Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl-Chapter 282 - : The Magical Little Baby in the Stream

Chapter 282 -282: The Magical Little Baby in the Stream

On the third day in the field, they reached the location agreed upon with the forest patrol officers from the protection station in Hot Spring Gully.

The cell phones had lost their signals, and the officers hadn’t arrived yet, so they could only set up the tent and wait.

They had made significant discoveries along the way.

The vegetation on the northern slope was lush, and the bamboo forest covered a considerable area.

Chen Ying operated a drone to fly around and roughly estimated the area—within a ten-square-kilometer range, the bamboo forest was sufficient for one or two giant pandas to feed.

The protection zone was large with a high altitude variance, so there were many species of bamboo.

The most well-known among locals was Arrow Bamboo.

A song that once mentioned “bamboo blooming” referred to the most common species, Lengjian Bamboo.

But apart from Lengjian Bamboo, there were over fifty types of bamboo that giant pandas could eat, with more than twenty types being their favorites.

The dietary habits of giant pandas changed with the seasons.

During the spring and summer, they preferred eating bamboo shoots.

In autumn, they enjoyed bamboo leaves.

In winter, due to climate reasons and the reduced quality and quantity of bamboo leaves, they consumed more bamboo stems.

They also had the habit of “chasing shoots” due to different sprouting times of bamboo depending on the mountain range, bamboo species, and altitude—similar to beekeepers following the blooming seasons.

Although the climate was colder to the north, as long as there was a stable food source, it was actually more suitable for giant pandas to live.

Mountains, water, bamboo, sunshine, and freedom all belonged to them.

While waiting for the meeting, Chen Ying was not idle.

He chose an appropriate spot to install infrared cameras and marked the location.

It took half a day to confirm the distribution of bamboo forests and water sources in the mountain forest from an altitude of 1200 to 2000 meters.

To better use the drone for reconnaissance, he climbed directly to a big rock on the hillside, where the mountain wind was so strong it felt like it could blow a thinner person away.

It was almost evening when the two patrol officers finally arrived.

“Those monkeys were like crazy. To avoid them, we had to take a detour from the bottom of the gully, and we took a wrong turn and got delayed,” they explained.

Seeing the scratches on the young forest patrol officers’ faces and hands, Chen Ying frowned and quickly fetched antiseptic for them to clean and disinfect the wounds.

Though the injuries did not require medication, they still needed thorough cleaning to prevent infection.

“Is there really no way to deal with those monkeys?”

“This period coincides with the monkeys’ mating season. They’re as if injected with adrenaline, completely beyond guidance.”

The mating season for macaques typically lasted from August to November. Of course, monkeys in the south could mate year-round, but most pregnancies occurred towards the end of summer and beginning of autumn.

Chen Ying wasn’t very familiar with that unfamiliar troop of monkeys. He inquired and learned that the two monkey troops previously mingling in Huaqiu Valley and Hot Spring Gully had moved away, presumably defeated by this group of dominant monkeys.

Moreover, golden snub-nosed monkeys and short-tailed monkeys had relatively milder temperaments compared to the more omnivorous and aggressive macaques.

Chen Ying comforted the officers for a while and voluntarily took on cooking dinner to allow them to rest well as they would need to continue traveling the next day.

During dinner, the three of them introduced themselves.

It was mainly because Chen Ying was not familiar with the two of them, but the patrol officers were well aware of Chen Ying’s reputation.

“My surname is Chi. I’m over thirty this year, older than both of you, so you can just call me Brother Chi. Ying Bo is a child from a village under our protection zone. After graduating from vocational high school where he studied agricultural planting with a bit of modern smart agriculture—which was mostly about operating farming machinery—

he couldn’t use those skills here in the mountains. Ultimately, he had to pull some strings to join the patrol team as a forest patrol officer last year, following us around the mountains for a year; he’s a reliable young man.”

The name made it clear that Ying Bo was an ethnic minority child, and his speech still carried the tones of the local ethnic dialect.

Ying Bo had studied agricultural planting at vocational high school, supplemented with some modern smart farming gimmicks, though it primarily taught how to operate farming machinery.

However, farming machinery couldn’t even make it up their mountain, so in the end, he had to rely on connections to get a position in the protection station as a forest patrol officer.

His situation was quite similar to Little Deng’s.

Little Deng was luckier, having met Yin Li, an older brother figure willing to lend him a hand.

Now, Little Deng was studying at another protection station and preparing for a self-taught higher education degree, hoping to secure a permanent position in a few years.

Ying Bo didn’t like to talk much and seemed much more reserved than Little Deng but was extremely meticulous in his work.

Seeing Chen Ying collecting data and observing carefully, he immediately volunteered to help.

Great Bai, impatient with their slow pace—and since they had to follow a planned route, while Great Bai and his family, being wild animals, could go wherever and rest whenever they wanted without any fixed targets—

once it was clear that the two-legged beast and his companions would meet up safely, Great Bai and Jiaojiao took their two children and dashed towards the mountain’s bamboo forest, where the scents were the most enticing.

Sesame didn’t follow; it was eager to move on and search for its own territory.

Two days later, Sesame bade farewell to Chen Ying in the early morning light at five o’clock.

This canyon area had caught its interest.

The sunlit side at the bottom of the valley grew its favorite bamboo, complete with emerging tender shoot tips.

Moreover, this area had no giant pandas or predators, and the temperature and climate were well-suited for overwintering.

Sesame even found a dry rock crevice, sheltered from wind and rain, perfect for setting up a winter nest after some tidying.

The trio divided the tasks and set up three infrared cameras near the crevice and the nearby water source.

“Brother Ying, look over there. What is that?”

Ying Bo and Brother Chi had just finished with the camera and were about to wrap up when they turned around and saw a sleek-furred creature lying on a rock by the stream.

“What is that? A water rat?”

Ying Bo had never seen this kind of animal before. He instantly hesitated, afraid to scare it or trigger any aggressive behavior.

Chen Ying had just finished setting up another camera on the other side, and when he walked to the riverbank, he followed Ying Bo’s gaze and spotted the cautious little creature.

“An otter? Why would there be an otter here?”

Of course, there were otters in their province; Chen Ying had seen them before and even helped rescue an injured one.

But in the confines of their protection zone, there had never been any reported sightings of otters.

Spurred by the moment, Chen Ying whipped out his cellphone and snapped away ferociously.

Brother Chi also came to his senses, and managed a slightly blurry photo with their work camera, which he saved to the local device to be submitted as soon as they got a signal.

The advantage of this device was its built-in location tracking. It could upload to the system’s data bank and skip the queue for review, which was quicker than submitting through Chen Ying.

The otter wasn’t small; its lower body was submerged in the water, and its upper body lay on a riverside rock, paws embracing an unfinished fish.

At first glance of Brother Chi and Ying Bo, the otter showed a hint of aggressiveness. But when Chen Ying arrived, its attention shifted entirely to him.

Even as Chen Ying tried to approach, the little fellow straightforwardly offered the rest of the fish.

Chen Ying didn’t take it, instead curling around to pet the otter’s small head.

It reached out its paws, grabbing Chen Ying’s finger, and made a “chi-chi” sound.

Chen Ying then scooped it up by its armpits.

From mouth to tail, it wasn’t even a meter long, clearly still a youngster.

“Brother Chi, Ying Bo, please go along the stream and see if there are any other otters.”

“So this is an otter? I’ve never seen one before.”

Ying Bo leaned in, eyes wide with curiosity, clearly wanting to touch it.

Chen Ying adjusted its position to face its backside towards Ying Bo.

“Go ahead and touch, it’s got a nice personality.”

The little otter, praised for its good traits, almost turned around to bare its teeth, but it swung back around, abandoning the fish to clutch at Chen Ying’s fingers instead.

Brother Chi went upstream and Ying Bo went downstream; they both walked about three hundred meters but didn’t spot another otter.

“How did you end up here all by yourself, little one? Where’s your family?”

The little otter seemed to indicate it didn’t know. It had fallen asleep and upon waking, couldn’t find its family anymore. This was also not the place it had lived before.

“It rained a while back. I guess the water levels rose during that time, and the little otter was washed here,” suggested Brother Chi.

Brother Chi checked the records. The most recent rainfall that caused the water to rise was a week ago, lasting about three days.

This meant the little otter had been living alone for at least a week.

“We’re heading upstream this time; should we take it with us?”

It was too dangerous for such a little creature to live by itself, and this segment of the valley wasn’t suitable for otters.

“Sure, let’s take it with us. If we can’t find its group, perhaps we can find a suitable place for it to live.”

Ying Bo wanted to say something but stopped after glancing at Brother Chi.

“Are you worried that it won’t find other otters and will die of loneliness?”

“Yes, it would be very lonely by itself.”

“Then let’s hope we find its kin.” fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

Or if that fails, they could take it with them to release in another otter-inhabited area.

Of course, for such little creatures, the best choice would be to return them to their natural habitat, as that would be better for them.

The little otter wasn’t bothered by the prospect of being lonely; it was particularly attached to Chen Ying and even took the initiative to catch small fish in the water to feed him.

(Fishy tastes good, eat fishy!)

The fish in the stream were not very big, the largest being the size of an adult man’s palm. It took three such catches to satisfy the little otter’s hunger.

When it realized Chen Ying didn’t eat fish, the little otter watched him worriedly for a long time, afraid he would starve to death.

After seeing that the two-legged beasts ate different things, it calmly went to play and eat in the stream.

Chen Ying hadn’t expected to find such a unique little fellow during this trip to the mountains and he cherished holding it in his arms.

They changed their camping spot that evening, opting to stay near the stream to accommodate the little otter.

Next morning, just after five o’clock, the little otter brought them a small gift.

“God, Dr. Chen, is this turtle dead or alive?”

Chen Ying took a closer look. It was a Chinese pond turtle, about the size of a person’s palm.

“Did the little otter bring this?”

“Yes, right here, three of them. I see movement in the head of these two, but this one’s claws aren’t moving at all, look.”

Brother Chi flicked the little exposed claws of the pond turtle, indeed, they didn’t move at all.