Marmot baby boom buoys release efforts

Sandra McCulloch
Times Colonist
July 7, 2005

The birth of 44 Vancouver Island marmots this year in captive-breeding centres across the country has the man in charge of monitoring the endangered species over the moon with joy, calling it "fabulous" and "really exciting news."

The baby boom could continue, with more captive marmots and 22 living in the wild expected to add more pups to the mix, said Robert Huber, executive director of the Marmot Recovery Foundation.

"Forty-four is the current count and we're expecting more, but how many more, of course, we don't know," said Huber in a telephone interview from his Vancouver office.

The species' numbers sunk to near 30 at one point. Now, the future looks much brighter for the brown, furry members of the squirrel family. A current population of 133 animals is thriving, including the 22 in the wild.

Vancouver Island marmots faced extinction in the 1990s after clearcut logging lured them out of their natural habitat of alpine meadows. The exposure in the clearcuts made the marmots easy prey for predators.

In a bid to save the species, marmot researchers and scientists trapped adults and lodged them in captive-breeding centres at Mount Washington, Mountain View Farm in Langley, the Calgary Zoo and the Toronto Zoo.

The total number of pups born is not clear until the young emerge from their nest boxes at the captive-breeding centres or their burrows in the wild.

Researchers were happy this year to see 19 captive-bred pups appear so far from nest boxes at Mount Washington, 12 pups from Toronto and 13 from Mount View.

This year's pup count surpasses last year's efforts by 28 animals.

"It will enable us to release a higher number of marmots back into the world quicker than we anticipated," said Huber.

Today, seven yearlings are to be released at Haley Lake, west of Nanaimo. The greatest threat to their survival are predators such as cougars and hawks, who view the house-cat-sized critters as a tasty meal.

Human "shepherds" at Haley Lake will try to chase off predators, said Huber. At other sites, low-voltage electric fencing and colourful flags are used to scare off the hungry.

While no young marmots have been spotted in the wild, the females hovering near their burrows are hints that there might be young inside, Huber said. There's normally a lapse of a month to six weeks between captive-breeding births and those in the wild.

There's a cost to saving a species from extinction, this year totalling $600,000. Some of the money comes from forestry companies, while the B.C. taxpayer is kicking in $47,000, and a government loan to build the Mount Washington facility has been forgiven. About $11,000 has been received in the last year from donors.

Saving the Island's marmots from extinction is worth the cost and effort, Huber said.

"By taking care of the marmots we're demonstrating a commitment to saving a species. It's part of the Canadian culture to want to do that. It's very strong element in Canadian society."