Wolverine (Gulo gulo)

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One interesting article concerning wolverines and how and why they avoid roads. Interesting and valuable information for conservation work and something interesting also concerning interactions with other predators.

Quotes: 

"Scrafford, who joined Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada in 2017, had a strong hunch that the wolverines would do their best to stay away from the roads, but he sought to create a more detailed picture of how wolverines react to roads. He and his team tracked not only where the wolverines went in their Alberta forest habitat, but also how they behaved in different parts of their extensive territories. To do that, they used the GPS tracking to also calculate how quickly wolverines were moving and how much time they spent in specific areas, especially near roads."


"But Scrafford also wanted to know if behavior changed depending on the type of road. To do this, he had to quantify traffic levels on everything from lightly used resource roads to busy highways. Fixed cameras left in place over a period of time were used to calculate traffic levels on backcountry roads in the study area, while provincial data was used to estimate traffic flow on a busier highway running through the area.

Not surprisingly, Scrafford’s team found that wolverines spent as little time as possible near busy roads. But, interestingly, they found that wolverines also had a strong tendency to avoid even lightly used roads. This behaviour may be linked to a fear of being exposed to predators while crossing resource roads — particularly wolves, which may use the roads to hunt. This fear might not be unjustified: during his fieldwork, Scrafford found three male wolverines killed by wolves near winter roads."

Whole article is worth to read through. Wolverines are quite threatened in many places.

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/why-wont-wolverines-cross-road

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Wolverines may avoid roads out of fear of being exposed to predators, especially wolves. (Photo: Andrew Manske) Reply