23 July 2015

Vancouver Island Marmot update

I spent the afternoon at the Mt Washington Alpine Center ski place, it was chilly, overcast and foggy; no Marmots. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Talking with the people at the main building, the biologists did a count last week and found more than 200 VI Marmots. They found the remains of two that they think were taken by a Cougar. One sits out on a rock from around 7am till noon in the same area V reported. They said they are most common around the Hawk chairlift which is a short walk from the main chairlift.

They also have a resident American Marten around the buildings at the main chair lift. The guy said he took a bag of trash out and opened the door to the dumpster and “hit the weasel right in the face with it”.

Cheers,

John

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3 Comments

  • 26 July 2015
    cmh78

    Did you see the marmots? That is a mammal I would really like to see!

  • 26 July 2015
    John Fox

    Hey Curtis, I did indeed. Yea! The next morning was sunny and pleasant, it took about 4 hours of walking and scanning but I came around a bend and there it was, sitting on a rock and appearing to be a taxidermy specimen. I swear, in five minutes it never blinked, twitched, scratched, yawned or nothing. Then another guy came along and it scooted off.

    I think it can be found lots of different places there, probably depends on the weather somewhat. And definitely need to go upslope from the buildings.

    A cool bonus is that the ferry wasn’t 10 minutes out of Tsawassen when we had a pod of Orcas, a mammal that had eluded me on all those pelagic trips and sea watches. Yea again!

  • 30 July 2015
    cmh78

    That’s a pretty great trip to Vancouver Island. I’ll have to make it up to see the Marmots the next time I’m there.

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