July 31st 2024
We may have to update our sampling records after field sampling today. Our lab has previously caught many interesting organisms as part of field research – moths, spiders, and parasitoids to name a few that have occurred as bycatch during our typical bee and mosquito sampling – but I think this may be the first time we caught a cat.
Today in the yard of a homeowner who we had previously established had no pets we had two kittens run by us as we were beginning our veg sampling process. The homeowner confirmed that the kittens were strays that they were working with their neighbor to try to catch and neuter (if not find homes for) the fluff balls.
If you have gone out sampling with me, you know that my methods during vacuum sampling include 1) setting up undergrad research technicians next to the native plants that are blooming in a yard, 2) setting a timer for 4 minutes during which they vacuum any insect which lands on the flowers, and 3) going off to record the species names and abundance of all native and nonnative plants blooming at the site until the 4 minutes are up, then pointing thestudents towards the next most abundant native plant. This yard happened to have limited species of native plants blooming so we set our timer as usual- with one undergrad watching the milkweed vine and one undergrad watching the cats by request (with a pair of gloves I keep in the van for handling bumblebee boxes).
As anyone who has done field sampling knows, one sampling effort does not yield a complete estimate of the species present in an area. In our sampling effort we only captured one kitten of the two – who I have temporarily dubbed Gris. Normally any specimen we catch gets bagged up and labelled before freezing and pinning. We will not be following our usual methods for specimen collected during vacuum sampling in this one very exceptional circumstance.
Update:
I am very happy to update this post with the news that Appa (formerly Gris) is settled down into his new home with a fellow graduate student in the Entomology department. His new parent informed me that he loves playing with his siblings (another cat and a dog) and has a great time chasing light reflections on the floor.