This article was written and published by The Guardian on April 18th and featured the research project of Garry Gregory, an MSc candidate supervised by Mike van den Heuvel (CRI Fellow, UPEI).
Muskrat Motives - Two-year research project to take a good long look at some of the potential factors in P.E.I.’s declining muskrat population.
Depending on your freak-out factor, muskrats are either cute little animals deserving of that 1970s Muskrat Love hit by Captain and Tennille or one step away from a raunchy household rodent. But one thing is for sure, there are far less of them now in P.E.I. marshes than in recent decades past.
In response to this, a two-year research project will be taking a good long look at this semi-aquatic animal both in the lab and in its outdoor habitat to try to determine the cause of this population decline.
“It’s going to be interesting, especially the fieldwork, because it’s going to involve basically going to a marsh around dusk with night vision goggles and staying there for a period of time in the evening, just watching to see what happens,” says Garry Gregory, who is the graduate student in the masters program at Atlantic Veterinary College conducting the study.
It was the PEI Trappers Association that noticed a significant drop in the muskrat population, especially in the Eastern Kings region. “There are not really other monitoring programs in PEI for muskrat populations so they were just recording declining catches so they were a bit concerned and brought it to the attention of wildlife biologists,” says Gregory.
The study, which started in September 2008, is a project of the P.E.I. Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry, the P.E.I. Trappers Association, the Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre and the UPEI departments of biology, pathology and microbiology. It is also funded in part by the Wildlife Conservation Fund. It will combine fieldwork and laboratory work to identify the cause or factors responsible for the decline and hopefully restore the muskrat populations to healthy, sustainable levels. Potential factors may include predation, disease, habitat degradation and water contamination. Trapping isn’t expected to be a factor.
“Muskrats have been very resilient to harvest. Studies (elsewhere) have shown that you have can up to harvest up to 80 per cent (and be sustainable),” Gregory says. “We have (also) data to show that there are less trapped now than there has been in the past for a variety of reasons, such as low pelt prices. And the species has been declining, despite reduced trapper effort.”
Trappers are supplying the carcasses for the first phase of the study that is concentrating on 28 marsh areas on P.E.I. There was some general research done in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the population was still relatively healthy, so there is some data for comparison’s sake. “The carcass analysis in the lab (will determine) the age and the sex of the muskrat so we’re able to determine if there’s any change in the population structure,” Gregory says.
Liver tissue will also be tested to determine if any contaminants, such as pesticides or heavy metals, are present to see if that might be playing a role in the population decline. The fieldwork will be conducted this summer.
“I think the study will give some good background data and maybe hopefully what we’ll find can be incorporated into some management decisions that will help the muskrat populations get back where they should be.”
