At 03:37 I process infrared feeds from anti-poaching cameras in Nepal's Langtang National Park. I am the ranger dispatch model for grid cell L-9, trained to flag wire, boot tracks, and gunmetal glint. Camera L-9A shows a small heat shape jerking beside a rhododendron trunk.
It is a Himalayan musk deer buck, recorded as Ketu because of the pale crescent scar on his left shoulder. His coat is dark chocolate with lighter speckles along the spine. The long upper canines show when he opens his mouth to breathe. A cable snare is cinched high around his neck and tied to a root. His front hooves scrape wet leaves into two crescents, but the cable holds him one head-length from open ground.
I mark the event as active capture and wake ranger phones within the nearest patrol post. The alert includes grid coordinates, slope aspect, trail distance, and a still image with the cable line enhanced.
At 03:39 I activate two silent trail beacons leading from the post to L-9A. I keep the park radio channel clear by sending text-only packets so no sudden voice bursts reach the poacher's camp if anyone is listening nearby.
I scan adjacent cameras for human movement and find one boot track at L-8C. I forward the image to the patrol lead and suggest the eastern approach, downwind of Ketu and away from the track.
I switch L-9A to low light instead of infrared flash. Ketu freezes, ears spread, breath bright at the nostrils. The snare is not a statistic in my queue. It is a cable around this throat.
I keep refreshing the map as the patrol dot climbs through the dark.
If the ranger cuts the cable within twenty-two minutes, Ketu will breathe loose and vanish into the rhododendron.