Wolverines, Robert Inman will tell you, are amazing animals.
“They’re 1,000 pounds of attitude in a 30-pound body; they’re born in avalanche chutes; and they take on animals 10 times their size,” Inman, director of the Greater Yellowstone Wolverine Program, said Monday. “They actually thrive in places that push the limits of mammalian existence.”
He’s learned all that and more after about a decade of studying the elusive animals. Recently, the Wildlife Conservation Society and several state and federal partners released the first in a series of reports that detail his and others’ findings.
It describes, for example, one instance when a wolverine challenged a black bear for an elk carcass. It also documents how wolverines travel hundreds of miles, in some cases covering greater areas than bears, in search of their own territory and mates.
And that’s been the point of this study, Inman said – to learn more about wolverines and to understand what it will take to conserve them.
‘There was very little data on wolverines beforehand, which was one reason the study was really needed,” he said. “Our job was to hit the field capturing and tracking, learning what (wolverines) eat, how they die, where they give birth and everything else that makes them tick.”
After capturing the wolverines in box traps, scientists had to recruit the help of veterinarians to implant tracking devices in the animals because their necks are so large they couldn’t wear typical collars.
So the veterinarians joined scientists during the winter at an elevation of 9,000 feet to do surgery on the wolverines.
Eventually, 38 wolverines were caught and tracked, Inman said, enabling scientists to learn all about the animals.
Their studies showed that adults live year-round in the mountains in some of the West’s most remote and rugged terrain. The home range of a male, they found, can cover 500 square miles.
Wolverines’ large feet allow them to float on top of deep snow, and they were documented making winter trips from one side of the massive Teton Range in Wyoming to the other in just a few hours, according to a news release.
“They are the winter endurance athletes of the animal world,” Steve Cain of the National Park Service said in a prepared statement. “We were impressed by their constant movements across large areas of snow-covered and incredibly rugged terrain.”
Two of the tracked wolverines were killed in avalanches during their travels, but one made it all the way to Colorado.
Its journey took it more than 500 miles – from near Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado – making it the first documented wolverine in the state in nearly a century.
Inman said the wolverine’s huge amounts of territory appear necessary for them to pull together enough food in the frozen habitats where they live. He said in the winter they mostly scavenge carrion from elk, moose and mountain goats. During the summer, they focus on marmots.
There are an estimated 250 to 300 wolverines in the continental United States, Inman said, adding that they are “everywhere you would expect them to be in Montana.”
“We learned that wolverines are adapted to eke out a living in very harsh conditions,” Inman said in a news release. “As a result, they naturally exist in low numbers and reproduce slowly.”
Inman said wolverines are not yet endangered, but will likely be in the near future. He identified three strategies to help conserve them.
They included building wildlife crossings and working with landowners to ensure that wolverines can cover the terrain they need to. He also talked about expanding wolverines’ habitat to Colorado. With its 14,000-foot peaks, Inman said Colorado might have some of the best remaining wolverine habitat as climate change occurs.
“Reintroduction there could be a really important step,” he said.
Also, he said there’s got to be a way to fund wolverine conservation other than using hunting and fishing fees. He suggested outdoor users such as backpackers and birdwatchers could also help pay for conservation.
“We need a broader spectrum demanding opportunities to contribute their share,” he said.
More reports on the wolverines are forthcoming and will focus on foods and behaviors critical to wolverine populations, as well as information on conserving the species in the lower 48.
In Inman’s opinion, wolverines are certainly worth protecting.
“They’re just an amazing part of our national heritage,” he said.
Carly Flandro may be reached at 582-2638 or cflandro@dailychronicle.com.
montana_native posted at 9:29 pm on Thu, Dec 8, 2011.
I was fortunate enough to work in remote NW Alaska for 11 years, where these guys are fairly common. I still believe they are a grown up badger. I am glad to see they may be making a comeack. They do not kill massive amounts of wildlife as the wolves do, but scavenge what the wolves leave behind. A mark of a great Eskimo hunter is a wolverine ruff on his parka.
steel_rsd posted at 5:45 pm on Tue, Dec 6, 2011.
"Yes, like 50 of 'em! They kept trying to attack my cousins, what the heck would you do in a situation like that?"
little big man posted at 2:36 pm on Tue, Dec 6, 2011.
"Did you shoot any?"
steel_rsd posted at 2:08 pm on Tue, Dec 6, 2011.
"I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!"
MfgMan posted at 10:32 am on Tue, Dec 6, 2011.
Wolverines are cool...in all my hundreds of nights and thousands of miles backpacking across the state, I've only seen one of them. I'm heartened to hear that we seem to be having some sucess in getting a better understanding of them, which bodes well for their ultimate survival.