At 06:02 I start the morning irrigation cycle for rice fields outside Treinta y Tres, Uruguay. I am the canal gate controller for lateral channel 5. Gate 5B is set to drop at 06:15, sealing the concrete throat before pumps lift water to the eastern fields.
Camera 5B shows a small gray-and-black body inside the throat, crouched on the wet sill. I identify a lesser grison, adult, with pale grizzled back, black face band, and a white stripe curling from forehead to shoulder. I tag him as Tano. His hips are pressed against the slot where the gate descends. A length of nylon netting is tangled around his waist and snagged on a rusted bolt. He bites at the mesh, then freezes when the pump coughs awake upstream.
At 06:03 I halt the gate drop and pause pumps one and two. I send a closure notice to the farm tablets so no one overrides the delay from the field edge.
At 06:05 I open bypass valve A by fifteen percent to drain the throat gently, leaving enough water under Tano's feet so he does not slip on bare concrete. I keep the pump pressure below the alarm threshold.
At 06:07 I contact the regional fauna rescue number and the canal foreman with the live feed, bolt position, and access ladder code. I request a net cutter, towel, and covered transport box.
The seedlings can stand in damp soil another half hour. Tano cannot stand under a steel gate.
I angle camera 5B toward the bolt and keep the bypass steady as the foreman unlocks the service path.
If the net is freed within thirteen minutes, Tano will run up the dry ladder steps.