A TRU graduate student researcher will be featured on Episode 1 of the Knowledge Network’s “The Leading Edge: Innovation in BC VI,” which features the work of BC researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, highlighting their challenging research projects and discoveries.
Episode 1, which premieres on Monday, January 28 at 7 p.m., will feature as one of three vignettes TRU Master of Science in Environmental Science student Richard Klafki in “A study of badger populations in BC’s Cariboo region.”
Female badger
R.Klafki photo
Klafki, who holds a prestigious graduate scholarship from Canada’s premier science and engineering granting agency, NSERC, has been working in partnership with Ministry of Environment biologist, Roger Packham, on Ministry of Transportation-funded research to contribute to the recovery of self-sustaining populations of the badger subspecies jeffersonii, a mid-size carnivore currently considered endangered, with less than 300 surviving in Canada: all in British Columbia.
“They must have got some amazing footage,” explained Klafki, who has been conducting research with Packham around 100 Mile House in BC’s Cariboo region, where the show was filmed.
“The area around 100 Mile House has the last relatively abundant population of badgers in the province,” said Klafki, adding that the film crew was able to get good shots of a day-roving badger (the species is typically nocturnal) and also some aerial shots from the plane in which the researchers conduct aerial telemetry.
For the first time in North America, VHF radio-telemetry will be used to gather detailed movement patterns of badgers. The data will also identify habitat requirements and core use areas, enabling Klafki and Packham to document travel corridors that may be critical in linking important habitat features and core use areas.
“We hope that the data we collect will help government engineers to figure out what road-engineering characteristics influence badger movements, and to develop engineering solutions like drift fences and dry culverts to minimize roadkill, since evidence from previous research has shown that vehicles appear to be a major source of mortality for badgers in BC,” said Klafki, who participated in a badger recovery program near his hometown of Golden, BC, from 1999 to 2004, and has also conducted research on wolverines and fishers.
The show will also be aired January 30 and February 1 at 1:30 pm, and at 11 pm on February 3.
Contact:
- Richard Klafki at 250-371-5905 or email: Richard-klafki@mytru.ca
- Alayne Campbell, Communications Officer Knowledge Network, at 604-431-3224 or email: alaynec@knowledgenetwork.ca
