This week is lab week. This means that nothing really exciting happens during this time since we are all indoors either processing or quantifying scats and hairs. Although the physical work is not exciting there are many benefits that come with lab week. For example, we get to sleep in about an hour more, get to dress in clothes that do not include zip offs and hiking boots, and always take a trip to a bar around 10am to grab a cappuccino and on special occasions a croissant filled with nutella. We also spend the time listening to music, talking, and goofing off which is always fun to do. The most fantastic part about working in the lab though is the constant opportunity of running into Big Table since the lab is located in Pescasseroli.
Part of the lab week ritual includes taking an hour or more lunch break every day at The Little Woodpecker and another coffee at one of the local bars. Since Big Table’s wine shop is right before the main square in Pesscasseroli where we eat and get coffee, we see him almost every day. He is always outside either drinking wine, reading the paper, or eating. One day, Faustio decided to purposefully leave the group and walk across the street to Big Table to talk to him. Supposedly, Big Table asked Faustio why he would chose to leave the group to talk to himself (Big Table) since at that moment Faustio could be walking side by side with an American girl. This was the first time I had heard Big Table utter anything pertaining to me. I was ecstatic!
2 years ago
Today I went out with Faustio and a girl named Laura who previously worked on the wolf project and was visiting for a few days in order to finish up the last details of her thesis. Our mission was to “fix” the location of four bears. “Fixing” means that we use radio telemetry to locate the bear and then use a compass and topographic maps to figure out where exactly on the mountain the bear is located. We actually had a lot of trouble doing this since the bears we were fixing were most likely right on the edge of the mountain since we kept having trouble locating a signal. The day was also abnormally hot and sunny which sucked since in order to pick up a signal with no interference we had to sit on the road or in other large openings to locate the bears. We ended up spending about 3 hours trying to fix just one bear. After we finished fixing the one bear we headed back to Pescasseroli to have lunch. On the way back I ended up falling asleep due to helping with trapping previous night, during which Faustio and Laura actually located the 3 other bears. I felt bad about falling asleep but Faustio and Laura said it was no big deal since they had located the remaining bears easily within a 45 minute time frame. Around 4 we ended up arriving in Pescasseroli to have lunch at The Little Woodpecker (the local pizza shop). While we were eating Daniela and Tiziana came from the lab to sit with us and have a drink. Afterwards, I headed to the lab with Tiziana and Davide while Faustio, Laura, and Daniela ended up going back out to find one more bear. I only analyzed one scat before we headed back to Villetta Barrea. As soon as I got back I took a nap since I was still really tired. For dinner we had spaghetti with ricotta cheese and zucchini. It was an interesting yet delicious combination!
2 years ago
Gigi and I woke up around 5am to the sound of a park ranger car approaching which was not good sign. This meant that no bear came to the trapping site and I failed at my opportunity to help trap a bear. Gigi had to leave for an hour to disassemble the trap with a few of the park rangers so I stayed in the van and slept for another hour. It was freezing cold but my North Face sleeping bag did its job well. Upon returning, Gigi , told me that they thought a bear had come to the trapping site since all the apples but the apples in the crate attached to the string that triggers the trap were eaten. I was pissed. I apparently have very bad luck with bears! Go figure!
After the trap had been disassembled Gigi and I started back to Viletta Barrea. Before we returned however, we stopped in at Dr. Palo’s house to let him know how the trapping went. He was disappointed about the bear but found the situation very interesting since the bear must have found the crate very suspicious in order to just leave the 20 or so apples untouched. After talking to him for awhile and confirming that we would meet up with him in an hour to look over a trapping site in the south part of the park, we returned home to Villetta Barrea to shower, eat, and change before going back out in the field.
We ended up meeting Dr. Paolo near the bar in Villetta Barrea and took his truck to the trapping site. I was surprised at how energetic I was after such a long night. At the site Dr. Palo and Gigi showed me the new type of bear trap they are using called a tube trap that was made by Abruzzo National Park’s Forest Service. It was like a large pill shaped capsule with one barred window in the back. The door was left open and a big plastic crate filled with apples hung in the back of the trap so that when the bear tugged on the crate the string would trigger the door to shut and the bear would be trapped inside. The door shutting would then trigger the alarm that would signal the radio and the person monitoring the trapping site. Part of the reason they were now using a tube trap instead of a snare was the fact that Claudio, has been caught about 3 times in the past month/two months. This means he has been drugged 3 times in a very short period which is the highest limit he can take without it causing damage to his body. Therefore, instead of snares they must use a tube trap so they do not have to necessarily drug the bear they just have to open the door and let it exit on its own. They also spread many apples around and throughout the tube trap to attract the bear inside. It was very interesting to learn about.
After checking and baiting the trapping site (we did not activate it though) we started heading back to Villetta Barrea. On the way back we saw Davide and one of the project’s cars pulled on the side of the road so we went to investigate what was going on. It ended up being that Davide, Lorenza, and Giovanni had stumbled upon a wolf carcass that was probably a few months old. It still stank however which was not pleasant. It was cool to see a wolf, however, since it is just about impossible to see them here in Abruzzo in the wild.
Back in Villetta Barrea we all ended up having a big lunch of pasta. Then Palo left and I finally got the opportunity to make my almond and ricotta cheese cookies. This made me very happy since I had not realized how much I missed cooking/baking. After the cookies I did my laundry and waited for everyone to come back for dinner. Our dinner consisted of spaghetti with a ham and cream sauce. It was very good! For dessert everyone had some ricotta cheese cookies which I think everyone enjoyed although it might have been a bit too strong for them since Italians I have learned do not use a lot of flavoring extracts in their baking.
2 years ago
This morning I left with Tiziana and Daniela to do surveys. I do not know if the surveys are becoming less difficult or I am just getting more in shape, but the hiking was not bad. I think we had to walk about 800m to the first site and 1km to the second where we ended up finding a bear bed. The only thing that sucked is the fact that I have a giant blister on the heel of my right foot that makes hiking difficult after awhile. During the survey, while we were looking around the first GPS location for any signs of a bears, Daniela saw a snake in a patch of small juniper bushes. She said it looked like the one snake Abruzzo has that is slightly venomous (not at all comparable to the 6 venomous snakes we have in NC) but since I was looking in a different area it had slithered away before I reached her. We searched for it for 20 minutes only to come up empty handed. I was very disappointed about this but sucked up my sorrow and continued on to the next survey.
Later that afternoon I ended up trying to locate a bear with Faustio using radio telemetry. We were successful in locating it, but it was not visible so we could not observe it. It ended up being about a 45min outing. Back at the house Giovanna surprised me by telling me I was going to get to monitor a trapping site with Gigi that night. I was beyond ecstatic since if we caught a bear it meant I would get to help them place a radio collar on the bear, do measurements, and of course get to witness a brown bear up close. The deal with assisting with bear trapping is that for every trapping there are a ton of people who want to go. About 3 park rangers get to be present as well as 2-3 veterinarians, Palo, and Gigi. This leaves very little room for anyone else to attend causing those of us working on the bear project to have to alternate who is gets to assist with trapping. This means that depending on how many trappings take place while I am here this could be my one shot to assist with one.
I was told that I had to meet Gigi around 5:30pm when I arrived home at 4:40pm leaving me very little time to pull my stuff together. I quickly took a shower, gathered night stuff, and hopped in the car with Daniela and Giovanna who were going to drop me off to where Gigi was on their way to locating another bear. In Pescasseroli we had to stop at the market so I could get some food for dinner. I ended up getting two mini salami and cheese sandwiches, a coke, a bottle of mixed fruit juice, and a bag of crick crock potato chips. It was a dinner for champions!
The entire night Gigi and I had to wait in his large Volkswagen sized van incase the alarm signaled meaning a bear had been caught in the trap. We were probably parked about 4km away from the trapping site which was necessary since it was far enough away that our presence would not be noticeable to the bear. However, the alarm signal could not reach much farther than that which is why we had to sleep in the van instead of in the park ranger house nearby. If the alarm went off we were responsible for calling the park ranger house so the park rangers and veterinarians would know to come to the trap as well as Dr. Palo who decided to stay in Pescassrolli about 15 minutes away. For most of the night Gigi and I read our books. Then we watched an episode of scrubs before going to sleep.
2 years ago
Today was my weekly day of rest. Tiziana was also given her day of rest today as well but she had to work on her undergraduate thesis paper all day so Paulo could approve it. I was on my own as usual. I slept in till 10am which I was very proud of myself for and after having a small breakfast of biscuits and milk I worked on this blog (which I was obviously very behind in considering this post is getting completed about 17 days after it took place), watched some TV shows and movies, and ate leftover pasta. I enjoyed this day of rest a big more than the previous one but I still ended up becoming bored after awhile. I have no idea what we had for dinner. I am a horrible blogger!
2 years ago
Today I went out with Faustio to investigate two survey points in the northern part of the park which ended up being very close to the locations Giovanna and I visited on the 29th of May. It was an easy day considering the two points were not more than 800m away from where we parked the car. We ended up finding one bedding site which is always rewarding.
That afternoon, we went back into Pescasseroli to find the ingredients for me to make almond ricotta cheese cookies. It turns out that in Pescasseroli you can only buy 2ml viles of almond extract at a time (5ml= teaspoon) which required me to do some major math in the market. Anyone reading this blog probably knows about my nonexistent math ability so after returning home to Viletta Barrea I found out that I needed 3 more packages of extract as well as one more package of powdered sugar. Luckily, Faustio and Daniela were having to head back towards Pescasseroli later that afternoon and offered to pick me up my missing ingredients. Unfortunately, the market in Villetta Barrea was all out of ricotta cheese so I was unable to make my cookies. For dinner we ended up having spaghetti with ham in a cheese sauce. It was tasty.
2 years ago
This morning Tiziana and I were responsible for doing surveys in the south part of the park by ourselves. I was surprised Giovanna paired us together since we are the newest individuals to join the project (Tiziana arrived in Villetta Barrea on April 25th), but I was excited since Tiziana is the closest to my age and very funny. I knew I was in for an adventure. That afternoon we ended up surveying 6 different GPS location, two of which were clusters. Overall, we did not have to face extremely difficult terrain and we got done fairly quickly considering the amount we had to do which was nice. The only issue we had was that the GPS failed to locate enough satellites half of the time causing us to do a bit more hiking than was necessary. We did not mind however, since we saw 6 different deer while hiking. It was bizarre! When we first started we spotted a roe deer in a cleared part of the forest, then 3 red deer browsing in the middle of the forest, a red deer fawn curled up against a tree (which Tiziana walked right by, my proudest find yet), and one more red deer at the end of the hike in the same location we spotted the roe deer in the morning. Most days we go without seeing a single thing during our survey hikes which made this day extremely weird but in an amazing way. I hope this kind of day happens again soon but with bears!
For lunch we ended up going to the town that Vilerio the “hot” park ranger lives (the one Giovanna, Tiziana, and I visited before who has the pretty baby) and stopped in a bar to have a sandwich and a coke. In the bar they were playing an episode of Dawson’s Creek which made me think about NC since it was filmed in Wilmington. I have only seen one episode of Dawson’s Creek my entire life so it was funny trying and figure out what was going on since the character’s voices were replaced with exaggerated Italian ones. Luckily, I had one of Dawson’s Creek’s most avid fans, Tiziana, with me to translate what was happening. Supposedly, it was the episode where Pacey and his teacher started falling for each other (for those of you who are also Dawson’s Creek fanatics). Needless to say, that show is very 90’s and was a bit painful to watch after awhile.
After lunch, Tiziana and I ended up going to Vilerio’s house for a coffee. Tiziana was very excited about this since in her opinion Vilerio is the perfect man. While we were there I finally met his wife, Beana, who was actually was born in Chicago and lived there until she was 8 years old when she moved back to Italy with her family. Her father had moved to Chicago when he was 16 but knew that if he did not move his children back to Italy when they were young they would want to stay in the United States their entire life. The US was not where he wanted to retire however, so he shipped his family back to Italy in hopes that his children would fall in love with it and never chose to leave. Every summer, however, when Beana was a teenager she would go back to Chicago to work for the summer while staying with her cousins in Chicago so her English would still be intact. It was actually really interesting talking to her since she spoke perfect English (that carried a Chicago accent) but also spoke perfect Italian so it was like I was like witnessing two different people. Basically, her Italian accent did not come through at all when she spoke to me in English which was fascinating to me for some reason. She also informed that a certain area in Chicago is known for its Abruzzo immigrants which I found very interesting. I hope to locate it someday when I finally visit Chicago to go be a studio guest on Oprah.
After coffee, Tiziana and I started our hour drive back to Viletta Barrea. The entire ride she talked continuously talked about Vilerio and how handsome he is but how unattractive Beana is in comparison. I hated to agree with her since I truly liked talking to Beana, but the difference in attractiveness was evident. However, I fail to find Vilerio as handsome as Tiziana claims him to be so the matchup was not as mindboggling for me as it seemed to be for Tiziana. Back at home we hung out until dinner which consisted of pasta with tuna and tomatoes. It was ok, but fishier than I prefer.
2 years ago
Today was Tiziana’s 25th Birthday! Unfortunately, this meant nothing special for any of us since we all had to go out and do surveys, even Tiziana. In fact, Daniella, Tiziana, and I were responsible for doing about four surveys in the northern part of the park. The surveys were not too difficult, and we ended up getting done around 1pm which was nice. This allowed us to visit the Arab lady’s shop for a cheeseburger which I was extremely excited about!
That afternoon, we all hung out around the house for awhile. Around 4pm Tiziana and I walked to the market in order to get stuff for dinner but we were unsuccessful since supposedly on Thursday’s the shops in Villetta Barrea close early for some unknown reason. Frustrated, we returned home and tried to figure out how we were going to locate a birthday cake for Tiziana. Luckily, Daniela and others living in the house are friends with a baker in Pescasseroli and she called him up to see if his shop was still open. It was, so Tiziana and I drove to Pescasseroli to pick up a fruit of the forest tart for her birthday!
That night Davide and Lorenza accompanied us for dinner. Faustio made pasta with ham and tomato sauce for dinner. It was really good since he used some type of pasta I have never seen before in the US which is basically a thick version of spaghetti that has a hole in the middle. The best part of the meal, however, was getting to taste Tiziana’s delicious birthday tart. It is very rare that we have something for desert so it was a particularly special treat!
2 years ago
Today Daniela and I were responsible for surveying one cluster and one singular point in the northern part of the park as well as locating a bear cub using radio telemetry to see if he was still with his mother. The hike was not bad since the majority of it required us walking on a designated road instead of weaving in and out of beech trees. We did not find anything at our two survey site, however, and quickly started driving around trying to locate the bear cub.
We drove about an hour through a northern part of Abruzzo that I had never been to before. It was cool to see some new towns but I feel asleep for part of the trip since I was really tired. Locating the cub required us to find four spots where the radio telemetry signals were strong, noting the exact GPS coordinates for those points on our map of the park, and then drawing lines on the map showing where the GPS coordinates intersected. I did not really understand the process completely, but I think I got the general idea. Unfortunately, we were not able to physically see the bear during this process as Daniela had expected we would. I am not quite sure the Marscian brown bear truly exists!
After we finished the radio telemetry around 1:30pm we drove around to the surrounding towns looking for an open pizza parlor or sandwich shop. Nothing was open which really surprised us since we thought it would still be considered lunchtime. I must say one of the most annoying things about Italy is that you never know when a store will be open. Its “typical hours” are more like guidelines since all the shops in Abruzzo are small and family owned, allowing the owner to not open the store whenever he/she pleases. Coming from America, the land of the 24 hour grocery store, this has taken some getting used to.
After driving around and being unsuccessful for about 20 minutes we decided to just drive back to Pescasseroli and eat at the pizza shop in town. That afternoon Daniela and I both did some house cleaning as well as some relaxing. I cannot remember what dinner consisted of, but I doubt it was anything but tasty.
2 years ago
Today was technically an Italian holiday but of course we did not get the day off. Instead, since it was raining we returned to the lab for another day of scat analysis. It was just like the day before except this time Tiziana was there and Daniela was not. Around 11am we decided to take a coffee break in the middle of town. There were a ridiculous amount of people in Pescasseroli due to it being a holiday even though it was crappy weather. I was so happy to have a break and was sad to have to return to the lab again after about 20mins. Around 1pm we ended up going out again for lunch at the same pizza place we usually go to. It was fun being there with everyone since most of the time we are paired up. Our conversation included discussing how the guy at the pizza shop I think is attractive looks like a monkey to everyone else, Faustio and Gigi’s secret desire to be together, Big Table, and how I might not be American because I do not know who Robbie Williams is. After about an hour and a half lunch break we returned to the lab and worked until 5pm. I had thought having to separate ants was bad, but I quickly realized that having to separate hairs is worse. I hope I never have to encounter another hairy scat!
For dinner we had rabbit. It was the first time I have tried rabbit and it was really good. We also had leftovers from the previous dinner and these amazing rice cakes that Daniela brought back from her house that had a spicy seasoning on them. For dessert we had cherries and apricots that Daniela also brought back from her house since her family has a cherry and a tree. I was happy to have some fresh fruit!
2 years ago
