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Trouble with Raptors Part 1
By John D.
As the sun begin to lift itself into the air on the early July morning, an aging man stood just outside the door of a camper that sit in the Badlands of Montana. The man took a sip of his coffee from the black mug he held in his hand.
“Looks like its going to be another great day here in Montana,” the man said as he took another sip from his mug.
As he removed the mug from his lips, he turned his head to the right to see one of his young students walking toward the outhouse that was on the far end of the camper. After a minute or two had passed the young man had come out of the outhouse, as he placed a cigarette into his mouth and begin to light it with a black Zippo lighter. He then begins to walk over to the man standing outside of the camper door. The young man was around the age of about twenty-two; he was tall about six foot four inches. He took a drag off of his cigarette as he took it out of his mouth with his index and bird finger, exhaling the smoke shortly after. He had on a pair of khaki pants and a pair of old Timberland boots, he also had on a button up blue shirt, which was unbutton showing the white tank-top he wear under it.
“Good morning Dr. Grant,” the young man said as he threw the cigarette off to the side, the wind picking up just a bit causing his brown hair to blow a bit.
Grant simply smiled as he looked toward the man walking toward him, “Good morning David. You’d have fun last night with Ashley, I saw you two leave the campfire early.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say I had fun. You know the damned Badlands ground isn’t made for sex.”
Grant simply chuckled for a moment at David’s comments. He always found conversations to be fun with him when it didn’t involve work. David was serious about his work just as he was and he like that in him.
“Well I don’t suppose the rocky ground would be very soft for anything of that nature.” Grant cracked a smile as he said this looking back toward David, “You know we need to have that skeleton of that juvenile velociraptor out of the ground by the end of this week.”
“Yeah I know, and it will be. I’ve just had to go slow around the skull; it’s pretty badly broke. I’ve been working on that section by myself, and Ashley has got the forelimbs and what is left of the ribcage unearthed. Darrel has gotten the tail and hind quarters, including the sickle claws and the thigh bones almost completely out of the ground.” David paused for a second to catch his breath and yawn as the sun begins to position itself higher into the sky. “I’d say it would take me another day and a half of excavating to get the skull out of the ground.”
“Only a day and a half you say,” Grant said as he took another sip of his coffee, “and today is only Monday so you have plenty of time to get it completely out by the end of this week.”
“Yeah I’d say by Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, it’ll be completely out the ground and be ready for us to examine it more closely.”
“Well good, because I want you to go with me today to the other side of Hill 10 to test our luck there. Just tell Ashley and Darrel to work on there parts if they want, but to make sure they check their logs for the number of bones to make sure none have been lost.” Grant said as he finished off his coffee. “You ready to go now, it’s a twenty minute drive to Hill 10, and hopefully we can find something good before the sun starts bearing down on us.”
“Yeah just let me go tell Ashley and Darrel what you want them to do while we’re gone.”
“Okay, you do that while I grab my hat.”
“Could you grab me a cold one while you’re in there?” David asked since he hasn’t had anything to drink since he’s been up.
“Sure,” Grant said, “A Corona as usually David?”
David nodded as he went off to tell Darrel and Ashley what he is supposed to tell them. Soon after Dr. Grant and David leave off for Hill 10, in Grants new four-wheel drive Z71 Silverado pickup.
The sun is also rising in another part of the world as it is in the Badlands of Montana. The sun has just made its way above the horizon, as the beachhead of an island begins to hear the sounds of morning arrive to it. A hadrosaurus makes its way onto the beach as it eats at the grass and green ferns at the edge of the beach. From one of the smaller trees that is covered in thick foliage, a dark green skinned animal is watching the hadrosaurus. About twelve yards away it is also being watched by a orange skinned animal that has black spots on his back and sides, and from the left about the same distance another greened skin animal, this one with darker green strips covering it’s head, back, and tail watches silently also. When the hadrosaurus was close enough the animal sitting in the small tree lets out a series of low clicks that blend in with the morning sounds, but the other two animals hear them. With the sound of a bellowing sound that carries the sound of a cough, leaves the animal in the middle they all three sprang into action. They run fast and furiously toward the hadrosaurus jumping over branches that had been knocked off from trees by the large herbivores. Each animal with his forearms in a grapple ready position, its sickle shaped claws raised off the ground so not to break or trip over them. It is clear now that the hadrosaurus is being attacked by a pack of velociraptors. The velociraptor that is in the middle is the first to reach the animal as it leaps up at the hadrosaurus, and as it lands on his left side it sinks it’s sickle shaped claws into the hadrosaurus’ side, clawing at it with it’s three claws on each forearm and biting at it with his razor sharp jaws. The velociraptor on the right runs out from behind the animal causing it to now run down the beach with the other velociraptor on its back. The velociraptor on the left runs out in front of the hadrosaurus, causing it to turn to the other side. This gives the orange velociraptor with the black spots a chance to leap onto its other side doing the same to it that the other velociraptor on its left side is doing. As the two claw and bite at the hadrosaurus the other velociraptor steps back a few feet and raises up on his hind legs a little as he sends calls off into the air, bellowing coughs out to the other velociraptors in it’s pack. Since the hadrosaurus had run up the beachhead a little ways, two of the other velociraptors came from the grass and bushes to the animals side, running straight for it, both of these animals have the green skin, with darker green strips pattern as the other. The velociraptor on the left leaps onto the back of the hadrosaurus doing the same as the other two now, as the two velociraptor on the ground run half way around the animal on each side to keep it where it was. This caused the hadrosaurus to kick up sand as it was trying to throw the three velociraptors off its back. While it was doing this another velociraptor emerged from the grass and tree line, and you could clearly tell it was larger then the other five velociraptors on the beach, it was the Alpha Male. He had the orange coloration of the velociraptor that had the black spots, but instead he had bold jagged black stripes that almost reached all the way to his white underbelly. He cocked his head to the right as he let his neck bob up and down, as he finally let out a roar and jumped at the hadrosaurus’ neck jabbing his sickle shaped claws into the neck, as he clawed at the top of the neck with his forearms. The hadrosaurus fell on its front limbs as it then slowly fell on hind limbs, then all of a sudden it lumbered over to its right falling down toward the grass and tree line, the velociraptor on the side just barely made it off before it hit the ground. The Alpha Male stayed where it was for a second along with the two others remaining on the lifeless gently giant, as the one that had just jumped off along with the other two ran toward the carcass and begin to eat at it.
The Alpha male stopped eating at the animal’s neck as he raised up and let out a series of drawn out bellows. He in turn was ringing the diner bell you could say, because a few minutes later about five juveniles, the Alpha Female, two other female velociraptors, and a dozen of young about two to three month old velociraptors came from the tree and grass line to eat off the animal’s carcass. The Alpha Male looked up as a white and yellow object flew overhead.
A man by the name of Bob Isley looked out a viewing window of the plane throw a pair of high-powered binoculars at the velociraptors. He looked up for a second at the pilot and then back through the binoculars at the feeding going on beneath the plane.
“You see this Jim,” Bob said as he looked at them through his binoculars.
“Yeah I do Mr. Isley, but not as well as your seeing it,” said the pilot whose name was Jimmy Stevens, but everyone always called him Jim.
“No wonder they’ve been killing larger animals lately, with a pack that big to feed they need that kind of food.” Bob was still amazed at the size of the pack.
“What do you think they’ll do, since they pack has started getting larger. Stalking big prey like that is too much of a hazard,” said Jim who along with Mr. Isley and a few others are part of the Velociraptor Conservation Society, which has been started by the United States and Costa Rican governments in a joint effort to keep up the number of the velociraptors, the number of packs, the size of packs, and other things of that nature.
There was also groups made to keep up the number of all the animals and they all fell under either two categories. One being herbivorous and the other carnivorous, each having groups under them for whichever animal they are watching.
“Most likely when the juveniles get a little older they’ll leave, with a adult male and female and they’ll form a pack. When that happens that’ll make the fourth pack on this island. They could do like the velociraptors on Isle Sorona, and split into two main packs and then a few rouge packs. They have four rounge packs of just three to four velociraptors now, all ranging from different age from juveniles to adults.” Bob said as he begin to look away from the window, “Well lets fly back to base now so we can log this down.”
“Yes sir!” Jim said as he begin to fly back toward the base of operations which was in Costa Rica.
{Please give comments and tell me what you think}
Copyright 2002 "Trouble with Raptors," a John D. Production
1/6/02 4:05:14 AM
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