Following all provincial health orders, SILT volunteers worked on Saturday at the R.E. Taylor Conservation property to perform reclamation work on the land where safety improvements were made to the access onto the property and also where we recently constructed a winter den for snakes.

Pictured from left to right in the photo above are Danielle Chapman (Director); Judie Steeves (President); John MacMillan; Al Peatt (Executive Director); Luke Chutter; Gord Wilson (Sec / Treasurer).

This property was purchased by SILT with a substantive contribution from the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF), which also provided funds toward this project and other important management activities on the property. SILT appreciates and thanks all the hunters, anglers, trappers, and guide-outfitters of BC that contribute to the HCTF through their licence fees, and the many people that appreciate wildlife and donate directly to the Southern Interior Land Trust.

Earlier this week, Brad Siemens (of Grand Forks Wildlife Association and WSSBC) encountered a badger (SARA Endangered) just inside of the SILT-owned DL 492, a few tens of meters from the eastern boundary of Lot A DL493 that SILT is currently fundraising to purchase.

Badgers are carnivorous mammals that live in the grasslands and dry forests of the interior of British Columbia. Even though we live with badgers, not many people are fortunate enough to see one because badgers generally move around at night and are secretive by nature.

Badgers are endangered in British Columbia and it is believed that probably less than 350 badgers live here now. The grasslands and dry forests of the Thompson, Okanagan, Boundary, Nicola, Cariboo, and East Kootenay regions are home to most of the remaining badgers in BC.

Habitat loss, through housing developments and intensive agriculture, and deaths caused by road mortality, shooting, and poisoning are contributors to the decline of badger populations in BC.