Predator Eyes

I tried to sleep, but the howls of the Mexican wolves kept me up. I forgot my ear plugs again, something I tried not to do when camping after toad surveys. I'm a light sleeper, which made me a great EMS dispatcher in college, I was up, perky and alert in a matter of seconds when the phones went off, not such a good thing when you camp every night though. I was working for the federal government near Julian, CA doing riparian surveys for several months in all the creeks in the eastern side of the county. My team would do bird surveys in the morning, assess the riparian vegetation during the day, and conducted endangered toad surveys at night, camping on site. Usually the frogs would drive me mad, hundreds of horny pacific tree frogs ribiting through half the night, and I had to put in ear plugs to get any sleep.

This night was particularly disturbing. Me and my partner would each take a different reach of the stream, doing the toad surveys alone. I had already spent all day in the same area, getting familiar with where the waterfalls were, and which spots would be tough to climb down in the dark. There was one spot that scared me in the day even though, several deer jumped out of the brush and ran up the steep canyon cliffs, giving me a quick fright until I realized what they were. When I walked through that same spot in the middle of the night, a fox jumped out at me. It looked almost as scared as I was, we caught each other off guard. Just as I was calming myself down, I felt someone or something staring at me. I looked around, my headlamp illuminating empty bushes and trees. The frogs were already silent ever since I came around the corner, their eyes visible in my light around the water. All I could hear was the splashing of moving water against my water proof boots below. Then I saw them, big eyes, big predator eyes that were facing forward instead of on the side like a deer. A large cat was staring at me. That is when I had my panic attack, there didn't seem to be enough air around me as we looked at each other, alone in the dark. I started walking further down the stream backwards, never taking my eyes off those eyes that seemed to follow me. When I made it around the corner, I figured that my toad survey was done, I was almost to the end anyway. I started climbing up the steep wall leading out, pulling myself up by grabbing onto bushes, the gravel slipping beneath my feet. When I made it to the top, I started crying and tried to called my partner on the radio, she had the truck. Radios are useless in canyons though, and so are cell phones.

I keep looking down the canyon wall toward the stream, which made me feel uneasy. I started walking back to our tents over a mile away, periodically giving the radio another try, and a glance over my shoulder to see if anything was following me. The night was silent, with a breeze that gave me chills even with my fleece, as I walked the winding dirt road. I did notice the stars, there always seem to be millions more out in the country, white specks splattered across the sky like a Jackson Pollock painting. As I got closer to our tent, that is when I heard for the first time, the call of Mexican wolves, adding to my fear of being vulnerably human and alone on this dark night on their land. Truck lights appeared from around the corner, it was my partner. She rolled down the window.

"Wow! How far did you walk? Our tents are just around the corner. Something scare you?"

"I got a little scared back there, a big cat was staring at me, I couldn't sit still and just wait for you." My voice trembled. "...and are those wolves I hear? In California?"

"That is scary, I don't know what I would have done. There must be a Mexican Wolf refuge up on that hill, I've heard that it is around here somewhere." She pointed above us. "It's alright, they are behind a fence, I'm sure."

Lying in my tent, I listened to the endangered Mexican wolf howls, and felt privileged to hear them, and I lucky to be alive. I wasn't sure exactly what I saw down in the stream, but it could have possibly taken my life if it wanted to.

(I will have to find some photos from here and post them later, I couldn't find any on the web.)