The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes (12 page)

Back home in Paris that night, we switched on the TV to watch the evening news. This time, the story began with “The thirty-five escaped bison are back in their enclosure. A special team from Paris got the better of the bison's thirst for freedom.” I watched my interview. The reporter wanted to know if the situation was dangerous. “Yes,” I told him, “but everything went fine, thanks to the help of everybody involved: farmers, authorities, and veterinarians.”

In France, the meat of an animal anesthetized with Immobilon at any point during its lifetime can never be consumed. As a result, the herd lives on. We saved them not once but twice!

A Camel in the Snow

by Christian Walzer, DVM

M
y numbed mind is trying to determine if the sun has risen. Do I really have to get up? The daily battle between sleep, a full bladder, and the misery of leaving my warm sleeping bag for the cold outside begins anew. But the day's work awaits. Maybe we'll capture our first wild camel.

Our small team—myself; Petra, my biologist colleague and research partner; and a half dozen others—has been camping in Mongolia's Gobi Desert since the beginning of November (2005). It's been three weeks and we've yet to see a Bactrian (two-humped) camel. With only about five hundred remaining in the wild, they are among the rarest animals in the world. And we know very little about them. Our mission is to capture three Bactrian camels and outfit them with high-tech satellite collars that will allow us to track their movements. The data produced by our research will contribute to the development of a conservation action plan for this critically endangered species.

Through the tiny open slit of my sleeping bag, I see the immobile shape of Petra. Apparently she's still asleep, or at least pretending. With my toes, I can feel the boxes of drugs, batteries, and other objects stored inside my sleeping bag; my body heat protects them from the low temperatures.

Eventually, as it does every morning, my bladder wins. I crawl out of the bag and get showered by ice crystals. They form each night on the inside surface of the tent, frozen remnants of the moisture contained in our respirations. I look around for my clothes. At —25° centigrade (—13° Fahrenheit), getting dressed is a daily trial. I hold my breath, telling myself this is not the time to wimp out, and slip my feet into my rock-hard frozen boots. I pull the tent zip up and poke my head out. Gerelmaa is already up and has a fire going to melt snow for tea and coffee. She calls out,
“Sain bainuu?”
—the all-purpose ritual greeting in Mongolia.

“
Sain bainaa,
I'm fine!” I answer back.

With the first hot mug of milk tea in my hands and the warming fire, the world looks and feels a better place already. A great white expanse of snow surrounds us. Not a single tree interrupts the view. In the distance, rolling hills and mountains with sharp-edged dark rocks catch the first pink rays of sunlight. Rivulets of wind-driven ice crystals flow around the campsite like small streams. Our three hobbled domestic camels watch impassively as the camp awakens. I've journeyed to this area several times a year for nearly ten years. Even so, I am in awe of the Gobi this morning.

We've been traveling through the very remote southern part of the Gobi Desert, one of the world's great desert ecosystems. The extremely harsh environment has given rise to unique and particularly well-adapted species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Among them is the wild Bactrian camel, the fine-boned ancestor of the domestic camel we so often see in zoos. Thousands of Bactrian camels once roamed this region. Though they now live in a protected area, their population has steadily declined, primarily due to human encroachment on their fragile home.

It took us two weeks just to get to the desert. After a further frustrating week inside the protected area, we have yet to see a single camel. Now we are just 37 miles north of the Chinese border fence.

Petra is up. She walks over to the fire sleepily, looking for her mug. “Morning. Is Adiya already looking for camels?”

“I saw him on the ridge earlier with the spotting scope,” I reply. “Let's keep our fingers crossed.” Petra puts a frozen slab of bread on a shovel and pushes it into the fire to make some toast. Suddenly the radio spurts to life. Tumaa, our driver and park ranger, is quick to get the call.
“Tsaa, Tsaa bainuu!”
It's Adiya, calling in from the ridge. I can't understand most of what he says, but between the cacophonic garbling I pick up the words
“khavgai, khavgai”
—wild camel.

Finally, after a long week of searching, we have our first sighting. Immediately, I begin to feel the excitement of the chase. Our trusty Russian UAZ-model jeeps are still frozen, however. They'll need a fire under the gearbox and both axles before we can move out. The team is quick to mobilize. Tumaa starts two blowtorches under the jeep and removes the window on the passenger side so that I'll be able to get a good shot with the dart gun.

Getting the darts ready is a long and delicate procedure. For this capture, we use a novel drug combination that includes five individual components. The most important of these is the opiate etorphine, an extremely potent wildlife capture drug similiar to Immobilon. Though a few drops can potentially kill a human, it's a great drug for the anesthesia of large mammals. Thanks to the cold, all of the drugs have to be thawed and then laced with sterile antifreeze. I do this carefully—and slowly. It's a struggle to work the syringes with precision; my fingers feel numb inside my thick gloves. Petra keeps a close eye on me, just in case I jab myself with the dangerous mix. I finally get four darts ready, cap each needle with a protective cover, and place them inside my down jacket, close to my body to keep them from freezing solid.

“Okay, let's get going,” I call out to the others. “We don't want to lose them again.”

The team crawls into the jeeps. We make one last check that we have everything we need, and off we go. Even though I am wearing several layers of clothes and a full-face mask, the stinging cold air rushing in through the open window frame takes my breath away. But not for long. The chase is on, and absolutely everything else forgotten.

The jeep carefully inches up toward the ridge. We don't want the camels to pick us out against the skyline. Adiya and I jump out and crawl up to the rim. There, below us, is a herd of twenty-five camels moving calmly up the valley in search of something to eat. Every now and then, one of them lifts its head and has a look around. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, the head drops again.

Most of the camels are females and juveniles, but at the edge of the group is a very large male camel. “Look at him,” Adiya whispers. “He's really big. What a beautiful animal!”

I whisper back, “I think we should try for this bull. The terrain over to the east is flat and looks quite easy for a chase by jeep. A surprisingly good approach.” We carefully slide back down out of sight.

To the extent that our old jeep can actually attain significant speed, Tumaa has the vehicle flying over the ridge. The camels see us and freeze momentarily. Then they start running along the valley in their typical pacing gait. Their bodies lengthen as they gather momentum, the front and rear legs on each side reaching forward and backward in perfect synchrony.

“All right, let's go! Tumaa, get the jeep behind the bull. Over there!” I yell over the whining engine noise. Ever so slowly, the bull gets larger. I raise the dart gun and begin to focus through the scope. The camel appears in the scope and is instantly gone again as we hit the next bump.

“Tumaa, we must get a bit closer. . . . Looks good.” I have the bull clearly in the scope and think,
Relax, don't shoot too soon—just wait, wait.
For a brief moment the motion of the jeep seems suspended and I pull the trigger. With a distinct
swoosh,
the compressed carbon dioxide pushes the dart down the barrel. Time slows, and through the scope I watch the dart streaking toward the bull's rump. I'm wishing it along, not daring to hope it will actually reach the animal.

“
Tsaa,
got it!” I call. The dart is firmly stuck in the rump muscles. The tension in my body eases, my hand relaxes, and I draw a deep, grateful breath. “Take it easy. Slow down and let him get some space, no need to scare him any further.” Slowly the intense cold is returning and my nose is now perfectly numb.
Got to watch out for frostbite,
I think. But no matter, we have our first camel.

In the distance, the bull nearly vanishes from sight in the driving snow. Then he slows and assumes a drunken pacing. He's fighting the drug effects, but I know we have him this time. After a few more minutes, he sinks to the ground and lies down. We wait, letting the drugs take their full effect.

“Looks good. His breathing is regular and deep,” Petra says as she fixes the bull with her binoculars. I get out of the jeep, shoulder the medical pack, and walk across the snow-driven plain. My patient is rapidly disappearing in a snowdrift. He does not react to gentle prodding; I wave to the others to join me.

I get down on my knees and look the bull in the open eyes while I place my pulse oximeter probe on his tongue. Beep, beep, beep, the reassuring heartbeats resound above the wind. He's at 94 percent saturation, which is near normal for the oxygen levels in his blood, despite the anesthesia. I stroke the bull's tousled hairy head and say quietly, “It's going to be all right.”

Petra is kneeling next to me in the snow. Though she has her face mask on, I can see in her eyes that she is smiling. “Okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, start putting on the collar. I'll try to get a blood sample.” I search with my finger for the jugular vein. “What a hairy beast,” I mutter. “This blood sample is not going to be simple.” Finally, the needle slips into the vein; the first few drops of blood appear and then instantly freeze. “Petra, this is not going to work—the blood is freezing in the needle.”

“Hang on, I have some warm needles in my fleece.” She hands me one.

It works. The blood slowly fills the tube, and we have our first good genetic sample. The Global Positioning System (GPS) unit mounted on top of the collar will determine the bull's location three times a day and transmit the data to our field station every other day via the French Argos satellite system. With this information, we will be able to learn more about the bull's movement patterns and determine his requirements for space and food. This data is essential if we have any hope of conserving this species for future generations. Mounted on the side of the collar is an additional unit, a small explosive charge that will activate sixteen months from now to release the collar. This sounds dangerous to the animal, but the very small charge is carefully contained in a steel casing that channels the explosion to simply remove a retaining pin. Similar collars have been used in all kinds of smaller, more fragile species like elk and deer.

The bull's head seems to be floating above the snow. The rest of his scruffy, dark brown body is covered by the snow-drift.

“We're all done,” I announce. “Let's get this animal up before he's completely snowed in.” One by one, my team members approach the bull, stroking his head. Each bids the camel good-bye in his or her own way, wishing him well for his future travels in the Gobi.

I am alone with the bull, holding the syringe filled with the reversal drug. Once it's in the vein, the animal will awaken and shortly thereafter jump up—and most probably run off. The needle once again slips into the vein and I depress the plunger. My knee is firmly on the bull's lower jaw, fixing his head to the ground. I don't want him attempting to get up before he has the strength to throw me off.

The bull and I have been together for the past hour. The chase, the dart, and the hairy head in the snow are etched in my mind. Once he leaves to roam the Gobi, I hope that he will never again meet another human.

He begins to stir, his breaths deepen, and then he makes a first feeble attempt to throw me off. “You will have to do better than that,” I say. Finally, a few minutes later, the bull wheezes noisily and throws me into the snow. He looks slightly confused, but holds his head high and glares at me. This typical camel look lets me know he is back in charge. He gets up and takes a few wide-legged, shaky steps away from me before stopping and turning back one last time.

“Go on, be well and take care,” I tell him. “We will be watching you.”

The bull turns away, disappearing again into the driving snow.

Six months later, in the comfort of my Vienna office, I log on to the Argos satellite Web page to check up on the collared bull. It's summer in the Gobi, where daytime temperatures often reach 50° centigrade (122° Fahrenheit). The camel is moving north, tracking rainfall and good pasture. Remarkably, we've yet to see any signs of illness or injury in this bull or in any of the other five collared animals, despite the harsh conditions in the desert. Though our data is preliminary, one thing is clear: this remarkable species needs a great deal of space in order to remain healthy and survive.