He had one — no, two.
Or maybe just a pair of racoons. They tend to travel in groups.
Christopher Hickling headed for the two traps set off a winding backroad in Charlestown. Sub-freezing temperatures had held the New Year’s Day snowfall to the ground, and the wind chill pushed the thermometer down further, but a pink streak on the horizon promised a sunny day. Hickling, a natural resources science graduate student at the University of Rhode Island, had been driving around since 7:30 a.m. with an antenna slapped on the roof of “Pothole,” the university’s Toyota Tacoma, its wire threaded through the driver’s side window into the radio, listening for the beeps signaling that a curious animal had tripped a cage door shut…