Seems like every year I made an adaptation of Clement Clarke Moore's "About the Night Before Christmas" poem. This year was no different. I wrote it based on field work with Arizona Game and Fish and modeled the St. Nick character off of my colleague, and friend, Chad.
A few things to help out the understanding:
-the holes are caused by collapsed burrows from burrowing animals. Real ankle breakers
-Teddy Bear Cholla is a cactus, that is most certainly not cuddly
-Haboob is a crazy dust storm that AZ sometimes gets. Google image search it. It's pretty wild
-We do a lot of work on military installations as they own lots of property and are required to protect a certain amount. Thus we are privy to a lot of crazy military training, including jets flying fast and low over us
-we use flashlights to search for tortoises and snakes in burrows and caves
-blue gloves references nitrile gloves. We use them while handling tortoises. A nasty respiratory disease is affecting tortoises that can be passed by handling, so we take careful precautions
-garmin is a GPS brand
-a snake stick is a tool we use to both capture snakes and pull tortoises out of deep burrows.
-Gopherus morafkaii is the latin nomenclature (scientific name) for the endangered Sonoran Desert Tortoise
-Scutes are the enlarged scales that are on the tortoise shell.
-We put "license plates" on the back of tortoises to ID them later in order to do population modeling. It's basically a small square of white-out on the back scute, with a sharpie number. Then we add epoxy to it to make it last.
-Chad drinks this V8 drink with caffeine like it was candy.
-Conserve and Protect is the AZGFD motto and is written on the side of our trucks
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' A-Z,
Nothing was stirring, save for quail by a tree.
Funnel traps were set by the river with care
In hopes that gartersnakes soon would be there;
Kit foxes were nestled all snug in their burrow,
Undiscovered by elves, except the most thorough,
And Sky with his sunshirt, and I a camelback,
Returned from the field after a scratchy bushwhack.
When out on the sand there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my cot to see what was the matter.
Away to a wash I scurried in a sweat
Tripping on holes that posed quite a threat.
The moon on the spines of teddy bear cholla
Glowed like Christmas lights on a giant Sequoia.
When, what to my sunburned eyes should appear,
But a giant Ford truck, and eight techs full o’ cheer,
With a seasoned leader, so smart and so rad,
I knew in a moment it must be Sir Chad.
He measured the air temp and humidity too;
Then lined up his transect, whispering “I’ll find you.”
Gazing ahead, he prepared for the trek
And he whistled and hollered, to each bright-eyed tech:
"Now! Hailey, now! Trent, now! T-rod, and Jed,
"On! Julie, on! Alexa, on! Samuel and Deb;”
“Check the deepest cave! Climb the steepest slope!”
“Check every inch, don’t be a dope!’
As dry dust before the wild haboob does fly,
And temperatures climb up higher than high;
So up to the ridge-line the techs did climb,
Checking nook and cranny and taking their time.
Despite sonic booms from the zooming air force
I heard the techs crunching through a field of quartz.
As I switched off my light, and was turning around,
Down a scree field slid Chad barely touching the ground:
He was dress'd in UPF, from his head to his toe,
His clothes were all faded; but no skin did it show;
A tortoise processing kit was buried deep in his pack,
And he reached for blue gloves stored next to his snack.
His eyes - how they squinted! his beard how grizzly,
Sweat dripping off his forehead could be described as drizzly;
His brimmed hat was secured tight to his chin,
But the shadow it cast couldn’t hide his wide grin;
The bite valve of his cameblack he held tight in his lips,
Staying hydrated, a battle, you can’t win with sips.
He had a small garmin and a sturdy snake stick
That clanked on rocks like a shiny ore pick.
He was fit and athletic, a right jolly r’searcher,
And I laugh'd when I saw him-- a true deserty creature;
A wink of his eye and a quick lil wave
Told me Gopherus morafkai had been found in a cave.
Reaching into the burrow, he proceeded with quickness,
Counting the scutes; and checking the fitness.
As he blew the last bit of epoxy paint dry
He cursed the damn drought as he looked at the sky.
A large cactus spine he removed from his rear,
Tortured by thoughts of an icy cold beer.
Slowly he rose from the hot, dusty ground,
And headed to the truck with a leap and a bound.
He chugged a V8, as he sat in AC
The dust from the trucks obscuring his glee;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he rounded a curve,
“Happy Christmas to all, protect and conserve.”
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