Dead mongooses, East End, Christiansted, and the trip back

As I write this, I'm sharing our dining room with a little zenaida dove under a tropical rain shower. He comes and visits every day jonesing for crumbs. He even looks inside the doors of the cottages.

We ran the traps early yesterday and then met up with Mike when we released the animals. We had gotten conflicting accounts about mongoose being trapped (and killed) on the refuge. Buzz had asked for them to scan any animals they killed for PIT tags -- or to freeze the carcasses of any animals they killed -- but had gotten no reports. But when we arrived, we had heard that animals were being removed, so we asked Mike what was happening. It turned out that there were a lot of animals in the freezer that no-one had told us about. We pulled out bag after bag of dead mongooses -- most not particularly well labeled, but at least some with dates and places. We left them to thaw in the tropical heat while we went out to the East End.

We drove along the south shore and out to Point Udall. They've fixed the road, which is nice -- it had gotten really bad. The last time we'd been out there, a fire had gone through, but this year, with all the rain, it was very lush. We got a nice group photo.

We drove back to Christiansted for dinner, since the brewpub was closed when we went there before. Buzz and I had a drink while the kids went shopping and then got a table upstairs before the Crab Races started. They have some new thing where people pay $5 to get a hermit crab and then they have races with them. Pretty barbaric.

Sunset over the boardwalk was gorgeous. We took our time walking back and got some nice pictures against the magnificent sky.

Once we got back, we sprang into action. At 9:30 at night, we pulled a table around the refuge to where there was an outside light and began pulling dead mongooses out of bags. Krissy labeled bags while Buzz and the others checked for PIT tags and dissected out the stomachs of the animals to take back for a dietary analysis. I held a light and recorded data. We got the stomachs of around 50 individuals and found 5 PIT tags. Buzz and I were both impressed at how the students jumped into the task and got it done.

Just a couple of days left...