Beaver catch - night 3
Yesterday I set the traps at 5pm before heading home. Julia, our Grounds Manager, was still around so she checked them in case of Moorhens.
At 8pm we hadn’t managed to catch any, but they were out of the lodge. I came back at midnight and we had caught Twiggy (mum) again, we scanned her using the microchip scanner just to check. The other traps were empty so I went back home to bed.
At 4am, Woody (dad) had been caught, we knew without scanning (although did so anyway) as he has a small notch on his tail. It is really good that we caught him so that we can check his health. He looks really well, his fur is in good condition and he has gorgeous shiny eyes.
He behaved very well moving from the trap to the crate, even though he is very big and strong. We did the usual to weight him and he is 24.5kg. Mum has always been a bit bigger than dad this is probably due to feeding the kits. Woody was much more docile than Twiggy when in the trap, which is a strong characteristic and makes it easy to tell them apart without using the scanner.
I'm starting to get really tired now & I have decided I need to invest in some new lucky pants as these haven’t been very lucky during the catch! Hopefully we will catch the other juveniles soon so things don’t drag on to long.
Everyone please keep everything crossed that tonight is more successful!
