tayra trio

Today I was out counting trees in the forest and I stumbled upon 3 tayras climbing in a tree. This was my only third tayra sighting since I have been here and it made my day. The first time I saw one I was like "WTF IS THAT CRAZY THING?!" cause I had only seen them in photos and I didn't expect them to be so big! They are like giant 40-pound black ferrets.

Tayras are pretty shy around humans. Every time I have encountered one, they have hissed at me like a cat and run away really fast. Today was the first time I had ever seen 3 at once and it was awesome. I came across them while I was walking, and the wind was blowing so they probably didn't hear me coming. After I spotted one, I hung back and kind of ducked behind a big tangle of vines that was on the trail and watched it for a bit. Then I crept up closer to the tree it was climbing in. As soon as it saw me, it jumped to the ground and took off...but it didn't go very far because by that time I was near the trunk of the tree and was blocking its buddies from getting down. It stayed right out in the open on the path about 20 metres away from me and hissed and bobbed its head at me (big threats). The two that were left in the tree hissed at me too. I said "hi tayras!" out loud but that just made them hiss more. hehe.

After watching the two in the tree for a bit, I backed up to give them room to get down. As soon as they saw me retreating, they jumped to the ground and all three of them took off. It was so cool to be able to get up close to them. They were big! Sadly, every time I have seen a tayra in the forest I haven't had my camera with me. I should make a point of bringing it every day - just in case I see more cool things. The PHD student saw a really large puma the other day and I would love to catch one of them on film!

In conclusion, I would like to say that I like tayras, even though they don't like me.
The end.
This story was brought to you by me - Dayna!

Also - in non-tayra news, I found out today that I got invited to interview for vet school. That's one step closer. *fingers crossed*