About 100,000 years ago, this cute little cute that looks like a "live-action version" of a relaxed bear came to Vancouver Island in Canada; by 1910, they were discovered and officially named, and their footprints on the earth were limited to this small island; since the 1990s, people have found that their numbers have begun to decline sharply; by 2003, there are only 21 wild individuals left on the island!
When people, including Joel Sartore, a photographer at National Geographic and founder of Image Ark, thought that the animal had been labeled "extinct", this group of cute little cuties, with the help of scientists, survived the brink of extinction, which is one of the rarest mammals in the world , the Vancouver Island marmot.
Vancouver Island marmot
Nickname: Vancouver Island groundhog
Order: Rodentia
Family: Squirrel family Sciuridae
Genus: Marmota
Listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature 's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
We've all seen marmot emojis, and Vancouver Island marmots are also part of the marmot family, and they also stand on their hind limbs and "howl" with their small hands. Unlike other marmots, the hairs around their mouths and noses are white, and they also have distinct white hairs on their foreheads and chests, which are distinctive.
Vancouver Island marmot distribution site
Vancouver Island marmots are about the size of domestic cats, with adult males measuring 65–70 cm in length (head and tail) and weighing up to 7 kg during the "stickers" preparing for hibernation; adult female Vancouver Island marmots can weigh up to 5.5 kg. They inhabit small areas of subalpine and alpine meadows facing south and west of Vancouver Island (usually at altitudes of more than 1,000 meters). Vancouver Island marmots are herbivorous animals that burrow in these meadow areas, make nests out of hay, and live as families.
Why did the marmot population on Vancouver Island decline so rapidly from the end of the last century to the beginning of this century?
Scientists pointed out that this is caused by many reasons ↓ One is global climate change, climate changes have caused the habitat of marmots to change dramatically, the snow line has risen, alpine meadows have decreased, etc., the habitat of marmots is getting smaller and smaller; the second is the hunting of other animals. Vancouver Island is small, resources are small, marmots have become eagles, mountain lions, wolves on the plate, according to scientists, in the period from 1995 to 2005, hunted to death accounted for 80% of the causes of death of marmots on Vancouver Island; the third is man-made activities. The deforestation, tourism development and the expansion of human activities on the island have all affected the living environment of marmots. Because they live on a population basis, these changes have led to smaller and more dispersed marmot populations, making it more difficult to reproduce.
Recently, scientists set up field cameras to photograph small marmots "fighting"
To keep this adorable species from disappearing from the planet, a group of scientists and volunteers founded the Marmot Recovery Foundation Marmot Recovery Foundation as early as 1999 and have been working on the study and conservation of marmots on Vancouver Island for so many years.
Foundation website
Because the odds of extinction in the wild were too great, they were the first to adopt captive breeding programs — captive breeding of marmots at four facilities— the Calgary Zoo, the Toronto Zoo, the Mountain View Conservation Centre in Langley, Vancouver, and the Tony Barrett Marmot Recovery Centre on Mount Washington, Vancouver Island. Between 1997 and 2004, 56 marmots were kept in captivity. However, during this period, the effect of wild release was not ideal - the number of marmots in the wild was small, it was difficult to "live independently and strongly", and a certain number of families were needed to form a family and survive together.
Scientists prepare the equipment
The scientists did not give up, they have adopted a variety of methods, including captive breeding and release in parallel, the establishment of 24-hour artificial field monitoring stations... With the uninterrupted efforts of people, the wild population of Marmots on Vancouver Island has gradually stabilized!
Released from the wild
The first probe back to nature
From 2003 to 2010, the Foundation and the British Columbia Department of the Environment released 308 Vancouver Island marmots back into the wild. The Foundation also recorded changes in marmot populations observed in the wild over the past 16 years↓
Click to see the larger image. Note: Some marmots have "sneaked" out of the data
In 2013, scientists observed 346 individuals in the wild, and the overall number is expected to be around 400, reaching a peak. Still, vancouver island marmots are not out of danger. Even if their number of individuals in the wild is increasing, it is not difficult to find from the graph that in 2014 and 2017, the number of individuals observed in the field has undergone two sharp declines, which scientists believe is the result of both environmental and hunting reasons. Fortunately, by the spring of 2020, the number of wild populations has gradually recovered to about 200, which are distributed in more than 20 habitats on the island.
Population distribution status
At present, the foundation is updating the daily life of this group of "whitebeard" marmots from time to time on its official website, and interested friends can find their links at the end of the article (it may be swallowed by headlines, and their names can be found in search engines).
The latest news was released on August 11, and the foundation said that there was a small-scale wildfire in the woods of the island, and they believe that such a large-scale wildfire will help control the woodland area, enrich geological nutrients, and benefit marmots.
Scientists have marked the ears of the Vancouver Island marmots released in the wild to help document and observe their current state of life. The Foundation encourages people who go hiking on Vancouver Island to take pictures of marmots if they see them, see if they are marked, help scientists leave data about them, and give a small boost to marmot populations.
Anyway, the encyclopedia jun has been cute to, I hope they can be more and more, increasing the earth's "cute concentration".
Official website address: https://marmots.org/
Wen 丨 searched for encyclopedia Jun
The picture is partly from the Marmot Recovery Foundation
Source: Marmot Recovery Foundation, Wikipedia