Ecologist, Lead EarthWatch Scientist and good friend Cristina Eisenberg has come up for some air from her exciting field work in Alberta, Canada monitoring Wolf and Grizzly populations...........Today, Cristina shares her perspective on our most endangered Carnivore, the much admired and fondly labeled "badass", Wolverine------" Such feats as "ascending the last 4,900 feet of the highest mountain in Glacier National Park in less than 90 minutes and dispersing 500 miles across the Great Divide Basin from Yellowstone to North Dakota makes the Wolverine our toughest pound for pound carnivore in North America"--------An animal that the great departed boxer Mohamed Ali could comfortably assign his famous moniker to--"floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee".............But for all of it's prowess, the Wolverine is "a snow-dependent species standing squarely in the path of global climate change"........The female of the species requires deep and long lasting snow into Spring to successfully birth its young in snow caverns............... Christina sums up our convervation challenge for Gulo Gulo--------"This species second most important ecological need is safe passage between habitat patches"........... "National parks provide wolverine refuges"............. "But as M56 graphically demonstrated, parks are little more than postage stamps of security for a species that needs so much room to roam"

READ CRISTINA'S COMPLETE WOLVERINE BLOG POST BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK BELOW

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-eisenberg/in-extinctions-way-the-wolverine_b_10082694.htm

From: Cristina Eisenberg ;ceisenberg@earthwatch.org
Date: June 7, 2016 at 9:50:01 AM PDT
To: Rick Meril ;rick.meril@gmail.com

Dear Rick,

I am just back in from the field in SW Alberta where the wolves are well, as are the grizzly bears.

 . I'm in from the field for 3 weeks, then back in Alberta for more work on our project, then going to Kenya to work on an Earthwatch coexisting with lions project.

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In Extinction’s Way:

The Wolverine and 

Climate Change

 05/23/2016 03:34 pm ET | Updated May 23, 2016

Wolverine, iStock Photo

Jackson Glacier, Glacier National Park, Montana
Photo by Cristina Eisenberg

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Learn more about carnivore conservation by reading The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving North America’s Predators, and The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity by Dr. Cristina Eisenberg. Learn more about large carnivore ecology by joining Cristina afield on herEarthwatch research expedition, Tracking Fire and Wolves through the Canadian Rockies.