Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl

"Damn, did we stir up a vulture's nest?"

A dozen vultures swooped down, heading straight for the pieces of meat scattered on the ground.

The Snow Leopard was stunned for a moment and instinctively rushed towards the marked pieces of meat.

No choice, it's ingrained in its bones that it can't let this band of thieves take all the meat away.

The Snow Leopard ferociously drove away the vultures, quickly grabbed the marked meat, then returned to a rock, pinned it down with a paw, and lowered its front body, issuing a threatening sound towards the vultures.

The stray dogs that were hesitating saw this and rushed down directly, with quite a few dogs in the pack, each with a piece of meat in its mouth, and there were still two mouths empty.

The pieces of meat varied in size.

The smaller dogs swallowed the meat in two or three bites, and the larger ones, if they couldn't finish in one go, were sure to have their food snatched by a companion's mouth.

Chen Ying and the others saw more dogs emerging than expected and their expressions changed slightly.

Damn, this meat might not be enough.

If some dogs fell while others were fine, it would definitely alert the dogs that didn't eat, making it hard to use the same trick next time.

Just then, a fully armed person bundled up ran past with a sheep split in two.

While passing through the valley, the presence of the dog pack, Snow Leopard, and vultures startled the horse, nearly throwing off its rider.

The person on the horse held the reins firmly to steady themselves, but the mutton they carried wasn't so lucky and fell to the ground.

The person seemed to want to pick it up, but the horse turned and ran, and in the distance, the rider's frustrated voice could still be heard.

Chen Ying squinted his eyes, the voice sounded a bit familiar?

A few minutes later, the horse and rider that had barged in were no longer in sight, but suddenly a voice came through Chen Ying's walkie-talkie.

"Brother Ying, Brother Ying, it's me, Ci Ren, did the dogs eat the meat?"

"Ci Ren? Why did you suddenly come over?"

"I was delivering packages and mail to your station today. I heard from Da Han that you only brought about ten pounds of meat to catch the dogs, so I knew you definitely didn't bring enough. The other night, the dogs from the temple were fighting and some ran towards the wasteland; there's a good chance they'll join up with the stray dogs already here. So I asked Da Han to help bring over some more meat with added ingredients."

Da Han is the on-duty veterinarian at the animal husbandry station, a local, and Ci Ren's elementary school classmate. The things added to the meat they brought before were made by Da Han and his team.

As they spoke, several more dogs came running down from the mountain, including some with visibly large bellies.

Chen Ying wasn't sure if there were any still up there, and he dared not use a drone to check, fearing it would disturb the pack, so he just incapacitated as many as he could for now.

But from what they could see, two vehicles might not be enough to carry them all.

Yin Li called the Protection Station directly, asking them to send two more vehicles, specifically box trucks, without cages to be faster.

However, care would be needed later when putting dogs into the animal enclosure to prevent them from escaping.

One sheep doesn't have much meat, and with a large group of about twenty or thirty dogs, each would only get a few mouthfuls at most.

The Snow Leopard hid at a distance on the opposite mountain, finding a place easy to defend and hard to attack, watching the dogs frantically snatch meat at the foot of the mountain.

Several dogs were almost done for, unable to compete with their stronger companions, whimpered as if they wouldn't survive this winter.

These stray dogs more or less had injuries or illnesses; after all, the highlands are different from flatland cities. There's not much edible garbage, and they have to fight wild animals for food and even deal with interspecies combat.

Sometimes, death is a relief.

The locals don't kill dogs; even if they don't like them, they wouldn't kill easily, leaving it uncertain whether it's good or bad for these strays.

A few minutes later, more than half of the dogs had collapsed.

Most of the remaining dogs holding on were weak ones that hadn't snatched much meat.

The fall of their companions frightened them, and they whimpered wanting to escape, but even if they ate little, they still had eaten some, stumbling after a few steps, and eventually lay down helplessly while howling.

Chen Ying and his team quickly rushed over, cautiously using hiking poles and riot forks to test, ensuring the dogs were too exhausted to resist before rapidly loading them onto vehicles.

Those they couldn't fit were tied with ropes to prevent them from running off, awaiting the Protection Station's vehicles for support.

The vultures that failed to snatch meat stood stupefied at the side, witnessing the "conspiracy" against the stray dogs from beginning to end, and after Chen Ying and the others appeared and took the dogs away, they scattered in all directions, loudly croaking "eat meat, eat meat," unclear whether they wanted the meat or thought Chen Ying and the team would eat the dog meat.

The Protection Station's support arrived quickly, and two modified box trucks took away the remaining dogs.

The rescue station definitely couldn't accommodate so many dogs; too high a density could lead to accidents.

Yin Li decisively took the two truckloads of dogs to the Protection Station instead.

There, an empty tin warehouse was reinforced with an extra door, and an outside iron bar grid gate was modified, basically meeting the temporary living needs of these dogs.

Chen Ying and his team first performed surgeries at the rescue station, then went to the Protection Station to continue.

Moreover, the already pregnant female dogs could only be housed at the rescue station; arrangements would be made after the puppies were born.

There are many public service projects for sterilizing stray dogs, and local organizations are vigorously pushing this effort.