“It’s probably wrong to say it, but they’re actually quite charming.” And though tracking and stemming their spread is part of his mandate with the museum, he confesses that, to him, having lizards on his property is “a kid’s dream come true.” In the capital region, the species is “so stupidly abundant we aren’t ever going to eradicate them,” he says. Children aid their distribution by taking them home as pets.Ī reptile lover since his boyhood in Manitoba, Hanke sees dozens daily in his garden. They sneak trips hiding in camping gear, and their eggs get ferried around in plants and potting soils. On Vancouver Island they’ve established populations in Langford, Ucluelet, Nanaimo and other communities, appearing as far north as Campbell River, 265 km from Victoria. MORE: Have Guelph’s delightful ‘fairy doors’ become a forest plague? They even munch their own young, who, seemingly aware, scurry away soon after hatching. The creatures live for up to 10 years, devouring insects, fruits, baby garter snakes and local frog species. According to academic studies, the lizards he simply turned loose.
When the now-deceased owner Rudy Bauersachs closed it in 1970, the bigger animals went to the Greater Vancouver Zoo. can be traced to Rudy’s Pet Park, a roadside zoo that opened in Saanich in 1957 with monkeys, lions and, among other creatures, a dozen wall lizards imported from Italy.
And with climate change, they appear to be spreading: last year, a few were even spotted on the Lower Mainland, near Chilliwack. They grow as long as 23 cm, but are generally smaller. Hanke estimates their current population in British Columbia to be between 500,000 and 700,000. Native to the Mediterranean, the reptiles seem perfectly happy sunning themselves throughout the southern half of Vancouver Island. READ: How humans and squirrels team up to collect tree seeds-and save the planet Until recently, few communities took notice. Museum’s curator of vertebrate zoology, has been sounding the alarm about wall lizards since 2006. capital-Hanke snaps photos with his iPhone, geotagging and uploading the images to his growing collection on the iNaturalist app. When he spots one while “lizarding”-easy to do around the B.C. Eyeballing rock walls, stucco, wood piles and gardens-sometimes evoking strange looks from residents-Hanke searches for an invader to Vancouver Island’s ecosystem: Podarcis muralis, or the common wall lizard. To satisfy his Fitbit, Gavin Hanke frequently goes for long walks from his home in Victoria that double as reconnaissance missions.
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