A partnership between UNBC, trappers, First Nations and hunters in British Columbia is changing wildlife study by building a province-wide biobank of tissue samples.
The British Columbia Furbearer Project, led by Ecosystem Science and Management Associate Professor Dr. Jamie Gorrell and Glen Cartwright from the BC Trappers Association, creates a growing archive of wildlife tissue samples to support research on animal health, genetics and environmental change.
The university said during the legal harvest season, participating trappers collect a small piece of thigh muscle and a section of pelt with a sampling kit, and is then labelled and logged to a cloud-based database developed by UNBC Computer Science Professor Dr. Waqar Haque and his students.
Following the season, samples are gathered at the annual trapping convention and transported to UNBC, where they are processed and preserved in Gorrell’s lab.
Researchers are able request samples to support evidence-based decision-making around species conservation, environmental resilience and land use planning.
The initiative also provides hands-on learning opportunities for UNBC students.
So far, the project has amassed 3,000 samples from 24 species with help from a three-year grant from the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation.
More detailed information about the project can be found on UNBC’s website here.
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