further by my lack of difficulty in drawing the blood even with five people peering over my shoulder. We put a red nylon rope collar with a plastic numbered tag around her neck, tattooed her ear, gave her a shot of penicillin and stood back, unsure of what would happen next. Would she die? 

I was loathe to leave her. The night was chilly so I covered her with my coat then we sat back and I prayed. Most of the crowd dispersed. After an hour and a half she lurched forward, wearing my coat rakishly over her shoulder, and headed for the river. Dwayne and John headed in the opposite direction. Joe and I dashed after her and aimed her back uphill then walked with her until she collapsed. After two and a half hours she could negotiate pretty well so we left her.

Francois wasn't the only one staggering. It was after midnight and our last meal had been more than 12 hours earlier. It had been a meager lunch at that. We stopped at an all-night restaurant on the way home. After an hour of making blood slides and centrifuging samples I stumbled into bed. 

Joe and I returned to the box canyon the next day. I was half afraid we would find her lifeless corpse. Sure enough, right next to the boulder where we'd left her lay Francois. Joe headed down the path to retrieve the body. But the corpse wasn't lifeless! As soon as she heard the rattle of the stones dislodged by Joe's descent she was up and behind the boulder. Joe, the intrepid, gentle man, just kept walking toward her talking softly. When she realized she wasn't hidden Francois with the grace of a bird in flight leapt up to a crack in the canyon wall that couldn't have been more than two inches wide, faltered once, then disappeared over the rim. I have never seen anything so breath-takingly beautiful! She was liquid motion like a wave flowing over the canyon wall. I couldn't even tell which foot had been caught in the trap. I was sad when she was killed by a hunter three years later.

MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 5 (first half)

Print from hind paw of male lion

A-stalking We Will Go!

The project for my master's thesis involved capturing, marking and measuring wild mountain lions. The procedure sounds quite simple on paper: find a fresh lion track, turn three or four hounds loose on it, follow the hounds' baying (Chuck, the third houndsman I worked with, stressed quite strongly that I never speak of a hound barking!), locate the treed cat, immobilize it with a dart gun, mark it, take blood samples and measurements, and skedaddle. In practice it was never that straightforward. 

After the laborious groundwork (find out from game wardens, ranchers, etc. where the highest density of mountain lions are in the state and pick a reasonable-sized project area within that range, choose parameters to measure that might change with age (looking towards my Ph.D. project), gather equipment, select an experienced person with hounds trained to hunt mountain lions, carry out public relations with locals in the project area, find or set up a base from which to operate, and so on), we arrived in the sleepy little mountain town of Victor that was once the scene of boom-or-bust mining and would later become the scene of destination gambling. A salty character named Ray was chosen to be the houndsman.

Ray always had a good yarn to tell, often from his army days during the war when he was a cook. One of my favorite stories was about a ne'er-do-well who often landed in Ray's kitchen for KP duty. One day practically the whole company came down with the trots making a visit from the health inspectors necessary. Ray was indignant and exonerated because nothing could be found. By the time the inspectors had written up their report everyone had recovered, so the cause was marked "unknown". The unfortunate ne'er-do-well who had hovered anxiously in the background during the inspection approached Ray timidly.

"Promise ya won't bust me if I tell yer something?" he asked.

Ray eyed him suspiciously but agreed not to.

"I was a-stirrin' the stew when I 'membered I hadn't washed mah hands so I did it real quick, a-tryin' to keep stirrin' but the soap fell in an' I couldn't get 'er out so's I just stirred 'er up real good."

We had a nice field camp established in what was sort of the front yard of an old miner's cabin. We had two small trailers set up, one for me and one for Ray (and my advisor when he visited). We had all the comforts of home, sort of. We had gas heat, soft beds and electricity but no running water. For electricity we had extension cords running to the porch light on the cabin. For water we had five gallon cans that we could fill from the cabin.

Summer view from outhouse door

View through outhouse gaps

For toileting facilities we had an outhouse nearby with a view. It was perched about 20 yards from the trailers on a little hill. The schoolhouse was situated on a neighboring hill and the town's main street stretched out in front from the bottom of our hill. Since it was winter the boards didn't fit snugly so it was well ventilated plus we had a view of the schoolyard and the main street. For bathing facilities we had to have the cooperation of the cabin's resident, a young mining engineer named John. If Ray or I wanted to schedule a shower we would make arrangements with John to stoke up his wood-burning stove in the morning so the big tank of water attached to it would be warm by evening. After supper (John often joined us) Ray or I would trot over to his cabin, soap and towel in hand. We were fortunate that John was a good-humored chap. He had twinkling eyes and an impressive chin bush.

One evening when John wasn't home I went into his cabin to use his shower. I startled a huge tabby cat who careened around the room, knocking things every which way until he escaped out the front door. Later I asked John about his skittish cat.

"What cat?" was his puzzled reply.

We first arrived in the icy month of December. The wind whipped the snow from the ridges as soon as it fell and piled it deep in the valleys. Bears have the right idea in that country - they hibernate from late fall until early spring. That was part of the reason we were venturing forth at that inhospitable time of the year. Most lion hounds would rather follow a bear than a lion. I guess bears are a lot smellier than lions. The best time of year to catch lions is when bears are out of the way. In spite of our timing we ended up treeing a few bears and believe me, bears are not sober citizens when they are treed! The have tempers that would try a saint! Another reason lions are usually hunted in the winter is tracks. It's easier to spot a track in the snow than on dry ground.

The plan was to spend a week scouting the territory then begin looking for lions in earnest after Christmas. A lot of snow had fallen the first couple of weeks in December, more than twice the usual amount. It was difficult to move around on the back roads even with our four-wheeled drive so we resolved to bring snowmobiles back with us after Christmas.

Our trailers had been set up when the weather was still mild in the fall and were winterized and ready for us when we got there. I arrived with my graduate adviser Ken the day before Ray. Ken excelled in remembering people's names, diplomacy and giving his students space to learn for themselves. Ken and I were rank beginners in the lion-tracking business so Ray took us out to show us the ropes. We started by walking down the road, scanning the sides for lion sign.

"I found one! This looks like a lion track," Ken shouted gleefully from his side of the road.

"We-ahl," said Ray with a twinkle in his eye as he straightened up after examining the track, "I b'lieve that was a mighty small lion. It looks to me like a mouse hop."

We had arranged for a helicopter to fly Ray over the study area after we got back from the Christmas break. He talked the rancher who owned the land where our trailers were parked, Ed, into coming along to point out various features of the terrain. I would have given my eye teeth to go along but there was no room.

Ray slyly volunteered to make breakfast the morning before his grand adventure. We were served scrambled eggs with what looked like little chunks of cheese. It tasted just fine. After breakfast Ray chuckled and explained he had wanted to use up the eggs left over from before Christmas. I thought he was kidding. He wasn't. The eggs had frozen and the thawed hardened yolks were what we had thought were cheese chunks. He was tickled to have put one over on us and been economical at the same time. We suffered no ill effects but I vowed to be less trusting of what he served us after this. Unfortunately I wasn't to get much of a chance.

The helicopter arrived at the helipad in good time and we took Ray and a very wan Ed out to meet it. Ray claimed to be a bomber pilot after his time as an army cook and was looking forward to the day with relish. Ed didn't really trust anything that left the ground except chickens. He had only consented to the trip because his buddies had been razzing him.

While Ray and Ed were flying Ken and I scouted around a bit then Ken suggested I practice using the tree climbers. A tree climber is a wicked-looking, sharpened steel bar with straps to hold it onto the leg and a short bar for stability under the foot. Equipped with one climber on each leg, a heavy belt around the waist with an attachment that goes around the tree, a person is ready to climb a tree, Ken says. I strapped the works on, walked bow-legged to the tree to keep from planting the sharpened points in the ground, joined the tree trunk to myself with the extra strap, and slowly ascended. It was kind of fun and gave me a feeling of accomplishment! The only problem was the weight. I was going to be packing around a fair amount of equipment and the climbers were heavy!

We met the returning helicopter and were told the flight was uneventful. Ed had a little extra swagger in his step when he stepped down. He had no desire to repeat the performance but I'm sure he let his buddies know that he had actually done it while they had only talked about it.

The troubles that were to plague us the rest of the season started the next day.

PET WORDS

Summer is almost here and lots of baby animals are being born. Would you like to adopt a pet? The word "adopt" comes from two Latin words meaning "to choose" and "pet" comes from the French word petit which means small and is used as a term of endearment. But which pet? Perhaps a puppy. The dog days of summer are in August when the Dog Star, Sirius, is in ascendancy. Some unusual names for dogs from history and fiction include Bulova the Watchdog, Bridgette Bar-dog, and Virginia Woof. Another Virginia, Virginia Graham, once said "Say something idiotic and nobody but a dog politely wags his tail."

A cat or kitten is another choice for adoption. Saki in Tobermory stated, "Cats, those wonderful creatures which have assimilated themselves so marvelously with our civilization while retaining all their highly developed feral instincts." Some cats have retained more feral instincts than others. Many people complain about the number of birds cats kill each year but few complain about the rats and mice similarly exterminated. Unless the mouse or rat is a pet.

"Rats!" is an exclamation of disgust due to the animal's reputation and we say someone looks ratty if they are unkempt. The white rats I've known have been very fastidious although with a strong natural odor. This odor tells a cat when a rat is near and thus to smell a rat means to suspect foul play.

Hunt and Peck

Speaking of fowls, my mother kept two chickens as pets to keep the bugs and caterpillars down in her garden. They were so spoiled they waited at the back door for her to come out to weed or pick vegetables before they would venture into the garden. One might say they were chicken, a term that has been applied to people as early as 1633 to denote a coward. A chick on the other hand is an attractive young woman and a woman no longer young might be referred to as no spring chicken, both phrases dating from the early 1800's. Aesop's Fables gave us the cautionary "Don't count your chickens before they hatch!"

Several types of pets hatch from eggs. Parakeets and canaries are very popular, particularly with people who live in apartments or are allergic to fur. In a graceful haiku poem Masaoka Shiki stated: "When my canary flew away
                                                  That was the end of spring in my house."

The canary was introduced into Europe in the late 16th century from (where else?) the Canary Islands. It is much loved for its sweet song. In the late 19th century a canary was slang for a female singer and later came to denote an informer. Another term for an informer is "stool pigeon" which probably comes in a roundabout way from the French "estale pigeon", a pigeon used to lure a hawk. It first just meant a decoy but later came to be applied to a man who hung around on a stool in a bar picking up gossip as an informer. "Pigeon" in the early 20th century meant a young woman (remember in the Walt Disney movie Tramp called Lady "Pigeon"?). Now it means a dupe.

Snakes also hatch from eggs and some people are quite attached to them. Most slang terms that come from snake references are negative. "Snake oil" refers to the supposed ability of a snake to deceive and became popular around 1925 in the U.S. It refers to a patent medicine of dubious efficacy. A snake in the grass is a deceitful person. Virgil mentioned danger in the form of a snake in the grass in Eclogues ("Latet anguis in herba.") A parallel phrase in the 16th century was a pad in the straw. "Pad" is an old English word for "toad" (the term padlock came into being because it was a lock shaped like a toad) and a toad is poisonous if you try to eat it. A colorful Southern idiom to describe a person of low morals is "lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut!". "Snake eyes" on the other hand means throwing two one pips when rolling dice which usually isn't a bad thing.

Pets help put all of our thoughts and ideas in perspective. Stephen Hawking conveys his view about humanity in the following story:
     A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from           keeping goldfish in curved bowls...saying it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl         with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view       of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of             reality?

Pets help keep us sane even if our view of the world is possibly skewed!

MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 4 (second half)

The fireplace later indirectly caused another problem. I loved the fact that the apartment had a fireplace. A log fire can make everything seem so cozy! My problem was wood: pre-cut logs were expensive and I had no way to cut my own. One afternoon as I was driving home from grocery shopping I saw a nice pile of boards in a vacant lot topped by a lopsided "free" sign. Boards are not as inviting as logs but they burn just as well so I happily loaded up the trunk and headed for home, congratulating myself on my find. I piled the wood in the back of my rather spacious closet, saving just enough out for a cheery fire that evening.

About a week later I caught myself scratching some terribly itchy little red bumps around my ankles. I didn't think much of it at the time. I was quite accustomed to mosquito bites and didn't stop to think it might be too chilly for mosquitoes.

The bumps didn't go away - they multiplied! An occasional one was appearing elsewhere on my body. To my horror I suddenly realized what the problem was. Bedbugs! In my opinion they are even worse than cockroaches because they are lurk around nearby and crawl on you while you sleep! Cockroaches at least have the decency to stay hidden.

It didn't take long for me to figure out they must have arrived as free boarders on the free boards! I had a whopping big bonfire that night and fiendishly hoped many of them sizzled. I knew they had probably spread elsewhere in the apartment so the next day I called my landlord and tried to sound indignant when I told him the apartment had bedbugs.

"Bedbugs? I think you mean cockroaches. We sometimes have problems with cockroaches."

"I'm pretty sure they're bedbugs."

I held my breath expecting him to ask where they came from, knowing I would have to tell him, but he didn't. The idea that there might be bedbugs in his converted Victorian house was just too foreign to him. In a couple of days a fumigator arrived and solved the bedbug and non-existent cockroach problem.

Several years later bedbugs again became a problem. Gray, Julie and I were airstrip hopping around Baja California in a plane that belonged to her flying club. This was before the highway extended all the way south on the peninsula. Julie had a very detailed pilot's guidebook to Baja ("... thirty feet down the airstrip is a prairie dog hole on the left side ..."). The book informed us that if we buzzed the little village of Bahia Tortuga the local taxi would come out to the airstrip. We tried it and it worked! We had camped on the beaches in many places but there was no beach for miles around this village. We asked the taxi driver to take us to the town's only motel.

"Sorry," he informed us. "Is full with soccer team."

A team from Mexico proper had come over to play the local team, taking all the available rooms in the motel. It was too late to fly on to someplace else since none of the airstrips were paved or had lights and night was fast approaching. We, or rather Gray (the only Spanish I knew was "Buenos dias!"; Julie knew a little more as a New Mexican doctor and could ask "Tiene doloro aqui?" ("Does it hurt here?"), but neither of us spoke as much as Gray) asked the driver if there were any other accommodations in town.

"Si!" he readily answered. "A lady in town takes in visitors."

We bumped over the road that was more potholes than cobbles. We were met at the house by a tiny little dumpling of a woman with fiery orange hair and no teeth. Gray in halting Spanish explained our situation to her.

"Si, si I have room" she said loudly in Spanish thinking perhaps that if she spoke loudly enough maybe even Julie and I would understand her.

Her house consisted of five small cinder block buildings around three sides of a dusty courtyard. She directed us to one of the middle buildings when we asked her where we would stay. If it was too terrible we figured we could camp out next to the plane and leave at dawn. The room turned out to be a drab tin-roofed structure with one window, one naked light bulb hanging down, and quite a number of beds. The floor looked like it was probably dirt. She assured us that the sheets would be fresh so we agreed upon a price after a bit of haggling.

Still smiling broadly the woman summoned her granddaughter, a cute, plump little girl of about ten. She was instructed to take us to one of the town's two cafes for supper while the room was prepared. We didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. The restaurant was owned by the grandmother's sister.

After a tasty meal of locally-caught fish we wandered back. The little girl met us on the road. She had changed her clothes in honor of the occasion and was now wearing a fresh, brightly-colored dress. Smiling and chattering in Spanish too fast for Gray to follow she took us to our room. To our surprise the floor was not dirt but concrete! We noticed a pitcher of water and basin on the dresser but saw no sign of sanitary facilities. Using his best textbook Spanish Gray inquired about them. His question was met with a puzzled stare. The little girl fetched her grandmother and Gray repeated the question. It was met with a broad, uncomprehending smile. Finally Gray tried some of the childish slang he had picked up on the coast of Spain: "Where's the potty?"

The little girl cast her eyes down and giggled behind her quickly-raised hand. Granny guffawed outright. At least they understood! The little girl gathered up a broom and rooted around in one of the buildings. She returned triumphantly with a new roll of toilet paper and beckoned us to follow.

We were led down a rocky little path past the church to a spot overlooking the sea. There perched on top of a 15-foot bank stood an outhouse. She held up her hand for us to stop about ten feet away and went in to the tiny structure. Newspapers, pages from magazines and the inevitable dirt came flying out. She handed Gray the toilet paper and proudly held the door open for us to see. At least there were enough cracks in the walls to keep a brisk sea breeze blowing through but the place was aromatic to say the least. We graciously (I hope) but hurriedly thanked her and she made sure we understood we had to bring the precious roll of toilet paper back with us.  After she left we one by one made use of the facilities. There weren't going to be any midnight visits if we could help it!

Our room looked very clean and the sheets on our beds were brand new but we were afraid the conditions were ideal for bedbugs. During my ordeal with bedbugs in Berkeley I had read extensively about the little beasts. One article had suggested that they wouldn't come out in the daylight so we decided to leave the lone light on all night just in case. We slept a bit fitfully until about 
11 pm when the room plunged into darkness! We waited a bit to see if it was a mistake. It wasn't. We later found out the town's generators were always shut off at 11 pm. We uneasily went back to sleep.

We had learned when travelling to keep a flashlight handy so when Julie yelled "I've got one! I've got one!" several hours later Gray and I fumbled for our flashlights. She held up her tightly-clenched fingers for inspection but all that was there was a little piece of lint. We returned to our uneasy sleep.

The next morning we checked our ankles. Nothing! I had found out some of the bites didn't become itchy until they were scratched so I rubbed my arms and legs. Still nothing! We headed off to the cafe for breakfast, bleary-eyed but jubilant. 

I had hoped that would be my last experience with bedbugs but alas it hasn't been. But I did have a 15-year break.

After my first quarter at Berkeley I was faced with several major decisions. Did I want to aim for a Ph.D. in neurophysiology at Berkeley and end up working in a lab or should I follow my heart back to Colorado and wildlife biology. Neurophysiology certainly seemed more prestigious. But there was one additional bonus for my heart in Colorado: Gray. He was studying engineering there and had asked me to marry him. Wildlife and wedding bells won out so at the end of three quarters I packed my belongings and Harley and I headed back.

After arranging to be admitted into graduate school as an unfunded wildlife student in the fall Harley and I drove down to Albuquerque where Julie lived and was completing her internship in medicine. Dependable Julie again agreed to cat-sit for me while I flew back to Illinois where my 96-year-old grandmother lived with my aunt and uncle. She was not able to travel but was a very important part of my life so we had decided to take the wedding to her. There were lots of wedding plans to be made.

Julie agreed to keep Harley for the month before the wedding then planned to bring her to Colorado in a private plane, leave her with friends, pick up our father and stepmother and fly them to the wedding in Illinois. Carrying cages were not as ubiquitous as they are now so I constructed my own for Harley using cardboard and screening. It looked quite substantial with two layers of cardboard and the screen between them with a few cut-out holes.

Julie reported to me the rest of the story. Harley rode in the carrier quite calmly to the airport but her serenity evaporated when they entered the busy flight service office. In a minute flat she was out of the box and ricocheting around the room. It was a bit like trying to grab a porcupine but Julie managed to catch her and put the harness on. Then she walked over to the air freight shipping lines and bought a real carrying cage that was guaranteed to withstand the escape attempts of cats like Harley. Once in the air Harley became accustomed to the noise and seemed to settle down. She satisfied herself with stretching her paw through the bars every once in a while to give Julie a tap on the shoulder, reminding her of her presence. As if Julie could forget! For a long time after Julie was known at the flight service center as the woman with the cat.

Without much further ado Harley landed in Colorado a second time. None of us suspected that in a few short years she would become a cat with cougar experience!

MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 4 (first half)

Problems with Neutrality

Mut had been very special so I didn't want my next cat (for me there will always be a "next cat") to in any way replace his memory. I answered an ad in the paper and adopted an adventuresome little pastel calico kitten. Neither she nor I knew what adventures would fill her five years of life.

Harlequin seemed an appropriate name for my little patchwork kitten. I was still living with Amy and Daphne so I had to introduce her to the household carefully. Amy loved her right away but Daphne had to watch her carefully for a while before she was able to ignore her.

I had been accepted into graduate school at U.C. Berkeley for the fall semester. Harley was six months old and it was time for her to be spayed. I had decided to wait to do that until we had gotten to California, but then something happened that tipped the balance in an other, fateful direction.

Amy's boss, an M.D., said he wanted to show a group of pharmacology graduate students how to spay a cat and needed a volunteer. He said he had spayed a dozen dogs and at least that many cats. Time was short and the operation would be done a day before I was planning to drive to California. I checked with my vet to see if that would be dangerous. He said the incision was so small that travelling would present no problem to a healthy cat a day or two after spaying. It was sheer stupidity on my part, but I agreed to let her be spayed by an M.D. I let Amy take her to the Medical Center.

That evening a horror awaited me when I went to pick Harley up. A veterinarian when spaying a cat carefully shaves the animal's abdomen then scrubs it with an iodine soap to cleanse it and kill any lurking bacteria. A tiny 3/4 inch incision is made through which the uterus and ovaries are drawn. First the abdominal muscles and then the skin are carefully sewn up.

That was not what the doctor had done with Harley. Her abdomen had not been shaved and an extensive six inch incision had been made down the middle. After rummaging around and probably removing something the "doctor" had callously stapled her shut like a package leaving hair and dirt from non-sterile instruments inside her.

I ranted and raved at him, but he cold-heartedly shoved her into my hands and left. I went home weeping for my abused baby cat.

The next day Gray, Harley and I left for California. It was extremely hot so we kept a bucket of ice on the floor next to the still-groggy cat. We sponged her off when she was panting but were unable to do much more to help her. We made it to Reno by mid-afternoon the second day and decided to stop. Harley staggered out of the car and it was obvious she was not going to make it to California in that condition. With each step huge drops of pus oozed out of the stapled incision. We called the first vet we found in the phone book and rushed her to his office.

"I can't believe this! I can't believe anyone would do such a thing to a living animal much less someone's beloved pet!" he declared in disgust. "I'll have to open her up right away. She may not survive the anesthesia in her condition but I'll have to try!"

That dear, heroic vet who would never see Harley or me again but who cared about the well-being of his fellow creatures stayed into the night to try to save Harley.

The next morning we arrived at his office full of trepidation. I was afraid to hope. It was too possible that my stupid choice had killed my kitten. Not so, the vet cheerfully informed me!

"I removed a great deal of hair, washed out her abdominal cavity with antibiotic solution and shaved the edges so more hair won't get into the wound," he explained.

Unfortunately the infection within her little body was so rampant that most of the six inches had to be left open to drain. As a consequence I had to several times a day tuck her gut back up through the hole. But she was alive. She had survived in spite of the odds. I wanted to hug the vet and hug Harley, neither of which was practical, so I enthusiastically pumped the vet's hand before gently taking Harley out to the car. I vowed to never again put a pet's life into the care of anyone but a competent veterinarian!

Harley slowly healed after settling down in California but the final indignity from the whole sorry mess was yet to come. Almost three months later Harley came into heat. I told myself I was imagining things. Harley was just being exceptionally friendly out of loneliness. In part that was true - she was achingly lonely for a tom, any old tom. She rubbed her way around the room uttering mournful mrroes from deep in her throat.

I didn't know what to do. Cats are induced ovulators which means a queen won't ovulate until her vaginal tract has been stimulated. If a female isn't mated she will keep coming into heat with fair regularity. Harley had been cheated into having the desire but not all of the equipment.

After a wall-climbing month of indecision I called a local vet and explained the situation to him. I asked for his advice.

"Are you sure the ovaries were removed?" he asked dubiously.

"They were supposed to be but I don't trust a man who staples hair inside the incision" I responded.

The vet suggested I call the incompetent butcher and ask if he could have left any tiny bit of ovary. Even a tiny bit could have been able to produce enough hormones to bring Harley into what he called psychic heat.

It seems the fellow's abilities, first surgical and now linguistic, were fading fast. He declined to talk to me so I had to go through Amy. Poor kid, she was very defensive about the whole thing. She had inadvertently guided me into this whole mess.

"Of course he removed the ovaries Mary Jean!"

"Oh. So Harley's just imagining her desires. Or do you think I'm the one imagining her desires?" I sputtered.

"You got her into that. My boss didn't guarantee he'd do it like a vet."

I pieced together enough from our conversation to get the picture. Harley had been an anatomical model. Her insides had been exposed to the probing of the students and probably a bit of ovary had been carelessly poked off and not removed when the bulk of her ovaries had. I guess Harley was lucky it had been a part of an ovary instead of a piece of the intestine. That would have probably resulted in a rather gruesome death. I hung up in disgust.

The California vet was willing to operate but warned me the piece of ovary might be so tiny that it couldn't be found in the mass of tissue. He suggested birth control pills instead. Harley became the first cat to be put on birth control pills to control not her fertility (that had been taken care of when her uterus had been removed) but to eliminate her desire. Birth control pills neutered her where the bungling operation of an irresponsible M.D. could not. I gave her 1/4 of a human birth control pill each week. Occasionally I would forget and before long local toms would leave smelly calling cards at the door and sing mournfully throughout the night.

On one such occasion Harley slipped outside. I chased her all around the neighborhood but she eluded me. Later I saw her under a bush being mounted by a big, scruffy tom. I rushed outside just as he was about to consummate the act. At his anticipated moment of glory he was thwarted by a Denver M.D. and me. Harley dashed into the open door.

I decided it might be better to at least try to find the bit of ovary so surgery was scheduled. The vet had to make a larger incision than for a usual spay since he had to be able to look around, but he took all the usual precautions of shaving her abdomen and disinfecting everything. I was in the waiting room when he came out after the surgery.

"Did you find anything?" I asked anxiously.

"Well her uterus was gone, but I found two intact ovaries. Some spay!" I think it's worth mentioning that in humans the ovaries are sometimes not removed when the uterus is, the thought being the hormones from the ovaries help the woman age more naturally. This is not the situation in cats! I bet the M.D. had never performed a spay before because any animal owner would have noticed the result of intact ovaries!

Yet again Harley had to heal but this time she didn't come into heat again. She reverted to the curious little cat I knew. One evening when I got back from classes I found smudgy little cat tracks coming from the fireplace. Harley was peacefully sleeping on her sheepskin. I decided she must have just walked into the empty fireplace to check it out. Perhaps she had heard birds calling down the chimney and walked over to investigate. I thought no more about it.

A few days later Harley was nowhere to be found when I came home. I dashed out to the kitchen to see if I could have left a window open but it was tightly shut. Puzzled, I went back to the living room. A faint rustle, a sprinkling of soot, and bam! A little black cat descended precipitously from the chimney! Somehow Harley had found purchase in the chimney and gone exploring. It's possible she had even paid my upstairs neighbors a visit and left ghostly little cat tracks behind.

I snatched her up before she could make a mess of the whole living room and marched with her at arms' length directly into the bathroom. Several towels later she was an indignant dishwater gray. I went right out and bought a fireplace screen. Harley in blackface was not funny!