They are known as one of the rarest mammals in the world.
There are only about 300 Vancouver Island marmots living in the wild and they are one of only five endemic species of mammal in Canada.
A program called the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Foundation has been aiming to rehabilitate the species.
“They’re one of the most endangered mammal species in the world, the most endangered mammal species in Canada,” Adam Taylor with the foundation told Global News.
“I think the good news is that if you go back 20 years ago, there were fewer than 30 Vancouver Island marmots left in the wild. So we have been able to get their population to increase through actions like this by releasing Vancouver Island marmots back to the wild and trying to rebuild those colonies.”
The marmots released on Monday were born at the facility on Mount Washington, the Toronto Zoo or the Calgary Zoo.
Taylor said they release the marmots into a nest box with some of their favourite foods and familiar bedding so they can get a sense of home within their wild burrow.
“This is their first opportunity to really experience the wild,” Taylor said.
“They haven’t had wide-open vistas like this before. They haven’t had fresh vegetation. So we want to make sure that there’s something there that we can associate with, something that’s familiar that they’re going to associate with safety so that they know they can come back to that burrow as a safe spot.”
According to the Canadian government, marmots declined due to increased predation.
Taylor said it is important for their survival to be introduced to the wild gradually.
“This is the very first time they’ve really experienced life in the wild,” he added.
“Here at Mount Washington, it’s a really gentle experience. Survival rates are quite high, but it’s still incredible to watch these animals go from having never lived in the wild and we’ll see them eating, sometimes within half an hour or so, they’ll be out of their nest box, exploring the wild environment and then getting to sample the wild vegetation really quickly.”
Taylor said marmots are adaptable, which makes their recovery effort possible.
“It is going to be a learning process for them to learn how to escape from predators, learn how to escape from the sun, how to dig and maintain the burrow that they’re going to hibernate in over winter,” he added.
“So our real goal is to make sure that they survive to that first hibernation, and then that they emerge from that first hibernation. And if we can get the marmots that far, what we find is that the captive-born marmots have pretty much the same success rate as wild marmots do.”
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