Joe really enjoyed the evening with the young vets and Nadia and the other fieldworkers. They wanted to know all about life in Britain; the weather, the food, football, school and, especially, the wildlife. They had heard that it rained all the time, that rich people lived in castles and that everybody kept cats and dogs. Joe and Aesha tried to put them right about a few things, but weren’t convinced they always made themselves understood – much to everyone’s amusement – even with Iona interpreting. Binti spoke about her local work in England as well as her international assignments, while Peter talked to them about some of the photographic projects he’d been involved in.
Joe was fascinated to hear more about the vets’ work, and quickly realised that most of the time it involved sheer hard graft. It took hours of painstaking application and concentration to collect and analyse the data required to allow reasonable assumptions to be made both about the health of the tiger population and about the reserve as a whole.
‘Once we’ve drawn conclusions from one set of results, we start the whole process again,’ said Iona. ‘Nothing stands still because the next set of data might produce different results. And all the time what we’re looking for is evidence that tiger numbers and prey numbers are stable – if not growing.’
The young vets were impressed that, in the short time Joe and Aesha had been in Russia, they had already seen tiger tracks. It made Joe feel important, and he began to hope more and more that the film they had brought back from the camera trap would contain some good shots of tigers. He went to bed that night convinced that his tiger adventure had only just begun.
The following afternoon, when they headed into the viewing room, Joe just couldn’t wait for the film to be downloaded.
‘It’s going to be so cool if there’s a tiger on there,’ he said to his mother, ‘especially if there are cubs as well.’
Binti laughed. ‘If there are, I think we’d better leave you out here as a lucky mascot!’
‘What a good idea!’ said Peter. ‘No more smelly socks at home!’
The first two images came up on-screen. They were frustratingly blank. Iona explained that the camera was deliberately aimed at the mid-chest height of an average tiger, but could be triggered by the body heat of a smaller animal that wouldn’t necessarily be within the camera’s photographic range.
The next image was an indecipherable blur of dark brown.
‘I think that might have been a wild boar in a hurry!’ Iona chuckled.
Three more blank shots were followed by a very clear side view of another wild boar – or the same one on its way back, Iona suggested. Next came pristine images of the boar’s snout, poised as though it were about to kiss the lens.
‘Yuck!’ said Aesha. ‘It looks all wet and slobbery.’
‘Don’t be so rude about the poor thing,’ Peter joshed.
‘It looks healthy enough, doesn’t it?’ said Iona. ‘And very interested to know if the camera is edible.’
There were a few more blank frames and then a roe deer was caught in a sequence of shots, seemingly posing at first, before nibbling at the leaves on a bush. Finally, a foot appeared at the top of one of the frames. It was black with very long claws.
‘What’s that?’ squealed Joe excitedly.
‘Wait and see,’ said Iona.
The next two frames were completely black. The third was crossed by a black furry arm and a fourth revealed an ear. At last, a fifth frame showed the animal in its entirety as it dropped to the ground. It was an Asiatic black bear.
Joe couldn’t believe his eyes. There were five more frames, all of them starring the bear, which was standing in the clearing in front of the camera, eating a nut from the tree.
‘It’s so cute!’ said Joe.
‘It looks like a right monkey to me,’ said Peter.
‘Funny, ha, ha, Dad,’ said Aesha.
‘They’re not really very cute at all,’ said Iona. ‘There are quite a few bears in the reserve, and although they’re herbivores, they can be pretty aggressive to humans. But they love acorns and they love climbing, so they climb up and try to grab them before they all fall to the ground and before other animals get to them.’
‘The white stripe across its chest makes it look as if it’s wearing a T-shirt.’ Joe giggled.
‘Or a bra,’ said Aesha.
There was nothing else on the film, but seeing the bear made up for any disappointment Joe might have felt about the absence of a tiger.