Deer Mugger

Ok, so today was one of THOSE days. Not one of those days in the sense of it being bad, but one of those days that affirms you are exactly where you want to be. I mean really - how often does a teenage boy get to go mug deer? Or get a tour of a helicopter? Especially both in the same day? It was a very good day.

The Idaho Fish & Game were here catching deer to radio collar. But, they were way short of the # of volunteers who said they'd come. So, we went & helped. The pictures you see here are of setting up the fence, the helicopter herding the deer to the net, Jeff lying in wait, Jeff mugging a deer, Bendigo helping mug & hold a deer, etc. Surprisingly, the net only holds the deer about 10 seconds - if you're lucky. So, the deer hit the net & whoever is closest tackles it(or "mugs it" in the vernacular). Or, sometimes, 3 people (including me) are TRYING to catch the deer while the biologist is yelling "GET IT! GET IT!" They are slippery little suckers! Then, you put a blindfold on it, tie the back legs, get it in a safe position (for the deer, not for us). Then the biologist puts on the collar & ear tags, measures the body diameter & length of hind leg. If it's a fawn, as in these pics, it also gets weighed. This fawn was tagged with #7302, so I hope to watch it grow up & have babies - not become wolf fodder.

I'm not going to post any helicopter pics here of Ben's "field trip" as I expect he'll want to post them himself and tell you all about his very interesting day!

No cabin pics today. The volunteers helped w/ deer & then spent the afternoon shooting trap (can you believe they took a day off?). Hopefully more progress tomorrow.

We DID get our first official guests of the season! Unexpectedly, no less. I received an email about 10 minutes before they landed. So, we're scrambling to make sure their stay is a good one.