Province should embrace study into muskrat decline

What is happening to our muskrats?
For years, perhaps even a decade, numbers have been in a free-fall and nobody seems to know why.
And it looks like the disturbing decline isn't limited to P.E.I. It seems to be happening throughout the northeastern United States, too.
The muskrat used to be a mainstay of the Island's trapping industry, but in ponds where trappers traditionally harvested as many as 200 muskrats a year, several report getting a 10th of that number, or even less.
Whatever the answer is to this decline, one factor can be eliminated according to biologists - trapping pressure. Over the years trappers' numbers fell almost as precipitously as those of the muskrat, declining from 600 in the 1980s to roughly 100 today.
Muskrats reproduce prolifically, with each female bearing 15 to 20 young a year, more than enough to compensate for shrinking food supplies, sudden, sharp epidemics and increased harvesting pressure.
Muskrat populations typically fall for short periods and then bounce back as if they were attached to an elastic band.
There is no shortage of possible causes for the decline, but precious few answers.
That's where a two-year study proposed by the P.E.I. Trappers Association, involving a biology student from the University of Prince Edward Island, the resources of the Atlantic Veterinary College and the trappers themselves can be of enormous help.
All that's needed is funding from the Province.
That support will likely cost tens of thousands of dollars, but the payoff could be so much greater.
UPEI's reputation as a centre of research excellence could get a major boost and the AVC's already impressive image could also be burnished.
The ripples from a successful study could spread far beyond the Island's shores, and there's a good chance more research money and scientists could find their way to P.E.I.
We must also keep in mind the same things that are affecting muskrat populations could be affecting other animals in the food chain, too, perhaps even humans. If the muskrat's habitat is being degraded, if it is incapable of supporting traditional populations, what does that say about other species?
Through a study, we may even discover something about ourselves and how we fit in the chain of life. And what we may be doing to disrupt it.