 Today I got to tag along on a field trip into the forest with the small mammal team. They had three skunks in the special traps they'd laid out, baited with strawberry jam and sardines. Their job today was to release two of them, and replace the GPS collar of the other.  To be able to change the skunk's collar, they had to sedate him. That meant squeezing him down to the end of the trap with burlap, to stop him from spraying and keep him still enough to be injected. While they swapped the collar, they also took the opportunity to weigh him, check him over, and go through his fur with a nit comb for fleas. Even the fleas are of interest to the team -- they catch them in a little envelope and take them back to headquarters.     For the next two weeks, I'll be writer-in-residence in the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest! I'm in love already.
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