Our Mission

To restore and conserve Western Purple Martins where they are At Risk in southwest BC and along the West Coast of North America

About Western Purple Martins in BC and the WESTERN PURPLE MARTIN FOUNDATION

Western Purple Martin Foundation is committed to the conservation of Western Purple Martins in British Columbia, where they are a Species-at-Risk (Blue List), found in and around the Strait of Georgia (Georgia Basin) and extending south into Puget Sound (i.e. throughout the Salish Sea), as well as recently in Johnstone Strait and on the west coast of Vancouver Island. These birds (a long-separate subspecies from the far more abundant eastern Purple Martins east of the Rocky Mts.) are our largest migratory swallow species, breeding in BC and wintering in southern Brazil.

Historically in BC, Western Purple Martins were an upland species nesting in abandoned woodpecker cavities in flood and fire-killed snag stands on the coastal lowlands around the Strait of Georgia on Vancouver Is., the sw. BC mainland and the Gulf Islands.

They also nested in woodpecker cavities in the decaying original untreated wooden coastal marine pilings used for early industrial activity throughout the Strait of Georgia (and the Pacific Northwest). These sites had similar habitat structure to their snag stand nest sites. Over time, as upland snag stand nesting habitat was lost to over a century of industrial, agricultural and urban land development, as well as flood control and fire suppression, they became increasingly dependent upon and eventually trapped in coastal marine pilings as a last artificial nesting habitat refuge.

Meanwhile, as these old untreated pilings continued to decay, they either fell or were replaced with creosote-treated pilings without woodpecker cavities, the available nest cavity supply gradually declined, and the number of western martins also steadily declined due to lack of available nest sites. Competition for nest cavities with introduced invasive European Starlings and House ('English') Sparrows likely also contributed to the decline, and this bird species almost became locally extinct. Only 6 known breeding pairs remained in BC at 2-3 nesting locations on se. Vancouver Is. in 1985.

For further details about martin biology and ecology in BC, see the latest Status Report on Western Purple Martins in BC (Cousens & Lee 2012).

Through a highly successful nest box stewardship and recovery program a large number of caring volunteers had helped to increase the BC Purple Martin population to ~200 pairs at 16 colony sites within the Georgia Basin by 2000, when we first became involved to coordinate and manage further volunteer stewardship and recovery efforts, and to monitor and document recovery progress and continue research on this species in BC. Our first short-term goal of 800 pairs was reached in 2012, with 56 active colonies and >1200 nest boxes. As our monitoring results show, the BC population has continued to grow as new colonies and nest boxes were added and reached ~1500 pairs at >150 colonies with ~2100 nest boxes in 2023.

We have also been successful in re-introducing Western Purple Martins to a number of fresh water sites, including 10 lakes on Vancouver Is. and 6-7 sites on the lower Fraser River, where they use nest boxes, wooden piling cavities and occasional snag cavities when present.

Our long-term goal is to re-introduce BC Purple Martins back into remaining natural nesting habitat in upland open forest snag stands, if and when suitable habitat exists, and to maintain a stable healthy population in artificial housing until that goal can be reached.

At present Western Purple Martins are a designated at-risk species in BC, yet have no identified or protected natural habitat suitable for nesting, nor a provincially managed or funded recovery program. Their recovery is managed entirely by volunteers through WPMF and supported entirely by our generous sponsor donations, for which we (and of course the martins) are extremely grateful.

Most notable among these have been two grants in the past 5 years from BC Nature in conjunction with volunteer members from Nature Nanaimo to build >100 new nest boxes to replace some of the many old decaying nest boxes >20-30 years old that are long overdue for replacement. There are always more nest boxes needing replacement than we have nest boxes on hand or enough volunteers to help with the work, yet the BC population is almost entirely dependent on these nest boxes and their maintenance and periodic replacement for its continued existence.

Together we can build on almost 40 years of stewardship and recovery success, preserve native species diversity and return our western martins to their natural nesting habitat.