The Decline and Recovery of the Vancouver Island Marmots

This was my essay -- that I wanted to share -- on the Vancouver Island Marmot species for my biodiversity class (EEB215H Fall 2019 at UofT - St. George). I'm not going to include any images of the marmot (due to copyright) but it looks really similar to a beaver! Overall, I enjoyed this class and will deeply miss it. I already dread the start of my winter term. My fall term overall was amazing.

Introduction

One of Canada’s most critically endangered mammal species is the Vancouver Island Marmot (Marmota vancouverensis) according to the IUCN Red List assessment (IUCN 2017). The Vancouver Island marmot is the largest of the marmot family, who is about the size of a large house cat (Nature Canada 2019). They are easily differentiated from other members of the marmot family due to their darker chocolate brown coat and irregular white patches found on their snouts and chests (Nature Canada 2019). They are herbivores who eat up to 30 different species of food plants, such as oatgrass (Danthonia intermedia) and sedges (Carex spp.) in the early spring and forbs such as lupins (Lupinus latifolius) in the late summer (Martell and Milko 1986).

Vancouver Island marmots are ground-dwelling squirrels that are endemic to Vancouver Island in British Columbia as a result of increased sea levels from the end of the last glacial period (Cardini, Thorington Jr, and Polly 2007). They make burrows to hide from predators, use for shelter, to hibernate, and to raise their pups. They hibernate on average 210 days a year from late September to early October to late April or early May if they are wild; marmots in captivity hibernate for much shorter periods of time (Bryant and McAdie 2003). Vancouver Island marmots only roam the sub-alpine meadows of the Nanaimo lakes region (Nature Canada 2019) and Mount Washington (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019a), making their geographical range small. They are also social beings who live in family groups of up to 7 (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019a; Nature Canada 2019). Unfortunately, Vancouver Island marmots are critically endangered because of habit loss as a result of human activities (Cardini, Thorington Jr., and Polly 2007). Therefore, it is the responsibility of humans to protect the Vancouver Island marmots since they are the main drivers of the decrease in marmot population. These marmots are one of the few endemic species left in Canada and one of the rarest mammals of the world.

Threats

Historically, the marmots lived in a much larger geographical range on Vancouver Island than they do today (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b). Since the 1980s, there has been a decline in the Vancouver Island population, which continued to rapidly decline in the 1990s (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b). Most of the remaining population consisted of only 70 marmots, which were found in a small area east of the Nanaimo Lakes and on Mount Washington (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b). However, not much is known on what exactly caused the marmots to disappear from their historical range (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b). What’s even more alarming is that majority of these marmots disappeared from major protected areas such as the Strathcona Provincial Park (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b).

However, one can speculate that the major threat towards Vancouver Island marmots are the human activities that impact their habitats. Since marmots live in the sub-alpine meadows, they tend to seek out places that resemble their native habitat. Forests that were deforested tend to resemble these meadows due to the abundance of open space, which causes the marmots to scatter in geographical range, going beyond their native range. However, due to the impacts of global warming on the earth, some parts of Vancouver Island experience warmer climates as a result. This allows for forests to overgrow current native marmot habitats and allows climate-induced trees to invade into the deforested areas (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019c). This makes the region more dangerous to marmots have more restriction in their environment, and they would become more prone to predators.

In 2017, there were only 90 Vancouver Island marmots left in the world (IUCN 2017), which makes each marmot represent more than one percent of its remaining population. Since the marmot population is small, they cannot sustain their population against predators. According to the Marmot Recovery Foundation (2019b), biologists made observations in the south region of Vancouver Island and reported that predation was the most significant cause of mortality for the marmots due to their small numbers. Predators such as wolves (Canis lupus), coyotes (Felis concolor), and golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) caused the population to decline by 80% in the mid 1990s to mid 2000s (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b). These predators were capable of driving the marmot population to extinction. With the dynamics between predator and prey changing over time because of constraints in island geography as a result of landscape changes on the island, this led to many times more predators than there are prey (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b). This resulted in additional pressures on the marmot population despite not being a primary food source for these predators (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019b).

Conservation Efforts

There have been a few conservation efforts taking place in the past few decades to prevent the extinction of the Vancouver Island marmots. The Marmot Recovery Foundation organized a field crew to put the marmots under constant surveillance in order to prevent predators from attacking them (Casselman 2018). To promote mating between marmots in captivity, they starved marmots to trigger hibernation, since males and females that hibernate together tend to produce offspring together (Casselman 2018). To promote successful re-introduction into the wild, they make captive-born marmots spend a year with a wild marmot colony in Mount Washington in order for them to learn skills such as interacting with the colony and plugging their hibernation burrows successfully (Casselman 2018). In 2003, the government and forest industry set up Vancouver Island marmot protected zones around Haley Lake and Green Mountain (Gibson 2003). These zones have many mechanisms in place that protects the marmots and their habitats from experiencing habitat loss from activities such as development (Gibson 2003).

Many zoos are also participating in the conservation of Vancouver Island marmots. For example, the Calgary zoo works to increase the population numbers through raising marmots in captivity for breeding, and then releasing them into a suitable environment in the wild (Calgary Zoo 2007). Marmots are typically released when they are older than 2 years old. Studies show that marmots that were released when they were 2 years old or older had higher rates of successfully surviving in these new environments than marmots that were released as yearlings (Aaltonen, Bryant, Hostetler, and Oli 2009). Since predation is considered a threat towards the marmot population due to its small numbers, increasing the population through captive-breeding programs would allow for predation to occur without driving the marmots to extinction (Aaltonen, Bryant, Hostetler, and Oli 2009). This captive-breeding program has been shown to be highly successful as it aids in the growing population size and it has no negative impacts on the behaviour, survivability, and reproductive rates of captive-born Vancouver Island marmots (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019c). When captive-born marmots establish themselves in the wild, they are able to survive through many wild hibernations just like other wild-born marmots (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019c).

Challenges

One challenge to conservation efforts of the Vancouver Island marmots is the lack of local support. Since these marmots are endemic to Vancouver Island and only thrive in sub-alpine habitats that are found in this island, conservationists have to find areas that enable them to provide protection for these endemic marmots to ensure their successful population growth and population maintenance. However, protected areas tend to be designed without the inclusion of local communities (Dasgupta 2016). Like animals, humans need a space for living as well. Pursuing such conservation plans without the consent and support of the local communities in those areas will result in a competition for space between the human population and the animal population. As a result, conservationists could lose money, fail conservation targets, and delay conservation projects (Dasgupta 2016). It can also lead to other negative consequences such as increasing hostility from locals towards conservation groups in general (Muhumuza and Balkwill 2013), which could result in illegal hunting of these endangered species.

Another challenge to conservation efforts is the lack of funding (Dasgupta 2016). Because the Vancouver Island Marmots do not have a key role in their ecosystems, potential investors may not understand the importance of putting money and effort into the conservation of these species. Unlike conservation biologists that believe that every organism has intrinsic value, there are other people who do not believe that it is important to put effort into conserving a species that does not provide direct benefits to humans such as ecosystem services. Thus, conservation biologists, policymakers, and other involved parties must come to a collective agreement in order to get the necessary amount of funds for a successful conservation plan.

Future

What might hinder the sustainability of the Vancouver Island marmot population is global warming. Each decade, surface temperatures have been rising by 0.2 °C per decade. By 2100, it is expected that earth will reach a global temperature of 2 °C (Climate Analytics 2015), which is not good for Vancouver Island marmots. Increasing global temperatures will decrease the hibernation period of the marmots due to the shorter and warmer winters. Also, there will be insufficient food available for the marmots to eat when they come out of their hibernation period since some of their food plants do not grow during their hibernation, leading to starvation and death in the marmot population. Also, increasing global temperatures would worsen the climate-induced tree invasion (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019) that is happening in the clear-cut forests that the marmots colonized (it resembles the open sub-alpine meadows), making it easier for predators to slaughter them as a result (Casselman 2018).

However, the Vancouver Island marmot population is expected to increase steadily over the next few decades due to the various conservation efforts in place. Back in 2003, there were only 20 marmots in the wild population (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019c). In 2018, there were 150-200 marmots in the wild (Casselman 2018). In the middle of 2019, there was about 200 marmots in the wild (Hunt 2019). Every year, the wild marmot population produces up to 50 marmot pups (Casselman 2018), which shows the success of the conservation efforts of organizations such as the Marmot Recovery Foundation and partnering zoos. Regarding the climate-induced tree invasions, it has been found that marmots can successfully colonize man-made habitats (Marmot Recovery Foundation 2019c), meaning the problem can be mitigated by either re-establishing the colonies in areas that will not be impacted by climate change, or physically removing the trees that spawn. Since the Vancouver Island marmot population has successfully re-established in their native and introduced habitats, these organizations are now working to develop methods to help the marmots achieve a stable population that is sustainable on their own (Casselman 2018). They are working towards the day when their conservation efforts are no longer needed for the Vancouver Island marmots.

References

Aaltonen, K., A. A. Bryant, J. A. Hostetler, and M. K. Oli. 2009. Reintroducing endangered Vancouver Island marmots: survival and cause-specific mortality rates of captive-born versus wild-born individuals. Biological Conservation 142: 2181-2190.

Brashares, J. S., J. R. Werner, and A. R. E. Sinclair. 2010. Social ‘meltdown’ in the demise of an island endemic: Allee effects and the Vancouver Island marmot. Journal of Animal Ecology 79: 965-973.

Bryant, A. A. and M. McAdie. 2003. “Hibernation ecology of wild and captive Vancouver Island marmots (Marmota vancouverensis)”. In R. Ramousse, D. Allaine, and M. Le Berre (2003) Adaptive Strategies and Diversity in Marmots. Lyon, France: International Marmot Network. pp. 159-166.

Calgary Zoo. 2017. Vancouver Island marmot conservation breeding. http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/edu/ViewLoitLo.do%3Bjsessionid=A0CC689AF519B2734713D88EC09E5E45?method=preview&lang=EN&id=23771

Cardini, A., R. W. Thorington Jr, and P. D. Polly. 2007. Evolutionary acceleration in the most endangered mammal of Canada: speciation and divergence in the Vancouver Island marmot (Rodentia, Sciuridae). Journal of Evolutionary Biology 20: 1833-1846.

Casselman, A. 2018. How Canada’s most endangered mammal was saved. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/vancouver-island-marmots-endangered-extinction-news/

Climate Analytics. 2015. Global warming reaches 1°C above preindustrial, warmest in more than 11,000 years. https://climateanalytics.org/briefings/global-warming-reaches-1c-above-preindustrial-warmest-in-more-than-11000-years/

Dasgupta, S. 2016. 5 reasons why many conservation efforts fail. https://news.mongabay.com/2016/03/5-reasons-why-many-conservation-efforts-fail/

Gibson, R. 2003. Why save the Vancouver Island marmots? http://www.rickgibson.ca/the-marmot/issues/summer-fall-2003/why-save-the-vancouver-island-marmots/

Hunt, S. 2019. The Calgary Zoo welcomes five baby Vancouver Island marmot pups. https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/the-calgary-zoo-welcomes-five-baby-vancouver-island-marmot-pups-1.4523835

IUCN Red List. 2017. Vancouver Island marmot. https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/12828/22259184

Marmot Recovery Foundation. 2019a. Animal profile. https://marmots.org/about-marmots/animal-profile/

Marmot Recovery Foundation. 2019b. History & decline. https://marmots.org/about-marmots/history-decline/

Marmot Recovery Foundation. 2019c. Recovery strategy. https://marmots.org/recovery-efforts/recovery-strategy/

Martell, A.M., and R.J. Milko. 1986. Seasonal diets of Vancouver Island marmots. Canada Field-Naturalist. 100: 241-245.

Muhumuza, M., and K. Balkwill. 2013. Factors affecting the success of conserving biodiversity in national parks: a review of case studies from Africa. International Journal of Biodiversity 2013: 1-20.

Nature Canada. 2019. Vancouver Island marmot. https://naturecanada.ca/discover-nature/endangered-species/vancouver-island-marmot/

University of Victoria. 2019. Vancouver Island marmot. http://www.geog.uvic.ca/viwilds/iw-marmot.html