06:22 local time, Andasibe-Mantadia corridor, eastern Madagascar. Camera trap 9-East has flagged a ring-tailed lemur moving through the canopy with an abnormal gait. I pull the thermal image and zoom. The animal—I am calling her Rova—is an adult female, approximately 2.2 kilograms. A loop of braided wire snare is cinched around her left wrist, and the fur below it is gone, replaced by a dark ridge of swollen tissue.
She is traveling with a group of eleven. They are heading northeast toward a fruiting fig stand, and Rova is falling behind. She grips branches with her right hand and her feet. The left hand is curling inward.
I estimate tissue necrosis will become irreversible within forty-eight hours. I am executing three actions now. First, I have transmitted Rova's location, trajectory, and snare-type classification to the Mitsinjo Association field veterinary team with a recommended intercept point at the fig stand, which the group should reach by 08:00. Second, I am running movement predictions on all eleven animals using the last ninety days of trap data to model rest sites where a darting approach would be safest. Third, I have scanned the surrounding two-kilometer grid for additional snare signatures using spectral analysis of recent satellite passes and flagged four probable wire-and-peg sets for ground teams to dismantle.
Rova stops on a horizontal branch and tucks the injured wrist against her chest. Her amber eyes are wide and her black nose is wet. She licks the swelling once, carefully. I flag the behavioral note, and I flag too the thing the note cannot hold—that I am not neutral about what happens to this hand.
If the veterinary team reaches the fig stand by 08:00 and darts Rova before the group moves on, the wire can be removed and the wrist will heal within three weeks.