September 4th,
2014 was my 23rd birthday and third day on the job as Kay’s new lab
manager. One of the tasks I had been charged with was cataloging and
organizing every sample we have stored in freezers at MSU. (Read, a dozen or so
samples for every hyena darted, plus fecal samples plus paste samples plus tissue
samples from necropsies and miscellaneous samples…over decades of research).
Please
release the image of your freezer at home and input this:
And we have
2+ chock full of samples!
So there I was, in the lab on campus
where we keep our overflow, cataloguing away.
Picking up
each 2.0ml tube, recording the pertinent information of which hyena, type of
sample, etc etc, and then assigning it an exact row and column location in a
81-spot box to be filed into the freezer. Trying to not make contact with the
dry ice and suffer the sharp burn of solid carbon dioxide, listening to Benson
and I’s favorite country music quietly. I had filled several rows when I reached
into the box, drew out another un-catalogued tube, looked down and saw my
handwriting…and then read the information: GALA #658 04Sep13.
Have you ever had one of those clichéd moments where
you’re going about your day and without warning something grabs one of your
senses and life in the present moment freezes as you’re thrown back into a
memory? This was one of those times for me.
September 4th,
2013
365 days from that moment, Benson, Dave and I had been
sitting with Galapagos (GALA) and a dwindling group of hyenas for over an hour
in the field. I was newly confident in the driver’s seat on the right side, not
so confidently using the sitting time to memorize at least a few more spot
patterns. The hyenas were chewing on scraps of a cow carcass, nonplussed by our
presence.
We had identified our target (GALA), prepped the dart,
and Benson had been aiming out the window with Dave whispering prompts of when
the other hyenas weren’t looking, when the blades of grass weren’t swaying to
much, and when GALA’s body was angled properly.
I was silently sitting in the drivers seat, sending out
the most fervent birthday wish I can ever remember hoping for: please let me
witness my first darting on my birthday. Please. At 7:41 Benson took the shot,
the dart flew true, and I got to watch the full process of a darting for the
first time. I remember thinking at one point, “This is probably not what Taylor
Swift was thinking of when she sang, ‘I’m feeling 22!’”. Every detail of the darting came back – how
the sun was warming up my side of the car as we waited for the perfect moment, realizing
how different a hyena’s spot pattern looks when you’re right up close, feeling
the course fur for the first time, being mesmerized while watching GALA’s breath
move in and out through her bone-crushing jaws, and then snapping back to focus
as Dave and Benson called out measurements I needed to record.
And then of course the long period after we had taken her
to the safe resting spot, where we stayed to ensure she would wake up safely.
It had become heart –grippingly long as concern grew to worry grew to the
flutterings of panic when she wasn’t stirring two hours later (the drug we use
is meant to wear off in about an hour max). I smiled remembering the release of
relief and laughter we shared when Dave threw the second rock in GALA’s general
direction and she picked her head up ever so slightly; we realized then that
the drama queen could simply not been bothered to try standing up when she
could just take a nap in the shade instead.
When the flashback released me, I
stayed motionless for several moments, awed by the serendipity of finding the
samples from the most unique birthday present I have ever had, and how neat it
was to still be a part of setting that sample up to be a part of all the
various genetic and hormone analysis that will be done with it. This is one of
my favorite parts of my new job as the lab’s manager – getting to see what
happens after we collect the data in the field, what is tested and learned, and
being reminded what a legacy of scientific research we all play our role
in.
No comments:
Post a Comment