Comox Valley Naturalists Society

Sunday, February 16, 2003
David Nagorsen
Mammoths to Marmots

From mammoths to marmots, the history of Vancouver Island mammals was featured at the meeting of the Comox Valley Naturalists Society, by guest speaker David Nagorsen on Sunday February 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Filberg Seniors Lounge, 411 Anderton Ave. in Courtenay.

Despite its large size, Vancouver Island supports only half the mammals found on the mainland coast of southern British Columbia. Nagorsen will explore questions such as how and when these mammals reached the island and why so many mainland mammals are missing from the island.

ñI will then go back in time, reviewing what is known about the mammals that lived on Vancouver Island, before and after the last ice-age, and their possible survival in ice-free refugia during the last glaciation,î said Nagorsen. ñI will present some remarkable new cave bone discoveries from northern Vancouver Island including 16,000 year old marmot bones from a sea cave at Port Eliza, and 12,000 year old mountain goat bones from the Nimpkish Valley. Ancient cave bones of the endangered Vancouver Island Marmot will be used to explore the possible impacts of past environmental changes on this endangered mammal. I will finish up with a look at the future speculating on the possible impacts of urban growth, introduced mammals, and global warming on the island's native mammals.î

Dave Nagorsen holds a B. Sc. degree from the University of Guelph, and a M.Sc. degree in Zoology from the University of Toronto. He was curatorial assistant in the Mammalogy Department of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for ten years, and mammal curator at the Royal British Columbia Museum for 20 years. Currently Dave is self-employed as a biological consultant and is a Departmental Associate at the Royal Ontario Museum in the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology.

Nagorsen has studied a variety of BC mammals and has written two handbooks in the new series on BC mammals- Bats of BC, Opossums, Shrews, and Moles of BC, and is now working on Rodents and Lagomorphs of BC, volume 4 in the series. He is involved with a number of conservation initiatives including the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Team, and the Terrestrial Mammals Specialist Group for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

Click on a link below to view descriptions of previous guest speakers.