Friendly Rodents

So we're in the desert. We arrived on Thursday and were immediately welcomed buy rounds of the local rotgut. It's called baijun, and it's distilled from some sort of desert fruit. It's strong but not too bad. The tradition is that the host pours two thimble-sized shots.You're only expected to take one of the two unless you want to flaunt your "manhood" and do a double. One is more than enough. After a few rounds that set a nice buzz, we retreated to the rooms that will be home for the next month. The bed's not too bad. More like a wooden platform with an inch of padding, but I tripled a comforter to made it more padded. The toilets definitely leave something to be desired. It's an outhouse of sorts with a brick enclosed concrete platform suspended about 12 feet above your "nature". There is a slit cut in the concrete about 5 inches by 2 1/2 feet through which to do one's "business". I'm becoming one with my hand sanitizer these days .

The first night we set out with our cook and another local man. The locals are of Mongolian descent and are very calm and reserved people. My favorite is the oldest of the bunch. He's tall and thin and wears a sweater vest. He's got dark leathery skin and eyes that disappear behind huge square-framed glasses when he smiles. You can tell that he's excited about catching the rodents - probably sort of takes him back to his boyhood. So the first night we drove out into the sand
dunes and stopped along the way to cut 12 foot branches from some tall shrub growing along the side of the dirt road. For those of you who laughed when I used the term "whacking rodents", I'll have you know that's exactly what happened. They shine a flashlight at the jerboas, and when they're stunned by the light they get whacked with the leafy branches at the end of the stick. It's enough to stun them just long enough to catch em. It's apparently also a semi-lethal blow, because
of the 3 we caught, one came to an untimely demise in the process and the other two died in transit back to the field station. Night two was much better. The local guys attached wire loops that strung a cloth bag to the end of long sticks. They used the car headlights to drive around the dunes, and when they spotted a jerboa, the guys on foot trapped it in the net. They caught 17! Of the 7 females that I dissected, we got 2 litters of 3 pups each, so not to bad for a night's work.

We kept several of the adults to put them in cages and try to house them in captivity. First they spend the night in live traps in our ad hoc procedure room. Several escaped in the night which made us worry that they'd be impossible to catch, but they're remarkably tame! They're wild rodents, but you can reach right down and pick them up. They even climb up on your feet, and one hopped up into my hand when I placed it in front of him! They're soooo cute. They walk and hop around on their enormous hindlegs and only use their forelegs to eat and dig. I want to bring one home!!!