The sprinklers are on at Dan’s Farm in Central Saanich to combat drought-like conditions brought on by an unusually warm and dry spring on Southern Vancouver Island.
Rumours are flying that Langford will soon be home to a new Island distribution centre for Amazon. The buzz is that a 13-acre parcel bordered by Sooke and Luxton Roads will be the site for a . . .
Leaving them to drown is not humane, as they take a long time to tire out and die. I know because on occasion I rescue them, tired and tailless, from the dog’s water dish. Wall lizards have been on the Island for more than 50 years, longer than the author and probably most of his readership, yet we don’t try to drown, shoot or sticky trap them just because they “aren’t from around here.” Leave the lizards alone! On our small farm we have been growing crops and living in harmony with the lizards at “ground zero” in Central Saanich for four years. They scurry around the greenhouse starting on the first sunny days in February and live in piles of leaves and rocks around our farm.
Exterminators won’t touch them and for good reason, as the placement of poisons can affect other species and cause a ripple effect on the birds, raccoons, cats and other animals that are developing a taste for wall lizards. The only effective way is trapping, says Gavin Hanke, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Royal British Columbia Museum, who has been tracking wall lizards as populations have exploded over the past two decades. He estimates there are 500,000 to 700,000 common wall lizards on Vancouver Island. The fast-moving lizards can grow up to 20 centimetres long from nose to tip of tail and range as far north as Campbell River. There have been new sightings on Salt Spring and Pender islands.
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They are crawling all over Saanich and Victoria, in thick bunches on the Peninsula and in Langford. They’ve been spotted in Metchosin. There are large populations in Shawnigan Lake and Nanaimo and they’ve even been seen as far north as Campbell River.
Now they have made the move to Salt Spring and Pender islands.
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Wall lizards native to temperate climates like Italy around the Mediterranean have been on the move on the Island since they were first set free from a roadside Central Saanich zoo more than 50 years ago.