Reptiles at Risk

Further west...

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on August 14, 2008 at 9:43 AM

We're stil in central BC, heading for Osoyoos in the Okanagan Valley, after finishing our last program in the Kootenay area. We did six programs over four days there, and had good crowds at each. While at the Creston Valley Wildlife Area we also managed to find a Northern Alligator Lizard, one of BC's two remaining lizard species. We hope to catch a glimpse of the other, the Western Skink, sometime soon. The third lizard, the Pygmy Short-horned Lizard, was found in the Osoyoos area a long time ago, but it has been extirpated (wiped out of the local area) for many years.

The Kootenays have been interesting- lots of steep, winding roads, including one 8 km stretch of 8% downhill grade. Our van has a little more power with the new fuel pump, so going uphill is better but still quite a struggle at times. We always get there, but sometimes we're only doing 35 km/h by the top! Downhill is more interesting, as we're always concerned that we might boil our brake fluid again like we did in the Cypress Hills and temporarily lose our brakes. We've also had lots of trouble with our trailer brakes- our brake controller apparently shorted out while we were re-wiring the trailer wiring harness, and we didn't realize it was putting out 12V constantly to the trailer brakes. Of course, this isn't good for the brake magnets! We've now replaced the controller, and replaced two of the four brake units from the trailer axles. Unfortunately, we were only able to purchase two in Creston, so we're hoping to pick up two more and replace them in Osoyoos. Having two of the units working does seem to help, though, on the descents! Removing the old brakes was more challenging than we had thought it would be, but James did an admirable job, with occasional help from the rest of us!

- Jeff