WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY biologist Matt Scrafford is leading an Ontario, Canada study of its Wolverine population in an attempt to expand and restore the species in this Province..........'In Ontario, the Wolverine plays an important role in the cultural beliefs of many First Nations as symbols of strength"................."Historically, Wolverines were found throughout most of Ontario"............."Recent studies show some re-colonization of their historical northeastern range with the most optimistic estimates suggesting there may be several hundred".........."The main threat to the Wolverine is habitat loss due to forest clearing, and habitat fragmentation often associated with mineral extraction, forestry, and road creation".............."Wolverines in Ontario has decreased over 50 percent since the mid-1800s with them now found primarily in the far north central and western portions of the province"........"The pattern for Wolverine has been similar to that of Woodland Caribou with both species disappearing from southern Ontario fairly rapidly during the nineteenth century during a period characterized by a large increase in human settlement, logging and railroad construction, and during the early twentieth century, a period of intensive exploitation of wildlife"........."As one of the first species to disappear with the onset of human disturbance, Wolverines are an excellent indicator of ecosystem integrity" ..........."Moose and Woodland Caribou are the primary ungulate species in the Wolverine diet" ........."When carrion is scarce, small mammals and birds become primary prey for Wolverines with "Trappers noting Wolverines staking out Beaver lodges to get a meal" ............"Females do not produce litters successfully until they are an average of 3.4 years old with average litter size two to three kits with a life expectancy of eight to ten years" ................."Births generally coincide with periods of greater ungulate carrion availability and snow cover, which provides enhanced security cover for kits".................."A fundamental goal of Wolverine recovery is to provide for connectivity across its historical range in Ontario and neighbouring jurisdictions"

https://twitter.com/M_Scrafford/status/1076275656869072897

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Amy Hadley · CBC News · Posted: Jan 14, 2019

Rarely seen wolverines subject of northwestern Ontario tracking project

Researchers want to understand how to help the population rebound in the province

Matt Scrafford's job involves getting up close and personal with a notoriously elusive animal. 

He studies wolverines, and is currently working on a project that involves live-trapping, and tracking the animals near the town of Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.

It's not easy to do — to say wolverines keep to themselves would be an understatement — but that's what Scrafford loves about the job.

"Just the challenge of working with a species that's so low-density, so reclusive," he said. "Wolverines are really hard to find and so there's an element of challenge to that that's really exciting for me." 

The animals are also still relatively poorly understood, he said, which is what makes his current work, as a wolverine conservation scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada, so important.

He's trying to get a handle on the animal's population numbers and demographic patterns in order to better understand how to manage the habitat of the species, which is threatened in Ontario.

Research could inform habitat management

The work involves anesthetizing the animals and fitting wolverines with GPS collars, which transmit information about their location every several hours, so researchers get a "fine detailed understanding of where the wolverine's spending its time," he said.

Researchers get a sense of where dens are located, and how wolverines are moving on the land relative to other things such as forestry operations and roads. 

"If we have that type of information we can manage populations to help with growth. If populations grow we could potentially take them off of the endangered species list here in Ontario," he said.

How do you trap a wolverine?

But before the wolverines can be collared, they need to be caught. 

To do that Scrafford and his colleagues work with local trappers, who give them advice on good spots to set up the live traps, which are sometimes constructed in the field using logs, and are baited with beaver meat.

Mother Wolverine moving her kit to a 2nd snow den for safety

When a scavenger jumps in, the lid closes, and Scrafford and his colleagues immediately receive a notification. The researchers will be located in a cabin nearby, he said, and snap into action to reach the site — usually by snowmobile — within the span of about an hour.  Animal welfare is paramount, he said, so when a trap is triggered the researchers respond at any time of day or night.

They have this low, just guttural grumble that can kind of just send ... shivers up 

your spine- Matt Scrafford

If a wolverine is inside, it's not hard to tell. Their distinctive sound can be heard from a distance of about 10 metres, he said.

Proposed Wolverine recovery zone in Ontario 

"They have this low, just guttural grumble that can kind of just send kind of shivers up your spine ... you know I've worked with 70 or 80 different individual wolverines and every time I walk up to the trap and there's a new individual in there making that noise it still does the same thing for me that it did the first time that I heard it."

Motion-sensor cameras

In addition to live trapping the animals, the researchers are also capturing images of them using cameras set up at stations in the woods. 

Across from those stations is a piece of meat, hanging from a tree, and strategically placed so that when a wolverine reaches for it, the animal exposes its chest pattern. Those patterns, unique to each animal, are like calling cards.

Wolverine historical southern range(dark shade)  

"It's kind of like a human fingerprint," Scrafford said, adding that the photos then help them to estimate population numbers. 

Since the study was launched in 2018, Scrafford says they've managed to collar five wolverines – four males and one female. He said he hopes the study will go on for another year or two, so they can increase that number, and get a good sense of how the animals are faring on the boreal shield. 

For Scrafford, who also did PhD research on wolverines in Alberta, working with the animals is a dream job.

"They're furry and they're fluffy and handsome and [they've] got lots of personality," he said, "and they're pretty cool critters."