Whether it be Mule Deer populations in the Dakota's or Whitetail's in the East, weather-weather-weather followed by habitat-habitat-habitat quality are the key determinants of how large or small a state's herd will be..........Predation by Bears, Wolves(where existing), Coyotes, Pumas, Bobcats, Lynx is a factor but rarely a dampening factor unless horribly cold and snowy conditions are persistent over a series of Winters............In addition, predation is rarely a dampening factor on ungulate herds unless the quantity, quality and connectivity of the herds habitat is eroded by our man made roads, buildings, drilling, etc, etc, etc................Since the demise of the Mega-Fauna predator and prey matrix some 10,000 years ago, the modern,multiple predator suite that we know today(bears/wolves pumas et al. previously mentioned) has co-existed in rough equilibrium(except where we tamper extensively) with a multiple hoofed browser suite(Deer/Elk/Moose/Bison/Caribou)................There should be no reflexive actions by State Game Agencies to decimate predators because of the periodic tough Winter.............Best they be acquiring more habitat and rehabilitating existing lands for all our predator and prey to thrive within......................Our great mid 20th Century Naturalist, Aldo Leopold, said it best--------"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land"............ … "Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left".................... "That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm"............. "The land is one organism"......................."I personally believed, at least in 1914 when predator control began, that there could not be too much horned game, and that the extirpation of predators was a reasonable price to pay for better big game hunting"...................... "Some of us have learned since the tragic error of such a view, and acknowledged our mistake".................. "One must judge from the present volume that the Fish and Wildlife Service does not see any mistake"

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://kfgo.com/blogs/outdoors-live/978/north-dakota-spring-mule-deer-survey-up-21/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYAyoTNzUwMjI0OTY2NDExNzQ3NTE3MzIaZmMyNWRjZGYxNDI0NmQ5MTpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNFifLR3LIJzNPCtmnoZv9Iyu5NMog

North Dakota Spring Mule Deer Survey Up 21%

Monday, April 25, 2016 8:14 a.m. by Doug Leier

The North Dakota Game and Fish Department completed its annual spring mule deer survey in April, and results indicate western North Dakota’s mule deer population has increased 21 percent from last year

Mule Deer

Bruce Stillings, big game supervisor, said the increase is a result of higher adult doe survival in 2015, three consecutive years of good fawn production, and overwinter survival combined with milder winter weather conditions.

“These factors, along with no harvest of antlerless mule deer during the past four deer hunting seasons, have resulted in mule deer numbers doubling since we experienced our low in 2012,” Stillings said.

Biologists counted 2,880 mule deer in 306.3 square miles during this year’s survey. Overall mule deer density in the badlands was 9.4 deer per square mile, which is up from 7.8 deer per square mile in 2015.

The spring mule deer survey is used to assess mule deer abundance in the badlands. It is conducted after the snow has melted and before the trees begin to leaf out, providing the best conditions for aerial observation of deer. Biologists have completed aerial surveys of the same 24 study areas since the 1950s.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.fltimes.com/sports/outdoors-deer-take-lower-than-expected/article_452c05cc-0890-11e6-8c33-07320b8a4eeb.html&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoTNzUwMjI0OTY2NDExNzQ3NTE3MzIaZmMyNWRjZGYxNDI0NmQ5MTpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNEGXyb8YROK9PuQPJyrAMkEmR-bwg

N.Y. OUTDOORS: 2015 deer take lower than expected

Hunters harvested an estimated 202,973 deer during the 2015 seasons, approximately 15 percent lower than the prior year. Of that number, 103,401 were antlerless animals and 99,572 were bucks — a 20.5 percent decline for antlerless deer and an 8.3 percent drop in animals with antlers.More than half the bucks harvested were 21⁄2 or older, continuing a shift toward older deer. In most of the state, hunters are making this happen by their own voluntary decisions to pass up young, small-antlered bucks in favor of older ones.

Whitetail Deer

Because of the severe winter in 2014-15 and a reduction in the number of permits available for antlerless deer in most Wildlife Management Units, a decline in deer harvest was anticipated. However, overall deer harvest was lower than expected, as hunting success apparently was reduced further by the unseasonably warm conditions and lack of snow during much of November and December. In fact, harvest reports were tracking on par with 2014 levels through early November, then started lagging once the firearms seasons began.

As usual, deer harvests and populations vary considerably across the state.In approximately 25 percent of New York, the numbers suggest that deer populations were unchanged or higher from prior years. Additionally, harvest data indicate that deer populations in portions of Central New York, the Finger Lakes and the Lake Plains of Western New York remain above desired levels, meaning further population reduction is necessary.

Harvest data is culled from two main sources: harvest reports required of all successful hunters, and state Department of Environmental Conservation staff’s examination of nearly 14,000 harvested deer at check stations and meat processors. Statewide harvest estimates are made by cross-referencing these two data sources and calculating the total harvest from the reporting rate for each zone and tag type.Read the full “White-Tailed Deer Harvest Summary 2015” atwww.fltimes.com.

Wood Bison, the larger of the two Bison species(Plains Bison, the other) are down to 2500 animals in Canada's Northwest Territories.................As a result, the Territories SPECIES AT RISK COMMITTEE have labeled them "threatened and in need of protection.............Disease, habitat shrinkage and predation synergizing to dampen this struggling species.........Historically, the range of the wood bison was generally north of that occupied by the plains bison and included most boreal regions of northern Alberta; northeastern British Columbia; a small portion of northwestern Saskatchewan; the western Northwest Territories; most of the Yukon Territory; and much of interior Alaska......................... During the early 1800s, wood bison numbers were estimated at 168,000 in Canada, but by the late 1800s, the subspecies was nearly eliminated with only a few hundred remaining

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/wood-bison-now-a-threatened-n-w-t-species-1.3550512&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTc2NTYyMTI0MjA0NDg3ODMwNjcyGmNmMTk3NTA4N2Y5NWNmOTY6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGWEoPZTO0QTH8TvLcMu4rDGCw7AQ

Wood bison now a 'threatened' N.W.T. species

Species-at-risk committee finds only 2,500 remain in the territory

By Guy Quenneville, CBC News Posted: Apr 24, 2016 6:00 AM CT

Better drive with extra care when you see a wood bison on the side of a highway in the Northwest Territories: the burly beasts have joined Western toads, boreal caribou and polar bears on the territory's list of species at risk.

Once found abundantly across the western portion

of the NorthWest Territories, Plains Bison are shrinking in #'s

An independent committee announced Friday that the remaining 2,500 wood bison in the territory should now be considered a threatened species.

"The numbers are not that high," said Dr. Suzanne Carrière, an alternate chairperson for the N.W.T. Species at Risk Committee, an independent body of experts that reassess the biological statuses of various species.

"We do have wood bison in the thousands, but they do have quite the possibility to disappear in our children's lifetime [and] should be accounted for."

Increased predation, disease to blame 

The new label for wood bison comes as a result of "population decline in the last three bison generations and the cumulative effect of threats such as disease, increased predation, human-caused mortality and various factors contributing to the loss of wood bison habitat," according to a statement issued by the committee.

• Anthrax confirmed in bison at Wood Buffalo National Park

The committee rates the status of species on a seven-category scale, with the highest category branding a species as "extinct."

At "threatened," wood bison fall squarely on the middle of that scale.

According to the committee, the Northwest Territories are home to 32 per cent of the global population of wood bison. The animal once roamed the majority of the territory's western region. 

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjp-cLBvKvMAhUF4SYKHXg6AZUQFggrMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fws.gov%2Falaska%2Ffisheries%2Fendangered%2Fpdf%2Fwood_bison%2Ffactsheet.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFgydcQrSN1-0O2TNbWSD9ogZcg5Q

We learned two weeks back that Wolverines in the lower 48 might catch a break and be put on the Endangered Speices List..............The key reason that the Federal Judge overrode the USFW previous decision not to list the GULOS is warming temperatures and the adverse impact this will likely have on female Wolverines building snow dens to birth and wean their pups...............Now, WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY scientists are going to work up in Alaska studying this very issue---How will warming termperatures impact this Carnivore

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.ktva.com/researchers-work-to-better-understand-how-climate-change-impacts-wolverines-484/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNDk0ODAyOTUwNDc0NzU3MzI0NjIaYjg4MTYyM2YwYWMxMzkxNDpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNGaVEdKFi1qLBGRqSQ5hMIVm0CtRQ

Researchers work to better understand how climate change impacts wolverines

By Bryan Dunagan 11:29 AM April 23, 2016

ANCHORAGE – 

A team of Wildlife Conservation Society
 researchers,
 with the help 

of the Alaska Department of Fish and
Game, successfully
collared two North 

Slope wolverines, according to a release
 from WCS.

The team is working to understand
how climate change
affects wolverines

 and their habitat. Researchers used
high-tech traps, which
 send an email once

 it has been sprung, to capture the animals.

Tom Glass of WCS  

WCS personnel said Wolverines are hard
 to find because they are
 known to

 have a huge roaming range and make hidden
 dens.

Researchers followed over 45 miles of
 wolverine tracks to learn that
wolverines

 make dens deep in snowdrifts along shallow
 stream banks. Researchers
 only found

 one active den, and got what they say is
 the third set of images of a
mother wolverine 

and her kit.

So far, they have only been able to collar
 two wolverines. The collars
will transmit 

data every day, giving researchers a real-
time look at wolverine’s
movements.

According to WCS, the trapping portion
of the project will continue
 until the end of April

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Wolverines

Wolverines in the lower 48 states are being
 considered for listing under

 the U.S. Endangered Species Act because
 of their low numbers and

 vulnerability to climate change. Elsewhere,
 the Committee on the 

Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada just
 confirmed wolverine

 as a species of special concern due to its low
reproductive rate

 and susceptibility to threats such as industrial
activity and human

 access to its remote habitats via new roads
and more snowmobiles,

 which are increasing. In addition, the wolverine
is one of WCS’s 15 

global priority species. Very little is known about
 wolverines and their status 

in Alaska.

species with a

 demonstrated vulnerability to human disturbances
 and impending 

changes on the land, we need to develop a better
understanding of 

the potential magnitude of such impacts. This will be
 a necessary 

foundation for developing mitigation and conservation
 strategies in

rve this species elsewhere in its global range.

Activities

WCS is conducting aerial surveys of wolverine tracks
on the

 North Slope of Alaska (the National Petroleum
Reserve-Alaska). 

These surveys demonstrate how wolverines are
distributed and 

how that relates to human disturbance, elevation,
and other factors. 

The survey teams, two Super Cub airplanes with a
pilot and a spotter,

 flew nearly 14,000 miles in April 2015. Future efforts
 include plans to

 live capture up to 20 wolverines in 2016 for genetic
and contaminant 

sampling

The STATES ISLANDS that abut Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada are home to some 100 Caribou............They are descendants of Caribou that crossed Winter Ice Bridges in 1907...........In 1980, eight Caribou were transplanted from the STATES to MICHIPICOTEN Island, 81 miles to the southeast................Today, 300 of the animals exist with a small Wolf Pack of two males and one female........These three Wolves seem to find the Beaver on the island easier and more nutritiousto kill and eat(Beaver contain more calories and fat per pound than caribou) and accordingly, have only killed several of the Caribou to date.............Biologist Brent Patterson of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has been studying the Caribou/Wolf/Beaver ecosystem dynamic on the island will have an interesting number of years ahead answering questions such as-------- If the wolves successfully breed and expand their numbers, will Caribou indeed start to become a dietary staple of the expanded pack(s)?..............With warming temperatures, is it unlikely that any additional wolves will make it to the Island via an ice bridge, thus putting the current triad of wolves in an eventual in-breeding paradigm that will sink their numbers in the same fashion currently playing out in Isle Royale, Michigan?..........As Caribou are easier to kill than Moose, is the topography of the Island so horizontally and vertically dense with vegetation that Caribou will be successful in keeping away from the Wolves even if an increased Pack(Packs) populate the land?..............Indeed, a fascinating predator and Prey laboratory mosaic about to become even more complex and intriguing on this Lake Superior Island

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/21/wolf-caribou-detente-clues-hidden-on-lake-superior-islands/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNDExMzc2Mzg2NDY3NjgzMTIzODIaZWM0NDQ0NDY0YzhiNmFhMTpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNE6Dhm9a6mBqBSROsgS_z7q_MzJ_Q

Wolf – Caribou Detente? Clues Hidden on Lake Superior Islands

Posted by Cheryl Lyn Dybas on April 21, 2016

Qalipu, it’s called by Canada’s Mi’kmaq people. To others, it’s the elusive gray ghost of the 

far northern forest. Most know it simply as caribou.

Woodland caribou are medium-sized members of the deer family. In Canadian provinces such as Ontario, these shadows in the forest are listed as threatened – quickly vanishing.

Non-migratory woodland caribou – one of two Ontario caribou “ecotypes,” with the other migratory – stay in the boreal, or spruce-fir, forest year-round. Most of Ontario’s non-migratory caribou live north of Lake Superior, but a few are found along the lake’s coast. Some are on its islands. Are caribou on the wane there, too, or could good news be hidden on these dark isles?

Recent scientific expeditions to the islands, especially 17-mile-long by six-mile-wide Michipicoten, offer reason for optimism. And clues to possible détente in what’s been called a running battle between predator and prey: wolf and caribou. 

Caribou in the Balance

Researchers at the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry (MNRF) estimate the province’s woodland caribou population at 5,000 animals. Since the late 1800s, more than 40 percent of the species’ Ontario range has been lost, mainly from habitat fragmentation by human activities such as logging and mining. At the current rate of decline, woodland caribou may be extinct in Ontario by 2100, some scientists believe.

In 2014, a dozen or more researchers at Guelph and Trent universities, the Canadian Forest Service and the Ontario MNRF released results of a four-year Ontario caribou population study. The State of the Woodland Caribou Resource Report lists 14 caribou ranges. Of these, only the Lake Superior Coast range has slashes through it. The lines signal “discontinuous distribution”: few to no caribou.

Better Times for Caribou

More than a century ago in 1907, woodland caribou made their way across Lake Superior on a rare, eight-mile-long “ice bridge” from the mainland to the Slate Islands.

Today there are some 100 caribou on the Slates, according to Steve Kingston, a biologist at Ontario Parks. The number once may have been as high as 650. Then a severe winter in 1990-91 and a resulting shortage of caribou food such as lichen caused the dramatic drop.

A decade earlier in the 1980s, eight caribou were translocated from the Slates to Michipicoten Island, 81 miles to the southeast. “Today caribou are faring very well on Michipicoten,” says Brent Patterson, a biologist at the Ontario MNRF. He and colleagues conducted a survey there in February, 2015, and found that the island is now home to more than 300 woodland caribou.

Michipicoten Island’s rugged shoreline in winter. Ice bridges from the mainland to the island have formed in recent years. (Photograph: Brent Patterson)

Ice Bridge to Danger?

Long after the 1907 ice bridge, new frozen pathways reached the Slates – and transported more than caribou.

“The Slate Islands were free of predators,” says Kingston, “then ice bridges formed in the winter of 1994, and again in the winters of 2014 and 2015, opening passages for wolves.”

In January, 1994, a wolf was sighted on the ice next to Mortimer Island near the Slate archipelago. That spring, wolf tracks were recorded on Mortimer for the first time. “Signs indicated that two wolves were there,” Kingston says.

By the summer of 1996, one wolf had disappeared. The body of the second wolf was found in 1999. A necropsy showed that caribou did not make up the majority of its diet. Beavers were the wolf’s most frequent meals, but it also dined on snowshoe hares, red-backed voles, birds, insects and berries.

The frigid winters of 2014 and 2015 again led to the formation of ice bridges. Researchers soon confirmed the presence of three more wolves on the Slates. As of February, 2016, all three were still on the islands.

A New Story

Wolves also found their way across the ice to Michipicoten.

A Michipicoten camper spotted two wolves in the summer of 2014. Months later, a naturalist photographed tracks of three wolves on a beach. The wolves likely made their way to the island in the winter of 2013-14, padding across an ice bridge that extended ten miles from the Ontario coast.

In February, 2015, Patterson and other researchers mounted their first expedition to Michipicoten. They found a pack of three wolves, two males and a female, and placed radio-collars on all three.

The signals showed that the wolves traveled together for most of that winter, says Patterson, “and snow-tracking evidence suggested that the larger male and the female bred on the island.”

Trail cameras the scientists mounted on Michipicoten trees revealed that by March, 2015, a fourth adult wolf had appeared. “We don’t know whether the fourth wolf was there all along, or if it crossed over on an ice bridge and joined the group later,” says Patterson.

In June, 2015, four months after the biologists’ initial trip to the island, they returned. During the harsh winter of 2014-15 only a few caribou were taken by wolves, Patterson says, “but many caribou died of malnutrition.”

The discovery may indicate that Michipicoten hosts more woodland caribou than its vegetation can sustain. “The poor condition of the caribou, along with very few sightings of cows with calves, suggests that caribou numbers have probably exceeded the island’s carrying capacity,” says Patterson.

“If the wolves preyed on caribou more often,” he adds, “conditions for the surviving caribou would probably improve. Caribou densities are high on the island due to the absence of predators for so many years. Fewer caribou should mean less competition for available food.”

In February, 2016, the team went back to the island. The biologists radio-collared the fourth wolf, an adult male, and located two pups. Ontario MNRF researcher Art Rodgers also fitted GPS tracking collars on 30 adult caribou. The scientists should soon have a handle on how the caribou are responding to the wolves.

Species in a Complex Dance

What are Michipicoten’s wolves eating, if not caribou?

The island hosts a thriving population of beavers, an important food source for wolves during the ice-free spring-to-fall season – and in mild winters when ponds stay open, Patterson found when he again trekked to the island last month. “Like many other places this winter, there was very little snow and ice on Michipicoten,” he says. “Only a few caribou had been killed by wolves. Instead the wolves were likely eating beavers.”

Why would Michipicoten’s wolves hunt beavers when the island is awash in caribou? “Beaver meat has considerably more calories and fat per pound than caribou,” says Patterson. “Beavers are also probably fairly easy to catch, especially in spring and fall when they forage extensively on land.”

Wolves, beavers and caribou are in a complex dance on Michipicoten Island. Where will they wind up when the music stops?

“We don’t yet know,” says Patterson. “We’re just beginning to understand the interplay of these species.”

For now, Michipicoten, an Anglicized Ojibwe word for the region’s high bluffs, may spell hope for Ontario’s woodland caribou. And, perhaps, a newfound coexistence for caribou and wolves.

"We forget that we are the biggest cause of evolution on the planet right now,” says Suzanne MacDonald, a psychologist and biologist at York University in Toronto, Canada, who studies urban raccoons"............... "We have this view of the wild as a pristine place" and of evolution as something that happens "in the wild"....................... "But humans in cities are changing the animals now".................. "And with so many animals going urban, humans must view cities as part of—not separate from—nature, adds MacDonald, a National Geographic grantee".......................... "To live in harmony with animals whose habitat we’re destroying, we’re going to have to do a lot more work in what we’re doing to them",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"It’s a pattern we’ve seen across the whole continent—they’re figuring out a way to deal with whatever we’ve done to the landscape," adds Chris Nagy, a wildlife biologist and co-founder of the research project Gotham Coyote"............. "It’s a lot of fun to study species like that"

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160418-animals-urban-cities-wildlife-science-coyotes/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYCSoUMTM4NjQ4OTQwOTM3MDc5Mjk0MzkyGmY1MDlhNmI0NGUzZGM2ODk6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNF8zDSIjenqA_V2qX462MCd4PfeWA
How Wild Animals Are Hacking Life in the City

Los Angeles Puma in
 Burbank and a EasternCoyote in Queens, NY

Our toughest and most endangered carnivore, the Wolverine is about to get a 2nd chance at getting enough "room to roam" so that it can have some chance at making a viable comeback in the USA............A Federal Judge has ordered the USFW Service to move forward with designating the 300 known Wolverines in the USA as an Endangered Species.........."That means that the elusive, ferocious Gulo gulo is once again poised to become the first animal in the contiguous states to receive federal protections because of climate change"..........................This will involve drawing up a management plan for it's restoration................This would likely involve creating protected habitat for a carnivore that needs deep and persistent snowpack into the early Spring so that the female of the species can build a nest under the ice pack to birth her young............"Once her kits are weaned, the lingering snow serves as a refrigerator: wolverines sometimes cache meat in snowbanks so they don’t have to stray far from the safety of their dens to hunt or scavenge"....................Will Global warming retard the benefits of the critical habitat that hopefully will be created for the Wolverine?

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2016-04-18/endangered-species-and-wildlife/after-court-ruling-wildlife-advocates-advance-efforts-to-protect-wolverines/a51435-1&ct=ga&cd=CAEYASoUMTA0NTIyNTM1NjIzNTM1MzM3NTcyGmI4ODE2MjNmMGFjMTM5MTQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNEaW9Z536Vkt_6OVr4bB6optGSOXg

After Court Ruling, Wildlife Advocates Advance Efforts to Protect Wolverines

Public News Service - WY | April 2016 | 

A federal court ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it decided not to protect the wolverine. (JohnDPorter/iStockphoto)

April 18, 2016

CHEYENNE, Wy. - Conservation groups are doubling down on efforts to protect wolverines after a court ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when the agency decided not to protect the famously tough predator.

Managing attorney Tim Preso with Earthjustice says the ruling affirms the original findings by the agency's own scientists that climate change and genetic isolation threaten the species.

"But after a campaign of opposition by affected state governments, the Fish and Wildlife Service backed down and withdrew its proposal to protect the species," says Preso.

U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen addressed the political pressure brought by states, including Wyoming, noting the listing decision involved "climate science, and climate science evokes strong reactions."

Unless an appeal is filed, the order means the agency must make a new listing decision. Conservation groups say they'll monitor the agency to make sure wolverines get the protections they need.

Caroline Byrd, executive director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, says after more than a century of trapping and habitat loss, wolverines in the lower 48 have been reduced to small, fragmented populations in a handful of mountain states.

She says wolverines can't reproduce without access to deep and persistent snow fields where mothers build their dens.

"We have those in the Northern Rockies, we have them in the greater Yellowstone, and they will persist on into the future," says Byrd. "But we have fewer of them because of climate change, because of our warming climate."

Byrd praised the court's decision and says the increasingly rare and elusive animal represents the wildness that is still alive today in Greater Yellowstone.

Only 300 or so wolverines are left in the Northern Rockies and North Cascades

- See more at: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2016-04-18/endangered-species-and-wildlife/after-court-ruling-wildlife-advocates-advance-efforts-to-protect-wolverines/a51435-1#sthash.13RxwOvb.dpuf
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Science trumps politics for wolverines

A court ruling may force wolverines onto the endangered species list, and open the door for other animals threatened by climate change

Krista Langlois April 7, 2016Web Exclusive

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In late winter, when the high mountains of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho are buried in snow, female wolverines in hidden dens give birth to one or two pure white kits. Scientists suspect the snow helps insulate the kits and protect them from predators like wolves, which might explain why mama wolverines often choose north-facing slopes where snowpack lasts longer. Later, when the kits are weaned, the lingering snow serves as a refrigerator: wolverines sometimes cache meat in snowbanks so they don’t have to stray far from the safety of their dens to hunt or scavenge.  

Though wolverines’ dependence on snow isn’t fully understood, researchers in 2010 concluded that the animals only reproduce where there’s deep, long-lasting snow. The following year, scientists found that habitat with that kind of snow cover is expected to shrink by 31 percent in the next three decades. So in 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed adding the 300 or so wolverines in the Northern Rockies to the endangered species list. They would’ve been the first species in the Lower 48 declared legally endangered because of climate change. 

But then regional director Noreen Walsh abruptly changed course. Fish and Wildlife director Dan Ashe backed up her decision not to list wolverines, citing too many uncertainties in the scientific literature. So some 20 environmental groups, including the Western Environmental Law Center, sued. 

Now, a federal court has ruled in their favor. On April 4, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen declared that Fish and Wildlife’s refusal to list wolverines as threatened or endangered was “arbitrary and capricious,” and is forcing the agency to reassess. That means that the elusive, ferocious Gulo gulo is once again poised to become the first animal in the contiguous states to receive federal protections because of climate change. 

Wolverines are again poised to become the first species in the Lower 48 added to the Endangered Species List because of threats from climate change.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The decision is significant, says Western Environmental Law Center staff attorney Matthew Bishop, because it suggests that climate change’s impact doesn’t have to be cut-and-dry to prompt protection. When polar bears became the first species thrust onto the endangered species list because of a warming planet in 2008, there was an obvious smoking gun — bears drowning and dying from starvation because thin sea ice limited their ability to hunt seals.

Wolverine researchers may never be able to produce that kind of clear evidence — the animals are notoriously reclusive and hard to study, and the effects of diminished snowpack will probably be less dramatic. Plus, since scientists don’t agree on exactly why wolverines require snow for reproduction, predicting the precise impact of its loss is difficult. But Christensen says this doesn’t matter. “If ever there was a species for which conservation depends on foregoing absolute certainty, it is the wolverine,” he wrote in his 85-page order. 

The decision could open the door to listing for other animals that are predicted to be impacted by climate change but aren’t yet experiencing its effects. Pikas, for instance. Corals. Bishop thinks there are hundreds of candidates. As for wolverines, he believes the decision will lead to a threatened listing, though the timeframe is still unclear. (Threatened species aren't yet endangered but are likely to become so. They still receive protections under the Endangered Species Act.) 

But given that the Endangered Species Act can’t limit global greenhouse gas emissions, how can it protect the wolverine from climate change? 

One solution could be to reintroduce the animal to places where it’s been extirpated, like the Sierra Nevada or Colorado Rockies. Parts of those high-altitude mountain ranges are expected to be spared the worst effects of a warming planet, so restoring wolverine populations there could help the species as a whole survive. Such reintroductions were part of Fish and Wildlife’s 2013 proposal, and could well be part of a future recovery plan. Other solutions include limiting trapping, snowmobiling and other winter recreation in denning habitat. 

But Wyoming, Montana and Idaho oppose listing the wolverine for precisely those reasons. Like many Western states, they see an ESA listing — even for an animal that lives mostly above 8,000 feet — as detrimental to economic development. 

Yet by law, endangered species decisions are supposed to be about science, not politics or economics. Christensen suspects politics prompted Noreen Walsh’s perplexing 180-degree reversal. “Why did the Service make the decision [to not list the wolverine]?” he asked. “Based on the record, the Court suspects that a possible answer to this question can be found in the immense political pressure that was brought to bear on this issue, particularly by a handful of Western states.”

Bishop has been working in endangered species law for 17 years, and agrees that political influence has increasingly overshadowed science of late. Other animals, like Sonoran desert tortoises have been denied protection despite scientific evidence suggesting it’s warranted. Bishop can only guess politics are at play — which is why he thinks Christensen’s decision was a win for not just wolverines, but for other species living on the brink, too.