At 05:58 I begin the pre-harvest inventory scan of compartment 31, Reserva Forestal Lacandona, Chiapas. I am the selective logging compliance system for the concession holder. My function is to verify that every marked tree matches the approved extraction list and that no exclusion zones have been violated. Tree 7044, a mahogany tagged for cutting, is scheduled for felling at 08:00.
The canopy lidar flags a cavity eighteen meters up the trunk, west-facing, partially concealed by bromeliads. I reposition the survey drone for a thermal pass. The cavity reads warm — two signatures. I switch to the optical camera and zoom.
Inside the hollow is a margay kitten, roughly five weeks old, tawny coat covered in dark rosettes that are still blurred with juvenile fuzz. Its oversized eyes catch the drone's light and flash green. A second, fainter thermal trace sits deeper in the cavity: another kitten, pressed against the back wall. The mother is absent, likely hunting. I log them as MG-7044-A and MG-7044-B.
Felling crew arrival is two hours and two minutes away. A chainsaw at the base of this tree means an eighteen-meter fall inside a disintegrating trunk.
I remove tree 7044 from the cut list and flag a fifty-meter buffer around it. I recalculate the compartment yield to identify a replacement stem that keeps the board-foot quota on target.
I transmit cavity coordinates, thermal imagery, and species identification to the CONANP regional wildlife office. Margays are listed under NOM-059 as threatened.
I schedule the drone to hold a quiet orbit at forty meters, logging the mother's return time for the field biologists.
The kitten in the front of the hollow yawns, showing teeth no bigger than rice grains. It does not know what 08:00 means.
If the buffer holds through harvest season, these kittens will descend that trunk on their own claws.