Monitoring of wolverines occurred last winter and will continue this winter. Research is being done in northwest Wyoming by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and collaborators from Wolverine Consulting, and the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes. An initial progress report shows 53 detections of wolverines at five stations last winter.

 

“There are significant areas of suitable habitat for wolverines in Wyoming’s western mountains, but we have been lacking basic information about population distribution,” said Zack Walker, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s non-game bird and mammal supervisor. “Given ongoing questions about the federal status of this species in Wyoming and in the northwestern United States, information on wolverine distribution in Wyoming is of particular interest to wildlife managers and we look forward to more results from this coming winter.”

 

In Wyoming, wolverine habitat occurs at high elevations, often in designated wilderness. This rugged terrain can be challenging to access at any time but particularly in winter. Last winter biologists set up remote cameras and hair snares at 18 sites in the Salt River, Gros Ventre, Absaroka and Wind River mountain ranges. Cameras provide data on wolverine presence while the hair snares are designed to snag a few hairs used for DNA analysis. Wolverines live in habitats with limited amounts of food so individual animals require hundreds of square kilometers to live and reproduce. This means the number of animals living in a given area is extremely low.

 

Detections of wolverines occurred at three stations in the Wind River Range, and one station in the Gros Ventre and one in the southern Absaroka ranges in the winter and spring of 2014/2015. Researchers will monitor additional sites this coming winter.

 

“This project has already added significantly to our understanding of wolverine distribution in Wyoming. The detection of an individual in the Gros Ventre range is the first verified occurrence of a wolverine there,” Walker said.

 

Funding was provided by the Wyoming State Legislature. More information can be found here.