Our most reclusive and threatened North American predator is the wolverine. Capable of fighting off "griz" and wolves..............able to kill mountain goats and caribou, our largest member of the weasel family is a 30 pound muscled omnivore who dines on meat and fruit. As recent as 1800, the wolverine was spread over 24 of our northern States from the Pacific Coast Mountains to The Rocky's, across the Great Plains, Great Lakes and even into New York, Pennsylvania and on up into New England. Today, the wolverine is only a resident in Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming--in extremely limited populations--truly in need
of critical habitat protection. A true indicator of Wilderness conditions, the Wolverine has become very sensitive to contact with human activities, fleeing from alpine ski areas, snowmobile trails and any sizeable population centers. Spring snow cover that persists through the wolverine denning period seems to be the one habitat condition that must exist for populations to occur. Apparently, snow dens created for weaning young of the year provide critical insulation that helps kits survive upon being born. While we have experienced a 2010 snowy winter in the East and sections of the West, it is a fact that snow melt is occurring earlier and earlier at Winters end. The Little Ice Age that brought severe cold to America from the Renaissance period up and through the mid 1800's encouraged the wolverines persistance across our
Northern latitudes. Large wild regions we may still be able to preserve but colder temperatures we seem to be pushing farther and farther away due to our fossil fuel burning. While the skeptics among us mock the Academy of Sciences, NASA and others for their warming predictions, newspapers just reported last week that 2010 was the warmest Winter on record, despite the snowfall in certain sectors. The wolverine needs traditional winter cold and i for one hope that we find the way to optimize that happening again.
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