Some good news to report for one of the most endangered species in the world. Vancouver Island marmots are making a comeback.
The populations of the Vancouver Island marmot, a high alpine species, crashed through the 80's and 90's thanks to landscape changes that impacted the way the marmots behaved and chose to live. Adam Taylor of the Marmot Recovery Foundation says marmots need open meadows where they have good visual sight lines to warn each other of nearby predators, but climate change has allowed more vegetation growth in the high alpine.
Taylor says captive breeding programs are helping grow the numbers again.
" So over the past 20 years we've been trying to re-establish marmots in their natural habitat up in the high elevation areas, and to reintroduce marmots. They were completely wiped out in Strathcona Park at one point. Today we've got a number of colonies there. And then in their southern locations around Nanaimo Lakes we're trying to rebuild those colonies."
At their lowest point in 2003, we had few than 30 marmots left in the world and today there are about 200. Taylor says that's a sign we are on the right track, but they are still considered endangered and there's still a lot fo work to do to ensure the success of the species. On July 5th five capitve bred marmots will be released on Mt. Washington, with another 9 to be release in the next fews weeks to the Nanaimo Lakes region.