British Columbia

Royal B.C. Museum travelling exhibit aims to highlight endangered species

The tour is part of a bigger push for the museum to do more outreach across the province.

Species at Risk exhibit will be travelling across B.C. this summer

The travelling exhibit will stop in at schools, shopping malls, and other places. (Royal BC Museum)

Species at Risk is a travelling exhibit that will be on the road across the province this summer.

Samples from the Royal B.C. Museum's collection of books, posters, endangered plants and preserved insects will all be packed into a small teardrop trailer and trucked all over the province for people to see.

The Vancouver Island Marmot is found on mountain slopes and alpine meadows. It is at risk of habitat loss. (Royal BC Museum)

Scott Cooper, vice president of collections, knowledge and engagement says the tour is part of a bigger push for the museum to do more outreach.

"We cant move the museum ... but we want to take as much of it as we can out across the province and share everybody's museum with them," said Cooper in an interview with the CBC Radio's The Early Edition

"Its an important story to get across. Species at Risk is something that affects all of us."

Habitat loss

The exhibit will showcase a number of species in danger of habitat loss in various parts of B.C., such as the Vancouver Island Marmot and the Tiger Salamander.

"We can't move the museum ... but we want to take as much of it as we can out across the province and share everybody's museum with them," said Cooper (Royal BC Museum)

Cooper says the goal is to get people to think about the way they impact B.C.'s natural environment.

"It's about development, and the impact that it has on the ecosystems that animals and plants are part of," said Cooper.

"We need to think about those impacts and how we develop going forward. It's about caring for the environment for a way that affects balance."

The exhibit will be visiting schools, other museums and shopping malls.

Species at Risk will be at Science World in Vancouver today, and in Surrey and UBC on July 6th, 2016.

With files from CBC's The Early Edition