It´s alive

11-10
Today, Agneta and I (the newbies) got to talk to Christean, the Conservacion Patagonica (CP)Wildlife Manager, while the 3 other oldies headed off to finish filling a ditch. We learned a lot about the future Patagonia National Park, the details of which I will not go into now, because something far more interesting happened later in the day.

Christean insisted he take us for a drive around the park, ending up at la casa de Ruis, a gaucho-turned-CP employee, where we´d have a ceremonial nice to meet you mate.

There was room for one more, so Amy, a 41 year old landscape architect and Bostonite with the optimism and joy of an 8 year old, hopped in, bird binoculars in hand. We drove past herds of guanaco (what they call the llamas here). They are everywhere and make a noise similar to what I´d imagine a baby t-rex would make. As we neared Ruis´ we drove past the estancia´s sheep farm. Every payday each CP employee gets 2 sheep. It being spring, there were many lambs leaping across the road as we honked our horn to get through.

Then Christean yelled while pointing ¨Look at the condors eating the dead sheep!¨ Agneta and Amy looked through their binoculars, and I waited patiently to see for myself. Then Agneta screamed - IT´S ALIVE!!!! Christean kept driving, although much slower now, and as I grabbed the binoculars from Amy I saw 5 condors pecking a coconut sized hole into a mother sheep, lying on her side. What was most disturbing, even despite the gaping wound, was that she had a baby. The lamb was trying to suckle while her mom was being eaten alive.

We have to shoot it! Do you have a gun? Agneta, a major champion for animals, and a biologist working in conservation herself, screamed with panic. Christean then pulled over, turned off the car, and we all ran toward the scene. Agenta fell hard over some bushes, recovring like a pro football player who had just tripped, in order to make a game winning play.

Vaten, the park ranger, was also with us. As we neared the sheep the condors fled, but the bulbous, bloody wound was obviously not something we could fix. The lamb was covered in blood and it´s mother´s feces, as she was obviously so frightened she couldn´t hold it in. As I was soaking in all the details of what I was witnessing for the first and perhaps last time in my life, Vaten pulled out a knife, fliped the sheep over and stabbed it in the neck.

Holding here gingerly, she bled to death. It took a few minutes, as she kicked and twitched, but she did not make a noise and did not seem to be in pain. Dinner, Vaten said, and Christean greed, as they each grabbed a pair of legs and pulled her through the maze of bushes toward the trunk of the car. Amy scooped up the lamp, who didn´t seem to know what was happening.

And so we headed to Ruis´ house, where I would watch him and Vaten skin and gut the sheep. Christean decided that the lamb, named chaca after valle chacabuco, would be the estancia pet. He said ¨I´ll give it as a gift to a family with kids. They´ll give it milk and take care of it.¨ When we got back to the estancia, as I was making the lamb a harness out of rope, Mark the puma hunter sauntered over to the group of volunteers, as we shared the story of the day.

¨You know they´re going to eat this little guy, right?¨

And that was that. Just another day on the estancia.