Another solid defence in our lab happened on Sept 9. Calen defended his thesis on the road ecology of snakes in fine order. External on the exam was Dr. James Baxter-Gilbert from Mount Allison University. It was a great defence with lots of interesting discussion.

Calen’s thesis represents the culmination of nearly 11 years of uninterrupted road ecology work in the White Lake Basin by our lab. He incorporated the historical data from the theses of Stephanie Winton (2018) and Jade Spruyt (2024), while adding on his own data on road kill rates, demography, and the behavioural ecology of The Big Three (rattlesnakes, gophersnakes, and racers). Congrats Calen.

Our team did exceptionally well in the recent 2025 student award competition by the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund (HCTF) of British Columbia. Hauling in major graduate awards were Shannon (fishers) and Larisa (bighorn sheep) from our lab. Three other MSc students from TRU also captured these awards, giving TRU the majority of the HCTF graduate awards. On top of that, Robin (bighorn sheep) of our research group took home one of the prestigious undergraduate awards. All told, a pretty darn good showing. Read about it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOhKblJjDEs/

The ‘mammal people’ in our lab journeyed to Lillehammer, Norway, for the International Wildlife Congress. Kara (mice/voles), Larisa (bighorn sheep), Shannon and Mae (both fishers) all delivered oral presentations on their work. Karl also chipped in a paper on rattlesnakes. It was a great trip as the Norwegians know how to host a fine conference.

During the course of her trapping last summer, Kara encountered the Columbia Pocket Mouse (formerly the Great Basin Pocket Mouse) just outside of Kamloops. This particular species has not been seen in this region since the mid-1900s. Kara published a note on her ‘discovery’: read about it here! => https://wwjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/03/Atkinson_Larsen_WW_2025.pdf

Kara was recently interviewed by CBC Radio on her re-discovery of the Columbian Pocket Mouse in the Thompson Valley, over 70 years since it was first recorded.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-108-daybreak-kamloops/clip/16127755-rare-pocket-mouse-found-far-beyond-its-usual

Dr. Jean-Jay Mao, Assistant Professor from National Ilan University in Taiwan, visited our White Lake study site this week. Jean-Jay studies snakes in Taiwan, so he took the opportunity to go out and see our BC species. Summer techs Jenna and Robin were there to show him around in the 40 C heat, but thanks to our telemetered animals, Jean-Jay was able to get some sightings in.

Number 27

In September we conducted our 27th consecutive year of small mammal live-trapping at our three long-term study blocks. This work largely is powered by the senior undergraduate students in the Natural Resource Science program. This year, however, Kara from our lab played a leader role in coordination, and used the opportunity to put out radio-collars as part of her research on deer mice and voles. Afterwards there was a combination pancake breakfast – trap bleaching session at Karl’s house.
Lot’sa fun.

Two big accomplishments in the lab to report: On September 27, 2023, Chloe defended her thesis on “Western Rattlesnake Migration and Habitat Use in British Columbia, Canada”. One of her chapters already appears in print (see Can. J. Zool. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjz-2022-0173). Also on the rattlesnake front, Veronica took top prize for student presentations (15-minute category) at the 2023 Canadian Herpetological Society annual meeting in Ottawa. Her talk was entitled “Intra- and interspecific hibernation site selection of three sympatric snake species”. Congrats to both of them for helping keep rattlesnakes at the forefront 🙂

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.