By Afternoon

At around 2:15 in the afternoon, the veterinarian had already administered the drug with a tranquilizer gun, but the zoo’s vehicle had not yet contained the wolf. The effect of the drug still had to be confirmed first.

In the morning, the wolf entered the woodland from the visitor path. The zoo suspended the admission of new visitors; those already inside were asked to gather in front of the main entrance, or to remain inside buildings such as the cafeteria and shops. The capture team used capture nets to track and drive it into an enclosed area.

Here, joint response did not have a single direction. Places the wolf might pass through had to be avoided by visitors; places the wolf had already entered were still where tracking and encirclement took place for the capture team. Some people stopped, some stayed indoors, while others continued tracking an animal whose position kept changing. The visitor paths, the main entrance, rooms, and woodland were all drawn into the same incident at once, yet they did not form one route along which everyone advanced together. The price of taking shelter was to stop the original zoo visit; the price of encirclement was to keep facing changes in the animal’s position. The safety of the majority had to be obtained precisely by their no longer participating in what came next; yet for the capture team, avoidance could not take the place of searching. Two necessary actions occurred side by side, and neither could complete the other’s work.

This also meant that the afternoon’s dosing no longer looked like a clean full stop. The drug had already entered the wolf’s body, but its effect still had to be confirmed. There was no romance here of an animal defeating order: the drug was already a human intervention, and confirmation was likewise a professional action. That shot did not bring the entire process of the drug’s effect onto the scene all at once; the afternoon still had to continue until the effect could be confirmed.

By afternoon, the effect of the drug was confirmed. The zoo’s vehicle then contained the wolf.