WildFact
›
Information Section
›
Terrestrial Wild Animals
›
Carnivorous and Omnivores Animals, Excluding Felids
Wolverine (Gulo gulo)
Wolverine (Gulo gulo)
|
Wolverine (Gulo gulo)
|
This was one interesting article about wolverines, a bit about facts and fiction too since what comes to wolverines, it is one species with which people are often confused thinking, that many fictional things would be facts and wolverines would be some kind of "fearless killing machines" terrorizing all other animals. While in reality they are quite cautious and careful with no desire to be killed by wolves or bears etc.
Quote: "Fact and Fiction Fish and Game researchers Howard Golden and Mike Harrington are studying wolverines in South-central Alaska. In recent years they’ve captured 18 wolverines and equipped them with GPS tracking collars to better understand their movements and numbers. Wolverines are impressive, but much of the reputation is exaggerated. “They’ve got such a bad rap,” Harrington said. “I've had people ask, ‘will they chase you down? Aren’t they dangerous?’ People wonder if we’re afraid of them.” “A lot of myths about them are way overblown,” Golden said. “People attribute magic powers to them, but they’re just doing their thing, looking for food. They are curious, smart animals and they figure stuff out pretty quick. They are smart enough to run down a trap line, and that’ll make trappers mad. But it makes sense that they’d do that – there’s always food on these trap lines. They’re not extra aggressive, they avoid trouble.” Wolverines are weasels, Golden said, and have the weasel nature. “That whole family is pretty similar, just the size is different. Ermine can be bold; weasels are an intelligent family of animals and they know how to survive.” While wolverines are usually solitary, the “bad tempered loner” stereotype gives the impression they are downright antisocial. Golden visited a facility in Washington that’s home to about 40 wolverines. They shared a large common area and he said they were quite tolerant and social with each other. “If resources are limited that can cause conflict, but they can be social,” Golden said. “If food is plentiful, they’ve got no reason to worry about each other. We’ve seen them in April from the air wrestling and playing with each other, they weren’t fighting, they’re socializing.” They are territorial, in the general sense of the word, but Harrington and Golden use the term “home use area” to describe the area they favor. “They pick areas they maintain and keep to themselves, males will overlap with females, but males don’t overlap much with males, or females with females,” Harrington said. “They need resources, and they pick an area where they can make a living and survive.” They have scent glands, a ventral gland near the belly button, anal glands, and they also have little scent glands on the bottom of the pads of their feet, and when they walk they leave scent. They also scent-mark through urination. “They basically maintain territory this way through active marking,” Golden said. “We have found some that have been in fights and are scarred up, they do get into tussles. “ He said a wolverine can defend itself pretty well, but it’s no match for larger predators. “Two wolves can kill one,” he said. “You hear stories about them chasing bears off, I’ve never seen that happen, or known anyone who has.” Their eyesight and hearing are not especially good, but they have an outstanding sense of smell. “They’ve got a pretty good set of tools on them; a really good nose, they can smell food over long distances or buried well under the snow,” Golden said. “They can climb trees. They have a really warm coat. They’ve got strong claws for digging and defense, and incredibly strong jaws for biting and crushing bone and frozen meat - not the same crushing power as a wolf, but they’re not as big, a big wolverine is 40 pounds and small wolf is 60 pounds.” “You look at them, they’re mostly built for scavenging,” Golden said. “But they’re very opportunistic and regularly kill small game. They’re not as fast as wolves, and they don’t work in packs, but they can be more predator than scavenger if the situation allows for it.” Wolverines hunt snowshoe hares and voles, and in summer ground squirrels and marmots are important prey items. “We’ve got documentation of them killing smaller Dall sheep. In Scandinavian countries they lose domestic sheep and reindeer to wolverines, and the government provides compensation to herders. The herders are required to hire rangers to document wolverine den sites and reproduction, and that’s one reason they have great reproductive data.” It is true that wolverines are very strong for their size and have incredible stamina. Golden said a wolverine can cover 30 miles in a night, working a circuit in search of food. They will den up and rest for brief periods, and then get back on the move. That ability to travel through incredibly rugged mountainous terrain is not exaggerated. “That’s the big thing to come out of the GPS work for Mike and I, and it’s pretty amazing when you see it,” Golden said. “We get locations every 20 minutes, you can see how fast they move around terrain, they go up and down really steep, icy, rocky slopes like they’re not even there. You could never hike it – you’d need climbing gear. It’s like they see the world as two-dimensional, the way they move up and down these snow-covered slopes.”  *This image is copyright of its original author Mike Harrington holds a young female wolverine. Wolverines are sexually dimorphic; males are about 30 percent larger than females - 30 to 40 pounds compared to females in the 20 to 25 pound range. This female, CWF006 has a blue ear tag and was pregnant when she was caught on March 7, 2012. In this picture she had just been recaptured to retrieve her collar and is about to be released. Whole article here: https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=692  
Wolverines spotted at Mount Rainier National Park for the first time in over 100 years
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]For the first time in more than 100 years, wolverines have returned to Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, the National Park Service announced Thursday.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]The National Park Service and scientists with the conservation organization Cascades Carnivore Project spotted the female wolverine and her two offspring, also called kits.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]“It’s really, really exciting,” Mount Rainier National Park Superintendent Chip Jenkins said.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]“It tells us something about the condition of the park — that when we have such large-ranging carnivores present on the landscape that we’re doing a good job of managing our wilderness," Jenkins said.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]Wolverines are rare in the U.S. with less than 1,000 living in the lower 48 states, officials said. In Washington state, there are only about 20, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Scientists say climate change is presumably a threat to the species.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]Wolverines are the largest members of the weasel family and weigh about 44 pounds. And they tend to live in mountainous areas.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]But a recent sighting in the state caught scientists off guard. During Memorial Day weekend, a wolverine was spotted at a Pacific County beach, Q13 FOX reported.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]"This is way outside the beaten path for the wolverines," Jeff Lewis, a biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told CNN. "It's not near the habitats they are usually at."[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]The National Park Service says they have set up cameras throughout the park as more sightings have been reported throughout the state.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]Officials are asking the public to report any wildlife observations or wolverine photos to the park's database or to the Cascade Wolverine Project's website to help scientists study wolverines' return to the Cascade ecosystem.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]"Wolverines are solitary animals and despite their reputation for aggressiveness in popular media, they pose no risk to park visitors," National Park Service ecologist Dr. Tara Chestnut said.[/color] [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.73)]"If you are lucky enough to see one in the wild, it will likely flee as soon as it notices you."[/color]
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  *This image is copyright of its original author Wolverines may avoid roads out of fear of being exposed to predators, especially wolves. (Photo: Andrew Manske)
Government refusal to protect wolverines sparks lawsuit from conservation groups
The wolverine population has dwindled to just 300 in the contiguous U.S.
Wolverine Caught on Yellowstone Trail Cam for First Time
A Yellowstone National Park trail camera received a surprising visitor last month. An elusive wolverine triggered a camera near the Mammoth Hot Springs area, the park announced on Facebook Wednesday. "This is the first video footage of a wolverine since remote cameras have been deployed in the park," the park wrote. Yellowstone National Park first began installing cameras to track the movement of cougars in 2014. In the seven years since, the cameras have also proved useful for detecting and studying a variety of species. But never before have those species included wolverines. Wolverines (Gulo gulo) are mid-sized carnivores in the weasel family who thrive in snowy environments. Worldwide, they are found in Scandinavia, Russia, China, Canada and the U.S., according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In the U.S., the southernmost part of their range extends into the lower 48 states, particularly the North Cascades in Washington and the Northern Rocky Mountains in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Wyoming, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). This includes the greater Yellowstone area, where they prefer mountainous areas with forest or tundra habitats, the park explained. Between 2006 and 2009, seven wolverines (two females and five males) were documented in the eastern Yellowstone area and nearby national forests. In the Facebook post, the park wrote that they lived in "low densities" in the park itself and were "rarely detected." The elusive mammals are hard to document because they tend to live in remote areas and can move quickly over a short period, FWS explained. "Wolverines are so rarely seen and inhabit such remote terrain at low densities that assessing population trends is difficult and sudden declines could go unnoticed for years," Yellowstone National Park warned. And they may become even more elusive because of the climate crisis. By 2050, the only places in the lower 48 states that will have enough spring snow pack for the animals will be greater Yellowstone, the southern Rocky Mountains and California's Sierra Nevada, but there are no wolverine populations currently in the latter two locations. Despite this, the FWS refused Endangered Species Act protections to wolverines in October of 2020, as High Country News reported. The department argued that enough snow would last in the lower 48 states to allow the animals to remain living there. Conservationists disagreed, and sued the department to reverse the ruling in December of 2020. "For years scientists have been sounding the alarm on how wolverines are severely affected by climate change," said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. "The future of the wolverine in the lower 48 now stands on a knife edge thanks to the Fish and Wildlife Service refusing to do its job. We hope this lawsuit finally puts the species on the road to recovery."
It is interesting to see how Wolverines can wrestle down Wolves.
 *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Qc8_mgGuk  *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckb3B0t5M2g https://imgur.com/tKRds1H https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQZhPtanMwg |
| Users browsing this thread: |
| 11 Guest(s) |