Fossa recapture
by Ethan Lee
July 13, 2005

The forest walks were easier than I thought they would be, cooler because of all the shade, which is mostly absent in the other assignments. The sheer mass of all the trees not only makes plenty of shade, also plenty of animals on the way. Everything seems to live in the trees, except the crocodiles and us. I haven’t seen a croc yet, but with a little luck, and more raw meat, dreams could be a reality.

Speaking of carnivorous animals, we managed to catch a fossa, a raptor, and a wild cat in the last 3 days. The fossa was already caught by the first team, about 2 years old, and was thoroughly frightened of humans. Because of its young age it was still quite small and very cute. Luke had trouble getting it out of the cage because it was so scared. He tipped the cage, called out to it, told it to run, and made fossa noises at it in an effort to get it out. It was pretty hilarious at the moment.

At first, we thought that we caught a hawk of some sort, as it turns out it was the Madagascar buzzard.

That wild cat was definitely not a stray cat. Way too big to be a stray cat. Most adult cats that live in Madagascar never grow to be the size of an American house cat, and this wild one was bigger than most American ones in my opinion.