Along with the rufous hummingbird, they identified the tree swallow, barn swallow and long-tailed weasel as "elite" surrogate species. As for larger animals, or megafauna, they found that grizzly bears, wolves, mule deer and elk make for good surrogate species candidates. They wanted to compare those "charismatic" species to lesser known species that are considered important in British Columbia. Whichever species overlapped best was considered the best surrogate species, or had the best surrogacy value. Tree swallows have been identified as an 'elite' surrogate species in B.C.

Source: CBC News May 25, 2021 00:00 UTC