Vancouver Island Marmot vs The World

The Vancouver Island Marmot is one of only 5 solely Canadian endemic species and it is critically endangered. While captive breeding programs over the course of the last 3 decades has helped their numbers grow, their presence in the wild does not. Research on the cause of death of reintroduced Marmots have shown that their most prominent threat to reintroduction in the wild is predation. Cougars, Gray Wolves, and Golden Eagles have been noted as the top predators against Marmots within this research. Previous work on modeling suitable regions for the species had been conducted yet, their limitations typically cited lack of predator modeling which we aimed to rectify with this research. As such, our project seeks to build on past GIS projects to map Marmot suitability by conducting suitability MCEs for each of the 3 predators in order for future researchers to use the data in deciding where Vancouver Island Marmots should NOT be introduced. Each predator specific MCE is then combined to see which regions exhibit high risks for predation on the Vancouver Island Marmot between all predators.  Our analysis alone is not enough to state where Marmots should be reintroduced into the wild but, can be used in conjunction with other Vancouver Island Marmot specific MCEs.