Catching Up

Approaching the Sierra Nevada at +20,000 feet.

Mono Lake was a welcome sight yesterday as we returned from a few days in northern Virginia.

It was a mixed family-and-business visit, the latter being time spent at the Smithsonian Archives researching the history of camera trapping.

Catching the metro to D.C. reminded me of my old days of gainful employment, with one notable exception. Nowadays few commuters read the paper.

I noted that the mental exercise of texting and other forms of cell phone amusement is not the same as reading the morning paper.

You just don't see the limp lower lip in people reading the paper.

But I digress.

Reading the old files of predator man Stanley P. Young once again carried me away to the American southwest of the early 1900s.

But there's just never enough time. You want to stay on track, but there are always these distractions and you don't want to pass up an important lead.

I was searching very specifically for Young's correspondence with a Chicago lawyer named Tappan Gregory who became an avid and highly successful camera trapper, but I was led astray.

There was Young's letter to "Old Wash the Dog" -- a colorful collection of shared memories. . .

"... do you recall the night club you dragged me into whence we witnessed all the possible gyrations of the human anatomy as the dancers danced (or did they?) and, when the music stopped to let the dancers 'cool off a bit', the pause was exemplified by beating the hell out of your table top with a one by six board..."

And in a letter to District Agent Everett Mercer there was this:

"You will recall too that Pancho Villa had me as a prisoner for some time after I was picked up by his outposts while following a wolf dragline mark across the border into Sonora."

Despite these sidetracks and many others I got what I was after, and I was sufficiently jazzed to outline a chapter on the flight home.

We touched down in SF and after a quick midday meal boarded the plane to Chico.

Winter may still have its grip on the Sierra, but spring had arrived in the Sacramento Valley.

A warm wind blew across the Chico airport when we crossed the tarmac.

The first order of business at home was to get Fred, who had been lovingly cared for by the owners of his border collie mother, Roxie.

A dog sure can make you feel good; our reunion was the usual waggle dance with yodeling.

The second order of business was to check up on Screech.

I turned on the TV and the owl is still there, but when it jumped up to the opening at 7:15 yesterday evening no eggs were visible on the floor of the box.

I have been hoping that Screech is a she-bird.

She's very preeny.

I'll just have to keep watching.

And oh yes, I re-posted that photo of the Chukar partridges.

A Little Big Man Moment

The Denver Public Library

Codge recently found himself sitting beside a cart of seven boxes on the fifth floor of the Denver Public Library.

The boxes contained the professional papers of the late Stanley P.Young, the former Division of Biological Survey's predator man who orchestrated the control and eradication of wolves, coyotes, and pumas on the western ranges.

I saw a bear on the walk to the library

It was a passage back in time, and if you remember the opening scene of Little Big Man you'll know how I felt -- a little like the awed historian interviewing the 121-year-old Jack Crabb (played by Dustin Hoffman) in an oak-paneled library somewhere in Kansas.

I actually used to see Stan Young in the halls of the US National Museum (Washington DC) in 1967, two years before his death.

He was a retired civil servant and the codger was a 23-year old temporary employee cleaning skulls for the Division of Mammals.

I had read his books -- The Clever Coyote, The Wolves of North America, and Puma, Mysterious American Cat , but just couldn't muster the nerve to introduce myself.

Forty-three years later Young's letters, manuscripts, and photographs were telling me his story.

First I went to the box of photographs, and felt a little sad looking at the government hunters' pictures  -- pant-smiling wolves in the grip of Newhouse No. 4 1/2 foot-hold traps.

The happy face of stock dogs herding sheep and Fred fetching sticks is the same face worn by those panting wolves as they faced death in the bright sun.

Then there were pictures of excavated dens -- dead coyote pups neatly posed in rows beside their dead mother, her head resting on her forelegs.

I wasn't sitting in judgement. Judge not a man of the past by the standards of today, right?

In fact, Young loved wildlife and the outdoors, but he was a predator man and a damned good one.

Viewing those stirring images however was like eating dessert before the main course.

I had already used up an hour, and it was time to search for material about Young's camera trapping expedition in 1937 for cougars in the Carmen Mountains of Mexico.

When I found the file I read it and took notes like a crazed fiend.

My mission was accomplished and time was running out, but there were other boxes.

I opened each one and scoped the hand-written labels on the folders.

You won't believe it, but I found more material about camera trapping.

So my project isn't finished.

There are still unanswered questions, but in due course you will read about Young's camera trapping partnerships here.

The Pioneer Monument, downtown Denver

I enjoyed the hell out of that library visit, and the scenery on the walk back to the hotel was in the spirit of my quest.

Postscript: An appropriate photo for this post might have been a snapshot from the movie Little Big Man, like the geriatric Jack Crabb being interviewed in the library.  I couldn't find that snapshot,  though I googled up quite a few shots of Mrs Pendrake (Faye Dunaway) giving a young and pleasantly confused Jack Crabb a hot bath.  I was tempted to use that picture instead, but the film industry is greedy, the thumbnail was minuscule, and the cougars I was interested in bore no resemblance to Faye Dunaway.