The World Snake Day celebration at our Osoyoos rattlesnake study site (in partnership with the Osoyoos Indian Band) was a great success, thanks to the work of Lindsay and the other snakers on the team (Calen, Erin, and Caroline). Good turnout and a lot of people learnt a lot about snakes.
Wow, I fell way behind on updating the postings to this site. So here’s a few highlights:
Back in March Lily won Best Poster at the Master of Science Showcase at TRU. Good going. That just might be two years in a row that our lab has won the competition (Camille won the previous year!).
Lily also won a prestigious BC Graduate Scholarship!
The first paper from Chloe’s thesis has been published! See Western Rattlesnake spring migration in British Columbia: a comparative study of juveniles and adults. Canadian Journal of Zoology 2023: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjz-2022-0173
At the end of March, no less than 7 members of our lab (Jade, Chloe, Camille, Rory, Alexis, Julien and Kyla) made it to the combined meeting in Victoria of the BC Chapter and Canadian Chapter of the Wildlife Society. Marcus (a lab alumni) also appeared! Everyone presented! The 2024 meeting of the BC Chapter will be right here in Kamloops!
Karl and Veronica appeared in an episode of CBC’s Planet Wonder with host Joanna Wagstaff. The episode was entitled “Do we need to be cold-blooded for our warm future” and it covered, among a number of things, how animals may adapt (or be adapted) to deal with a changing climate. You can watch the 25-minute show by clicking right here.
In May, Karl ticked off #1 on his bucket list by taking a trip to Indonesia to see the magnificent Komodo Dragons.
That’s all for now. I’ll try to stay on top of this better from now on. Pip pip, tally ho.
Thanks to the efforts of Veronica and her artistic partner Jake, the lab has new t-shirts! Hot! Instant classic! Collectors’ item!!!! Click HERE for the promo video on Jake’s TikTok site.
Our lab’s December Holiday Social was well attended in 2022: A couple recent alumni dropped in, and even the Honours Students managed to find time amongst their end-of-semester exams! A superb potluck dinner was created.
Alexa, honours student in our lab, has been profiled for an article in Maclean’s.
In mid-August, Lily presented a poster on her thesis work at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. She entitled it “How does translocation affect the movement and survival of a population of gophersnakes at their northern range limit?”.
In July, members of our lab attended the 4th international Biology of the Pitvipers meeting in Rodeo, New Mexico. Presenting on their work were Chloe, Jade, Veronica, and Matt (Matt has since departed the lab for a position with the Penticton Indian Band). Karl also gave a presentation summarizing the past two-decades of work by the lab on rattlesnakes. Afterwards the group was superbly hosted by Mike and Denise Cardwell at their home in the Sonoran Desert on the outskirts of Tuscon, Arizona. 
Finally! The new BC Reptiles & Amphibians has launched! The website was a long labour of love by members of our lab, plus Devon Martin, a senior student in Computer Sciences. The new site replaces the retired BC Reptiles website and combines it with parallel information on amphibians! This project was a collaborative effort by our TRU group and the BC Ministry of the Environment. Support for the project came from the BC Government’s Conservation Economic Stimulus Initiative. Profiles on all the team members can be found by going to the About Us page on the website – https://bcreptilesandamphibians.trubox.ca/
To celebrate, the team went out for a well-earned dinner. Missing from the photo is
Edyta Marcisz (our GIS expert and map builder) and Leigh Anne Isaac, the Provincial Small Mammal & Herpetofauna Specialist who did so much to make this all happen. Thanks to everyone involved.
Camille and Veronica were successful in receiving BC Graduate Scholarships. Congrats to them both. <click here to read about it!>
