Vancouver Island

The Tony Barrett Mt Washington Marmot Recovery Centre

Built in 2001 within marmot habitat, the Recovery Centre provides a key link in the management and release of captive-born animals prior to their release to other sites in the wild. The Recovery Centre provides disease management by providing the final stage of quarantine in a single species facility and provides logistical flexibility for releasing marmots – that is, allowing the marmots to be acclimated to release conditions with respect to elevation, weather and natural foods. It also allows for the marmots that are to be released to be held back until field conditions are suitable. An important option during the last few years, when many of the release sites were not accessible until well into July because of unusual snow patterns. Therefore, the need for a dedicated marmot facility on Vancouver Island will undoubtedly continue as long as there is a need for intensive captive management of Vancouver Island marmots as currently exists.
https://marmots.org/

One by one, the cages are joined to a removable plywood tunnel that connects to the hutch. If a marmot won’t leave its cage, someone tickles its feet. “They don’t like that very much,” Taylor says. “But some of them are really stubborn and they won’t go in even with the feet tickling. So, you have to take the ultimate irritation measure, which is to blow on their bums … that always seems to convince them.”
Bringing the endangered Vancouver Island marmot back from the brink