{"id":70149,"date":"2016-09-30T23:15:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-01T05:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/reported-sightings-but-no-solid-leads-on-missing-llamas\/"},"modified":"2016-10-01T05:15:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-01T05:15:45","slug":"reported-sightings-but-no-solid-leads-on-missing-llamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/reported-sightings-but-no-solid-leads-on-missing-llamas\/","title":{"rendered":"Reported sightings, but no solid leads on missing llamas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:031d0109-d1ed-4b34-97ec-e9c4c68cc2d5 --><\/p>\n<p>The search for two missing llamas \u2013 aka Chai and Dawson \u2013 has included sporadic sightings and insightful intuitions of their wanderings, but nothing that has proved fruitful in the 1\u00bd-month pursuit of the furry pack animals.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent \u201csighting\u201d was earlier this week near Tacoma Village, at least 20 miles west of Chai\u2019s and Dawson\u2019s last-known location in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fs.usda.gov\/recarea\/sanjuan\/recarea\/%3Frecid%3D81032\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Weminuche Wilderness<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Stegemoeller of Durango said he was working in the Tacoma area when a solid white llama meandered into his work area. It had a halter and lead rope.<\/p>\n<p>But Dawson, 14, is brown, and Chai, 12 or 13, is mostly black with white patches. Not a match for either of the two llamas on the lam from the Vallecito area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you get any reports of someone missing one, there\u2019s one wandering around in Tacoma Village,\u201d Stegemoeller said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Chai and Dawson were abandoned Aug. 14 by their handlers, Ronda Ramsier and Carol Powell, who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/article\/20160822\/NEWS01\/160829928\/\">spent two cold nights lost<\/a> above 11,000 feet in elevation and needed to be rescued by the U.S. military, which used a helicopter in the dark of night to pluck them from the wilderness and ferry them to safety.<\/p>\n<p>The women set the llamas free so they could fend for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Ramsier and her husband, Jack McGroder, have made four multi-day trips into the wilderness to try to locate and rescue the shy ungulates. At one point, McGroder was close enough to toss a rope around Dawson\u2019s neck, but the escape artist slipped through his lasso and scurried up a steep slope, eluding capture.<\/p>\n<p>A small plane flew the area Wednesday, but the aerial search turned up no sign of llamas \u2013 only cattle grazing in the high country, Ramsier said.<\/p>\n<p>She and her husband plan to venture back into the wilderness Saturday through Monday for a fifth search-and-rescue attempt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel best when I\u2019m out there looking,\u201d Ramsier said. \u201cI love being up there, and it helps my stress level a lot just to be doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Llamas survive on bark, pine needles and certain kinds of vegetation. They don\u2019t need much water, and can lick the dew off the leaves. The biggest threat they face is predators and the approaching winter, which will bring heavy snowfall to those elevations.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone with a sighting or information of Chai\u2019s and Dawson\u2019s whereabouts can call Ramsier at 759-3552.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:shane@durangoherald.com\">shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dawson missing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[382,13,29,1924],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-70149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animal","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-newsletter","tag-weminuche-wilderness"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70149"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=70149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}