THE KEY TO WOLVERINE SURVIVAL...............CORRIDORS LINKING LARGE SWATHS OF WILDERNESS.............DEEP SNOW PACKS LASTING INTO MAY FOR YOUNG TO BE BORN................NO MORE THAN 70 DEGREE AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE IN THE SUMMER...................

 

  "Picture a weasel -- and most of us can do that,
for we have met that little demon of destruction,
that small atom of insensate courage,
that symbol of slaughter,
sleeplessness, and tireless, incredible activity --
picture that scrap of demoniac fury,
multiply that mite some fifty times,
and you have the likeness of a Wolverine."

Ernest Thompson Seton
"Lives of Game Animals". 1925 - 1928. Vol. II

 

 

Wolverine

Wolverine

Wolverines are the biggest terrestrial members of the large and varied mustelid, or weasel, family. They measure about three feet long (four counting the tail) and weigh between 25 to 40 pounds.  "The diminutive wolverine," said a recent National Parks Conservation Association report, "possesses a legendary reputation for toughness, resilience, and, some would say, cantankerousness," while the true nature of this beast appears to be its need for room to roam.  Recent research in Glacier National Park and within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem substantiates earlier reports of the wolverine tendency to travel.

Doug Chadwick, the author of a forthcoming book on the animal, writes, "Wolverines monitored by the Glacier project traveled day and night at a relentless pace, keeping it up even as they scaled almost sheer cliffs and cols, waltzed across avalanche chutes and padded along overhanging cornices."

M3, a wolverine tracked and mapped by Jeff Copeland of the Wolverine Foundation's Glacier National Park Wolverine Research Study, summited Mt. Cleveland (Glacier's highest peak at 10,466 feet), the last 4,900 feet straight up in 90 minutes. In February. After climbing Cleveland he went way up into Waterton Lakes. First, he crossed into British Columbia, then into Alberta. His territory turned out to be several hundred square miles.

During the 19th century, wolverines were found across the northern states from Washington to Montana and reported from the Great Lakes to Maine. Its range continued south along the Pacific Coast range and Sierras well into California and all the way down the Rockies into Colorado. Today, the wolverines of the Lower 48 are confined to remote parts of Montana, Idaho, and northern Wyoming, as well as Washington's North Cascades. They may total no more than 400 and possibly as few as 218.

In the lower 48 states, wolverine habitat is naturally fragmented.  As a subalpine weasel, the wolverine inhabits a narrow band of habitat a little above and a little below timberline.  Never occurring at large numbers, wolverines rely on movement to connect populations that occur across isolated mountain ranges of the western U.S.  Increasing development and encroaching winter recreation continue to this fragmentation further threatening the long-term persistence of the wolverine.  As such, wolverines are currently being considered for listing as threatened or endangered south of Canada.

Wolverine Solutions
To help survival of the wolverine, we need to protect isolated populations that are generally small in number, and make sure  linkage corridors remain between Glacier's wolverines in the north, and the Yellowstone populations to the south, as well as across throughout the northern Rocky Mountain Ecosystem.

The Cabinet-Purcell Mountain Corridor (CPMC) includes portions of western Montana (Bitterroot Mountains), northern Idaho (Cabinet and South Selkirk Mountains) and southern British Columbia (Selkirk and Purcell Mountains). It encompasses almost 28 million acres, and is a crucial link for maintaining the long-term biodiversity of the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) region. Covering approximately 18% of the Y2Y region, the Cabinet-Purcell Mountain Corridor is one of the keys to the Y2Y landscape's ecological future.

In 2007, 88 acres of key valley bottom habitat in the Cabinet-Purcell Mountain Corridor were acquired by the Nature Trust of BC, with financial support from Y2Y, The Nature Conservancy-Montana, and The Vital Ground Foundation.

Vital Ground (the author, Doug Chadwick, serves on their board) has safeguarded several properties in the Swan Valley of Montana, which lies south of Glacier Park and adjoins the western edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex. This valley serves as part of the north-south corridor for Rocky Mountain wildlife. Most of these properties (most are still owned by private individuals; VG purchased conservation easements on their land) also lie within a designated grizzly bear corridor/linkage zone between the Swan Mountains/Bob Marshall complex and the Mission Mountains, which rise from the western side of the Swan Valley.

There are hopes that the Waterton Lakes Park may be expanded to the west, which would greatly expand the corridor area.

Inspiring Person: Wolverine
Rick Yates conducted the day-to-day field work for the Glacier Wolverine Project from mid-2002 to December 2007 as a biological technician for  the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Montana.

"Scotch-Irish by background, Yates hails from the hills of rural Virginia  and wears his dark hair long and his beard bushy," writes Chadwick. "His family ran a farm and butchery, and one of his jobs was picking up carcasses and offal from neighbors for rendering. Good training for a future investigator of wolverines, the ultimate scavengers, who crunch up even the bones."

Yates started working in Glacier on a trail crew; he has climbed many of its peaks. Before he did actual wolverine research, Yates conducted winter snow-tracking surveys searching for wolverines and other carnivores in Glacier. Yates was motivated to work on wolverines by the paucity of information on them, the mystery and lore that drove the knowledge base and by the types of habitat that they occupy. The High Country of the Rocky Mountains has always intrigued him, and the wolverine rules the High Country in winter and summer.  "Studying an animal that has so little known about it is as good as it gets for a wildlife biologist," says Yates.  Currently he works in Glacier National Park as a backcountry carpenter, so that he can continue to work in and around the alpine areas that wolverines traverse. "I'm even more motivated and in awe of the lives these magnificent critters lead.  We learned much in our five years in Glacier, but there is no substitute for long-term research studies of such a little-known animal."