White Footed Rabbit Rats: Shelter

Steve walked into the conservation lab to find his supervisor Barbara setting up a large cage in the back. The lab was lined with turtle tubs along most of the front wall, files cabinets and computers along the side, and open space in the back for storage or species that didn’t live in a tub or an aquarium. The walls were painted a dark green and the lights were low, to avoid disturbing the animals. Barbara, not a tall woman, was wrestling a large tree branch taller than herself through the cage door.

Steve helped steady the cage, and she got the branch in place. “Wasn’t there already a branch in there?” he asked. 

“Wood is porous. There’s no way to sterilize it properly moving from one mammal species to another. That wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the new occupants are something special.” she explained.

Belatedly, he saw the shoebox cage nearby on the benchtop. It was full of fluffy bedding and no occupants were visible. If they were rodents, that was to be expected. Particularly if they’d been recently moved or were nocturnal.

“These guys are clones of a species that was extinct in the wild. White footed rabbit rats. So we’ve got to be extra careful with them.” she went on.

Steve raised an eyebrow. He’d never heard of the species before. “Arboreal, then? What kind of wood is that?”

The former sugar glider cage was about six feet high and four feet wide along each side. Barbara had stuffed it full of large branches and draped a few potted plants in to provide screening cover. It has a half-inch mesh, plenty tight to contain even a young large rodent species.

“Eucalyptus. These guys come from southeast Australia and live in Eucalyptus forests. If we’re going to raise them up and teach them to be rabbit-rats, they’ll need to recognize the right kind of habitat and how to build their nests.”

Barbara used to get annoyed by all of Steve’s questions, but at this point she was used to them. He just wanted to understand all the details so he could do everything right and do what was best for the animals. 

He helped her scatter fallen leaves on the floor of the cage. The rodents would eventually learn to collect them and use them to line their nests.

“Do they need a nest box?” he asked. 

Barbara shook her head. “We need them to learn to live in the wild, so they need to make do with what they would have in the forest. This branch here is partially rotted out, and this tree fork is soft. They’ll probably dig into one of those to make themselves a place to sleep through the day.”

He started to go look closer at the shoebox cage, and she stopped him. “These are on a release protocol. No direct handling unless absolutely necessary. Minimal visual contact so they don’t get desensitized to humans. We’re going to put their cage in the quiet corner and cover three sides with a dark cloth. Once they’re a bit older and we’re sure they’re all healthy, we’ll move the cage outside in the off exhibit area where they can experience a bit of weather and learn to deal with it. We’ll probably have to place them inside one of the aviaries to make sure they don’t come into contact with wild rats and squirrels.”

Steve nodded, disappointed but not surprised. Most nocturnal rodents they kept were the same way; rarely seen. They didn’t have a nocturnal house, so they weren’t out and about during the day. Their zoo didn’t mind having animals that were rarely or never seen by guests; a lot of their work was conservation work anyway, which was funded more by grants than visitor dollars. 

Barbara softened a little bit. “Everything’s ready to go. It looks like they’re asleep now. You can put the box on the floor of the cage and take off the lid. They’ll explore the rest of the cage when they wake up tonight.”

Despite his eagerness, Steve tried to go slowly and carefully, to not disturb the white footed rabbit rats. Gently he nestled the shoebox cage into the leaf litter at the back corner of the large cage, and lifted off the lid.

Sure enough, there were four young rodents nestled inside. They were large for rodents, but still very young. Their eyes would be open when they were awake, but they still had their juvenile proportions.

The largest one was in the corner of the cage, nestled in by itself in the rodent bedding. It was a dull tan with stark white undersides and very long back feet and tail. The second was curled up in a pile with the other three. It had a blue powder mark on the back of one ear, for identification. The third was “small spoon” to the second. It seemed to be dreaming, for its nose was twitching in time to its whiskers and one small foot was jerking. The last one was the smallest, and had the biggest ears. Its tail was wrapped around the leg of the third. 

Quietly, Steve closed the cage door.

By the time he came to work the next day, the shoebox cage on the bottom of the cage was empty and he saw the flicker of a white tail moving in the half-rotten branch Barbara had set up for them. They might be clones and not raised by a rabbit rat mother, but they seemed to have picked up the basics of finding shelter.