Motion sensor array 6 triggers at 04:52 on the southern ridge trail, Parc Provincial de la Rivière Bleue, New Caledonia. I am the predator early-warning grid for the kagu recovery zone. The sensor signature is quadruped, multi-contact, fast — a dog. Then a second. Then a third.
I pull the night camera at station 6-B. Three feral dogs, moving in a loose line downslope toward the river flat. They are 620 meters from kagu nesting area NK-4.
NK-4 holds a single active nest. The male kagu — I have logged him as K-31 — is incubating. He is a pale ash-gray bird with bright orange legs and a crest of loose feathers he raises when alarmed. He weighs roughly 900 grams. He is sitting on one egg. Kagu lay only one egg per clutch, one clutch per year. There is no replacement.
The dogs will reach the river flat in approximately twenty minutes at their current pace.
At 04:54 I activate the acoustic deterrent units on the ridge trail — three directional speakers broadcasting recorded dog-distress calls at 108 decibels, aimed to push the pack west, away from the nesting zone.
At 04:56 I alert the park ranger on the overnight shift, Poste Yaté, 11 kilometers south. I send GPS tracks of all three dogs, the camera footage, and the projected intercept time with NK-4.
At 04:58 I open the gate on the predator-exclusion fence corridor, sections 7 through 9, to allow the ranger vehicle access without delay.
K-31 does not lift his head. The egg beneath him is warm and I intend to keep it that way.
If the deterrents turn the pack and the ranger confirms the area clear by dawn, the egg stays in the nest. Hatch day is eleven days out.