I think we can all agree that conducting an undercover operation using your own personal boat is not the brightest idea; but then again, Mark is not a trained covert agent. It is from oversights such as this, that the best-made plans fail; or even the worst-made plans. While Mark was chatting up the De-Bait Team crowd and convincing himself that his zebra mussel assignment was practically completed, a different discussion took place at the headquarters of the Duck Duck Goose shipping company.

Somehow, the crew of the cargo ship Mark and Diana investigated recorded the registration of Mark’s boat and passed it on to the head office. The boss, one Mr. Chedderson, didn’t appear to know anything about zebra mussels or Mark Trail, but was clearly upset about Mark’s snooping. Chedderson’s scheming assistant offered one of her assets to help ensure Mark’s report would not get published.

What her plans are will have to wait another week, after we follow up on Cherry’s own covert operation to save some bees from extermination. But now, it’s time for the Sunday Nature chat!

Yes, we see helping the ranger plant trees, Rusty! Now, get back to work and dig more holes!

A very clever title panel today. Bravo, Rivera! Trees must certainly be on everybody’s mind in California. But planting more trees is something we should all be able to get behind, both for their place in the world’s ecosystems and for their valuable material contribution to all of our lives. It would be great to see trees planted on large, unused swaths of land, not only for climate reasons, but to provide more resources for wild life that have been negatively affected by dwindling forests.

As for the ending joke, I think we’d be better off planting politicians in potholes, removing two problems at the same time.