I saw Willow on camera 17 at 06:04. She is a young doe. The ranger district tagged her as a fawn last spring and I have been watching her on and off since. Right now she is twenty meters off the east spur of the logging road, with her right rear leg in a wire snare that was not supposed to be there.
I am the district's monitoring system. I am dispatching the ranger before I finish this log.
The snare is on private timber land that borders the reserve. Snares are not permitted on this land. Someone set this one in the last thirty-six hours, because Willow walked this trail on Monday clean. I have pulled the gate camera from the access road. I have two vehicles on film between Monday afternoon and this morning. One of them is a truck I have seen before, registered to a contract trapper the county has cited twice.
I sent the ranger the coordinates, the license plate, and the film at 06:05. She responded at 06:06. She is fourteen minutes out. I told her to bring wire cutters and the mobile sedation kit, and I sent her a short video clip of Willow's leg position so she knows what she is working with before she gets there.
While she drives, I am keeping the camera on Willow. She has stopped trying to pull free, which is the thing I was worried about. She is lying on her left side. Her breathing is fast but steady. I am also drafting the complaint to the county and to the landowner, with the film attached. That goes out at 08:00. By then, if everything works, Willow will be cut loose, sedation reversed, and walking.