MRF personnel released more than 40 marmots into the Nanaimo Lakes area over the past two weeks, including these two additions on Tuesday, July 9 (Marmot Recovery Foundation)

By Ian Holmes

gaining traction

‘I really look forward to the day where we put ourselves out of business:’ new releases boosts marmot population

Jul 14, 2024 | 6:56 AM

NANAIMO — Rebuilding the endangered Vancouver Island marmot received a boost with about 60 of the herbivores strategically released into the wild lately.

Nanaimo based Marmot Recovery Foundation (MRF) executive director Adam Taylor anticipates a further eight more pups will be placed into sub-alpine environments shortly from breeding programs, with the hopes they’ll get established, find mates and reproduce.

With well over 300 marmots living primarily between the Nanaimo Lakes/Mount Arrowsmith and Strathcona Park areas, Taylor said the Green Mountain area west of Nanaimo is a success story.

“The difference in the marmot colony has been spectacular. Now we’re up to 13 marmots at that site and that’s something that we’ve been seeing at some of the other sites on the ridgeline as well,” Taylor told NanaimoNewsNOW.

The ridgeline is a key home base for marmots in mountainous, meadowed terrain stretching from west of Nanaimo to a burgeoning colony at Mount Arrowsmith, where marmots are doing “very well”, Taylor stated excitedly.

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MRF staff prepare to release Haley into the Nanaimo Lakes area on Tuesday, July 9. (Marmot Recovery Foundation)

A lone marmot lived at Green Mountain in 2020, while only 22 of the entire species exclusive to Vancouver Island was recorded in 2003 as the animals flirted dangerously close to extinction.

Taylor pointed to restoration efforts such as removing certain small trees to allow subalpine burrows to remain intact for winter hibernation.

Another effective intervention measure, Taylor said, has been trapping and relocating marmots.

Several marmots are in the process of being moved away from the ski resort area of Mount Washington, which serves as a soft-landing between a breeding environment to something more closely resembling their natural habitat.

A remote section of Strathcona Park is eyed as a new home for some of the curious creatures who won’t be scurrying around chair lifts much longer.

“We’re hoping to put a few marmots in there, get that colony going again and then that will hopefully facilitate even more movement from marmots around the park between those different pockets of habitat and that connectivity for the marmots is really, really important,” Taylor said.

MRF field staff reported a favourable 85 per cent survival rate this year, which was feared would be lower with a low snowpack potentially forcing marmots to over-extend themselves to moderate their body temperatures.

Taylor is confident they’ve laid a foundation for the Vancouver Island marmot population to sustain itself on their own.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished, and I really think there’s a future for the marmots and I’m really looking forward to the day where we put ourselves out of business.”

Seventy-five percent of MRF funding comes from public donations, which can be made here.

A wealth of information on the Vancouver Island marmot is available at the MRF website.

Join the conversation. Submit your letter to NanaimoNewsNOW and be included on The Water Cooler, our letters to the editor feature.

Ian.holmes@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes