Stories

I thought it will just go on the same manner the day after, however the morning tasks done: assisting in preparing a good meal for Ikka, Jake caught me telling that I could get some time off of the hard stuff. Like whether I would be interested in the Camp's information center which was his primary duty.

Of course I was. So we casually walked into the village where he all of sudden stopped in front of a completely unassuming hut, maybe just a bit larger than those serving as guest sleeping quarters for four each. "Did you leave something home?". "Nope" - he pointed at the wooden door's sign, reading "Track ng dept." with the "i" missing, and promptly swung it open pushing me in. Before I would realize where I was, he was holding two hazy glasses, declaring "But that's a close call". It was cold lemonade coming from the tiny fridge from a cozy little kitchen on the left, a surely welcoming touch of this little sanctuary.

Honestly at first it was the only definite spot in the monstrous disarray seemingly plaguing the entire interior of the hut, crates stacked everywhere, the walls pinned with arrays and arrays of sketches and photos by some undecipherable order, desks everywhere with various appliances in various states of decomposing and recomposing, and on top of all some rack of humming computing equipment with several screens showing apparently nothing more than miles of numbers and notifications in various colors.

Jake led me to the screens and asked whether I could see anything. Of course I couldn't. He typed in a few commands, a window popped up with a map I recognized covering the Yssla area up to the Central Rockies in the north, Arnold Camp crossed by Yukos in the middle, and a few yellow dots scattered around. He hovered the cursor on one of those dots, the status bar showing "3 (Drake); 8:27 AM". It was a bit after nine in the morning. A few clicks, and it transformed into a forty-eight hour track, clearly showing he was here between half past five and seven the day before yesterday. I asked him how he picked out Drake that naturally.

He explained that the map is rather fine to examine particular wyverns and events, but that would be a chore if had to be done daily for all. They were building automatizations since the advent of GPS tracking to reduce the manual labor, to help them to focus on the interesting or problematic cases. He shut the map down, showing the walls of numbers again, where now I recognized Drake's entry with his most recent co-ordinates in a list of nearby wyverns. Other lists I made out were recent landings, meets, a list of wyverns on hazardous locations, a "pinned" list, reports of aging GPS units, and a list labeled "critical" which was, hopefully a good sign, empty. Clicking on Drake, various reports on him showed like last five landings, last meets with other wyverns, distance covered in the last day and last week, deltas on the daily distances traveled, estimated air time and such.

Jake explained what are the data for like they could immediately know landing locations so a group can set off to examine those, could have some idea on how the individuals interact, matching with observations even gathering some vague information on matings and how the offspring is raised. The scripts also could reason out whether a tracked wyvern was probably having problems, became ill, couldn't fly, so they could act to save him in need. Occasionally tracking could even help in solving conflicts raising from a wyvern ending up somewhere he shouldn't.

As I got familiar with the mess in the room I noticed a huge life-sized brownish plastic wyvern head and neck model partly hidden by stacks of crates, held upright on a platform by metal rods, and some accessories scattered around it. Closer examination revealed it being full of labels, notably on the face just about every scale had some identification which continued on the ridge, every spike neatly signed with numbers like "RRH" or "RM6". The ones labeled "RL8", "RM8" and "RR8" had some small holes drilled in them on their edges.

It turned out to be serving two purposes. For one, it was a model used for plotting visual identification marks, for another, some time ago someone tested the fastening of some early GPS receiver on it. To my wondering Jake told that no, they weren't and aren't abused in this manner, rather deciding on epoxy from the start even though it would loosen and eventually fall off with the moultings. Helped with tight strapping it would suffice for a few years which wasn't less than the battery life of the unit. He picked up a tracker from an open crate, a fist sized oddly shaped black box with straps and an antenna poking out of it, and demonstrated it on the model. It would fit snugly under a spike.

There was also a small full body model on a desk nearby, then a broken-off spike preserved in a jar, and on the wall, anatomy charts surrounded with dozens of mostly bust sketches with a mess of notes on each. They were identification assistances marking unique details on each of the wyverns tracked or otherwise known, like "RL1 missing", "Left nostril" or "Dark SE14", getting only more vague for me as I kept looking.

Jake returned to the computer popping up some digital photos of mostly flying specimens, briefly retelling how they are attempting to follow even untracked wyverns carefully matching up observations. Seeing my interest in just examining the interiors he picked out a notes and seemingly started working. Soon a mess of images covered the screens, some details enlarged, occasionally he circled a particular feature like a scar, other times looked up on the wall of sketches for some hint, laboriously scribing in his notes as he made progress.

Farther away a decade old calendar was dominating a huge disarray of photographs, black-and-white and color, the calendar prominently showing Drake, gliding, backed by the magnificent snow-covered peaks of the Central Rockies.

I got to recognize Janet, Arnold, and a few more of the Fund as I examined those, events, historical or just familiar pictures scattered around those mostly portraying wyverns and a few other animals of the region. A black-and-white showing presumably the construction of the camp, a very young Janet posing with Glaze: "Our nice girls", then a little away, the full staff framed by Drake in the back, labeled "Half a century and still flying strong!". Kids patting a wyvern's snout, then a resting one with a cheetah standing on his back.

This latter was interesting, reminding me some old book from BRCF's history, a chapter telling about the cheetah connection. It started with a rather typical incident. A Yssla Cheetah Fund member was sent out to Jala on a shopping trip, a good day's drive. There was no problem getting there, however the way back the loaded jeep's axle gave up in such an unfortunate way that it sent the poor man flying in a bush. Thankfully he survived it but with a few bruises, however he was stranded a good twenty miles from the nearest outpost. By luck, Arnold the same time was out on Drake and happened to notice the capsized vehicle, so could fly to get help from the YCF camp.

This wasn't anything unusual: people help each other out in the wild. However, the same time, incidentally, a pair of juvenile cheetahs were also resting at the camp. Arnold cautiously directed Drake to land a good quarter mile away, however he casually followed in, walking. It caused some ruckus, the head of the operation rushing out fuming like now these wyvern guys think they have free passport to every damn place, after all it was just a year after the worldwide presentation of Flying Free, and sure there was some self-inflated hype floating in the air. It almost went unnoticed that all the time the two cheetahs didn't seem to be concerned by Drake's presence, which was puzzling knowing how nervous they get in the presence of other large predators: mostly lions and hyenas who would take their kill.

Arnold however remembered the behavior of those and did some systematic research on the matter in the coming years. He eventually could even get to photograph a cheetah's hunt as a backdrop for the calmly resting Drake, which again managed to raise some attention and was a visual proof of that wyverns and cheetahs can seemingly co-exist in peace. It was a strange find knowing how furiously they might protect their prey against lions and hyenas, sometimes also quarreling with those without their meal at stake. Interestingly later even jackals were observed stealing bits of meat from the still feasting wyvern without him becoming concerned.

Relying on these finds Arnold asked for some identification charts and data of YCF cheetahs, which, seeing the results, a bit reluctant but they provided. In the oncoming years he would cautiously document and photograph cheetah encounters on his flights also requesting other field operations to do likewise, which the Fund came to acknowledge and value eventually growing in a small but important joint project observing the future of released cheetahs.

Browsing further through the pinned memories, I got to notice a black-and-white one showing a female wyvern with a small chick peeking down from her back, taking a bite of some piece of meat offered by someone from the staff in what seemed like one of the hangars with a note reading "Happy birthday, Juno!". Sweeping through the photographs there was apparently no more alike.

I turned to Jake with this distracting him from his work, who told the story as best as he knew. The mother was Glaze about fifteen years after filming Flying Free, the only so far to give birth within the Fund, and with that also the only proven succeeding gestation in human proximity.

However, a year after Juno's supposed birth she returned alone, ill, incapable to take off anymore and shortly after died due to a fatal kidney condition. It was impossible to find the little one no matter how hard the Fund tried so he was also declared dead.

With today's knowledge gathered especially thanks to GPS tracking it is rather considered that the unknown father took the role of raising Juno so he may still be alive. Of course it is impossible to prove since he would be an adult by now two decades after the mournful event.

Jake suggested me "Yssla's Morning Star", a book focusing on Glaze written shortly after her death, the only one describing this part of the Fund's history to the wide public.

To my wondering why there weren't any more notable mentions, he told that he didn't much ask around about it, but it is very likely for the confusion about their breeding and family life. When that book was written it was still assumed that they raise their chick alone, even this being very unusual to any other reptile. Since then with tracking and more experience with released wyverns signs of some even more complicated related behaviors were started to uncover the same time the Fund also having its own troubles.

Nowadays it is a wildly debated continuously evolving matter not only in the interest of the Fund, but also regarding the possibility of captive breeding. Even though they should be flying free, even though capturing should be regulated for good, it should be known how to care for them, how to preserve them if for any reason it became impossible to do so in the wild. It is also very important from the point of releasing which is still troubled by how hard it is for the rescues to find mates, how long it takes for them to become able to take part in the specie's survival.

Poor Glaze's fate is a sad event on this long trail whose end still remains hazy. It is a necessity to settle with these acceptably to be able to relate to her fate, to tell the story of Juno.

Jake didn't return to work, passing on from the memory of Glaze we kept on chatting over the matters of living out in the wild. Of course neither of us had any real experience, but Jake was here since a few months and could gather interesting stories even witnessing some for real.

Out of interest and to share the burden he even took some turns as night guard on the airfield always by the side of an experienced man, but necessary to keep each other alert. Especially if there weren't any of the wyverns there which was common these months, many of the savanna wildlife could pay a visit. Noisy elephants marching for a drink from Yukos, lions spending the night growling and prowling around, an occasional hyena, jackal, a pair of young cheetahs and the likes.

The worst part of camp life is probably snakes which could slink in anywhere where people wouldn't ever expect and they are almost always venomous. Being stocked up with the appropriate antitoxins and having an adept medic is simply a necessity. Mostly these invaders can be dispatched with the knowledge on how to deal with them without causing real harm, but when it happens it is the matter of life or death to have the proper treatment fast.

Field work is the most perilous but also probably the most interesting for those who can deal with its dangers. Just a simple basic rule of the savanna to cast some light on what is awaiting you there: Everything can outrun you. Even the lousy fat hippo can reach twenty miles an hour for achieving the pleasure of rearranging your anatomy into a nice flat composition, and that's a really slow speed compared to anything else having horns, fangs, claws or trunk to test on your wimpy body. Of course neither of these animals would like to do these, but startled they might. Human simply haven't got the appropriate senses to avoid these confrontations the way like animals avoid along each other to coexist in their habitat.

Sometimes there are even funny accidents. One day a jeep returned with the roof almost completely flattened, people rushed out to help, to tend for any injuries but everyone of the group were intact. It wasn't turned over by an enraged elephant, neither had an accident with a termite mound. A rescue noticed the group picking out her handler: she thought it nice to meet so landed. She was greeted, so long no problem, but then probably considering hitching a ride to a herd just like the old days when she was taught hunting, promptly stepped onto the parked vehicle without giving anyone a second to object. The car however wasn't a reinforced one to withstand a wyvern's mass, so she soon found herself in a quite embarrassing situation with all the startled people around.