Wolverines made the news in Calgary, Canada, with a short video piece on a study of the impacts of the Trans-Canada highway on the species. The segment contains some photos of camera-trapped wolverines, and highlights a different camera-trap method from the one employed by Audrey Magoun in Oregon.

Earlier this week, I had an interesting conversation with Forrest McCarthy, who is the public lands director at Winter Wildlands Alliance and who has worked with several wolverine projects in the past. He pointed me to two interesting sites.  Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation is an organization dedicated to combining adventure in the wild with intellectual stimulation and exploration. In association with Wild Things Unlimited, ASC is hosting a wolverine and lynx tracking workshop from February 3-5.  Information is available here; at last glance, they still had room for volunteers. The work will take place on the Gallatin and Helena National Forests and requires solid backcountry skills.

Forrest also suggested that I check out Bedrock and Paradox, a blog maintained by Dave Chenault, who works with the ongoing Glacier National Park DNA and camera study. Some of the entries deal with the wolverine work (the most recent here), and the rest with interesting questions about outdoor gear and existential crisis (not necessarily always linked….) He’s a good writer and an interesting thinker, and since Doug Chadwick doesn’t have a blog, this might be the best way to keep up with events in Glacier gulo land.

The Idaho Panhandle wolverine project has stepped up its PR with regular blog updates every Wednesday – be sure to check these out, as they also offer the opportunity to keep up with an on-going project, as well as  insight into such esoterica as how to deal with a gigantic shipment of skinned beavers. Another account is available from the Idaho Conservation League. All of these pieces on wolverine work are heartening; it’s great that people are so inspired.

Finally, here’s an article from the New York Times on why introverts need solitude in order to do their best work. Is this related to wolverines? Kind of, because wolverines are the Solitary Creature par excellence, and, as a raging introvert, that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with them immediately. I’ll avoid the very long exploration of these connections and my own personal feelings about people who don’t understand the introvert mode of creativity, but suffice to say that this is on my mind because I’ve been having some issues (from the time I first went to kindergarten right on up through last week….) with people who think that doing good work and being a decent human being rely on formulaic group interactions and enforced collegiality. For people who truly are introverts, the choice is clear: do mediocre work by engaging in these enforced situations and keeping your own impulses suppressed, or do brilliant work by embracing the gulo model of existence and scaling the peaks that need to be scaled. I am not a creature of the lowlands, and I am not a herd animal, so I really appreciate public attention to this issue of different ways of getting things done. I know that associating this issue with wolverines is purely totemic, but once in a while it’s okay to admit that our fascination with the natural world is about the reflections and lessons that its features (and creatures) invoke.

The presence of at least two animals indicated that the mountains might support resident, breeding wolverines, but the photos alone weren’t enough to prove this. Wolverines, as anyone who studies them knows, move around incessantly, and young males can disperse over long distances and hang out in regions that don’t necessarily support females. Determining the sex of the animals in the photos would yield important insight into what the two wolverines might be doing here – whether they were living in the area, defending territories, and raising kits, or whether they were simply hanging out until a territory opened up somewhere else.

A wolverine at a basic camera station in the Wallowas, April 2011. Photo courtesy of ODFW and Audrey Magoun.

Audrey and Pat returned to the camera station sites with backpacks full of gear and bait, with two-by-fours slung over their shoulders, odd contraptions of metal and plastic rods strapped to their packs, and a hardware store’s worth of nails, screws, screwdrivers, pliers, and drills stashed in separate ziploc bags. The initial stations had consisted of hanging bait and a camera and were rigged to simply document presence. The new stations that Audrey and Pat constructed resembled wolverine-scale jungle gyms, with a haunch of r0ad-killed deer dangling just above an apparatus that would encourage a wolverine to stand on its hind legs to reach the meal. On either side of the apparatus, Audrey painstakingly set a row of alligator clips, held open by another set of alligator clips, to snag hair for DNA. Then they left, hoping that the two wolverines would be habituated enough to return, and hungry or curious enough not to be bothered by the transformed stations.

Camera-traps’ utility in identifying individuals among species like tigers, which have unique stripe patterns, was recognized almost immediately when camera trapping began gaining popularity as a conservation research tool, about a decade ago. Researchers can’t visually ID most species to the individual, however, so camera stations are generally designed to document presence of a species in a given area, often with accompanying devices to snag hair for DNA samples, which can help calculate how many animals might be in a region.

Audrey, who has studied wolverines for decades and is constantly thinking about how to improve research methods, first realized that wolverines, like tigers, have unique markings that would allow an individual ID: their chest patches. But since a wolverine’s chest patch is not fully visible when a wolverine is doing normal wolverine activities on all fours, Audrey had to figure out how to induce the wolverines who visited the stations to stand up on their hind legs and display their full markings. In doing this, Audrey realized, they would also be giving a view of their entire undersides, which would allow researchers to determine sex, and reproductive status of females in the spring. By adding a set of hair snags to the station, Audrey had created a minimally-invasive tool for gathering a huge amount of information on an elusive and difficult-to-study species.

The two Wallowa wolverines did return to the stations. Both were male; Audrey christened them Stormy and Iceman. At the very end of the season, a third wolverine appeared on the cameras. The photos of this wolverine, Zed, were not as clear as those of Stormy and Iceman, but Audrey was pretty sure Zed was a male too. They hadn’t documented females, but they’d documented enough wolverines to excite Oregon’s wildlife world, and the project was funded for a second season. One of the big objectives for the 2011-2012 season was to document a female.

I’d been hearing about Audrey’s work for years, and I’d communicated with her via email; like anyone approaching a hero of one’s chosen field, I was timid and self-conscious about talking to her, although she was always very generous in responding to my questions. As my work in Mongolia went forward and it became increasingly clear that a collaring study would be too logistically complicated, camera-traps seemed like the best option for the work I wanted to do. But when I looked at the book that Audrey had published about the technique, the complex diagrams induced the kind of headache that I get when I try to visualize in the abstract some mechanical operation that is best learned hands-on. I overcame an extreme case of nerves and emailed her to ask if I could come out to Oregon in December of 2011 to join the study for a few weeks, so that I would know exactly what it took to run a camera-trap grid in Oregon – and, by extrapolation, what it would take to do something similar in Mongolia.

To my surprise and delight, she generously said yes, and on December 3rd I set out from Bozeman, Montana to join the project. Audrey had made it clear that I was headed to an unheated farmhouse without plumbing, to engage in heavy physical labor in a rigorous alpine environment. Nevertheless, I would have been less nervous if I’d been invited to high tea with the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace. It promised to be an interesting two weeks.

Audubon magazine has posted online a story that they ran in print back in 2008. When I began this blog, in 2009, this article was one of the few popular-press items ever written about wolverines. We’ve come a long way in building awareness in the space of four years.

The Spokesman-Review offers an article about the wolverine research in the Selkirks, which, as of last week, camera-trapped its first wolverine of 2012. The article gives a well-deserved nod to the 40 (!) volunteers who showed up to participate in the research training. Citizen scientists are essential to so many of these projects, and the degree of interest is again indicative of growing awareness of the species.

Finally, for Colorado residents who are particularly interested in the Mongolia wolverine work, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is offering a talk on Mongolian wildlife research on Wednesday, January 18th. As far as I know, the talk will not focus on wolverines, but it will feature “remarkable tales of fermented mare’s milk, wild gerbils and hamsters, efforts to save the very endangered Gobi bear, an unexpected run-in with local shakedown artists, and bad combinations of snow in July and unreliable Russian vehicles….” The fermented mare’s milk, the shakedown artists, the unexpected snow, and the unreliable Russian vehicles all suggest that if you are interested in what wolverine research in Mongolia entails, you’ll get a pretty good picture from this talk. The lecture starts at 7:00, at the Gates Planetarium; admission is $10.

And for those who can’t get enough of Mongolian wildlife, check out this short film on Mongolian marmots. Marmots are of cultural importance and, by all reports from Mongolian hunters and herders, are most likely an important food source for Mongolian wolverines as well as Mongolian people. (Be forewarned that this film contains images of people butchering a marmot, which is tradition in Mongolia but may be upsetting to some audiences.) Thanks to the folks at Boojum Expeditions for bringing this to my attention.

The first dates from 1797; the “wolverene” looks like a striped possum, with the anatomically mystifying distinction of having four digits on its front paws and five on the back:

The second, three years later in 1800, features a “glutton” standing in docile profile:

The third, from 1828, reaches for scientific classification but places the wolverine, along with the badger, in the bear family – Ursus gulo and Ursus meles. The mistake, in the early days of taxonomy, is understandable. (Viverra, by the way, is a genus of civet.)

These pictures arc across a particularly interesting moment in the history of science and biology. During the eighteenth century the Enlightenment and the printing press had fueled the advent of the Age of Reason, an exploration of the natural world, and a turn towards systematizing knowledge and inquiry. By 1797, the giddy early days of this new way of seeing the world had given way to the chaos of the French Revolution, the final death knell of the old European model of kingship-by-divine-right and the accompanying assumption that the Catholic church and religion had the power to explain everything in the universe. As the nineteenth century began and the European encounter with the rest of the world’s cultures and environments escalated through colonial expansion into Asia and Africa, a much broader swath of the world’s species (extant and extinct) came under the gaze of the new and systematic European methods of inquiry and explanation. In 1828, a young Charles Darwin had just abandoned his original program of medical study to indulge a passion for natural history. At the time that the writer and illustrator of the above image was proposing that gulo and meles belonged among the bears, Darwin was in his second year at Cambridge, where his father had sent him to become a pastor after he neglected his medical studies. Instead, Darwin took up what was then referred to as ‘Natural Theology,’ and three years later he stepped aboard the Beagle. In 1859, On the Origin of Species rolled off the printing presses and propelled biology into a new era.

The images above, apparently plates from books, were acquired as prints, without context, so I don’t know where they came from or who created them. The ferment of ideas about the natural world that the authors, illustrators, and readers doubtless contemplated remain fun to think about; at least the wolverine was present among these discussions, even if in slightly misshapen representation. Maybe, during those days at Cambridge, Darwin paused for a moment to look at a picture of the ‘bears,’ and wonder how they came to look so different.

Here’s an image to wrap up this digression into the history of science and bring this post into the present – the most recent camera check from the Idaho panhandle camera trapping project yielded their first wolverine of the season, in the Selkirks! This is great news, and in light of the images above, the accompanying blog’s implied disappointment that we don’t know the gender or identity of the animal is somewhat moderated. In two hundred years, we’ve progressed from not knowing what the animal looks like or what family it belongs to, to being disappointed not to know the identity of specific individuals. In the history of the wolverine’s place in science, that seems like pretty good progress.

As a postscript, wolverine image-making has progressed into an entirely new realm with the news that Cass, the wolverine at the Billings Zoo in Montana, has taken up abstract painting. Self portrait? Attempt to categorize his own knowledge of humans? Or simply an expression of his desire for a piece of steak, the usual reward for his work? Two hundred years from now, maybe the field of animal-created art will look back to its beginnings in the early 21st century and express amazement at how little we understood of what animals wanted to tell us. Then again…maybe he just wants the steak.

Over the next few years, Dave convened citizen science workshops to teach skiers how to ID wolverine tracks, testified at hearings with wildlife managers to reduce the trapping quota for wolverines, organized the Wolverine Network, and hosted showings of the PBS wolverine documentary to raise awareness about the species. He was also quietly but consistently supportive of my work; he was the first person to subscribe to this blog, and sent occasional emails about different posts, sometimes containing thoughts or additional information, but always complimentary. Most recently, he sent an email thanking me for raising awareness about wolverines. The sense of someone sincerely interested not only in wildlife but in the well-being of humans (both specific individuals and in a more general sense) never wavered.

On Saturday, Dave and his wife were skiing near Cooke City, Montana, when an avalanche slid from the slope above. He was buried. The Yellowstone conservation world lost a vital member of the community, and wolverines lost a great friend and advocate. I didn’t know David outside the world of wolverine work, but I do know that within the wolverine world, his kindness, his calm in the face of potential stress, and his commitment to collaboration will be missed. My condolences go out to his family and to his friends.

So what else does the new year hold for wolverines? 2012 will see more wolverine studies in more locations in the US than ever before – long-term monitoring of wolverines in the Greater Yellowstone region continues for the animals originally collared by the Absaroka-Beartooth project, and for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s wolverines. Round River Conservation continues research on the interface between wolverines and winter recreation in Idaho, expanding the study from McCall to Stanley and Fairfield, while further to the north, Idaho Fish and Game, in collaboration with various conservation organizations, launches a second season of camera-trapping for wolverines in the Selkirk, Cabinet, and Purcell ranges. In Oregon, Audrey Magoun and the Oregon Department of Fish and Game are constructing camera trap bait stations across the Wallowa mountains for a second season of work that will hopefully reveal a resident population; the three males photographed this past spring represent the first documentation of wolverines in the range, and if the cameras capture a nursing female this year, it will be the first evidence of a breeding population in the state since the species was declared extirpated in 1936. A camera trap project in Oregon’s Cascades will seek to document wolverines further to the west, while the Cascades Carnivore Project monitors wolverines (among other species) in the Washington Cascades. This means that at least eight projects (there may be more; I’m not sure about the status of the Glacier National Park DNA and camera study) are working on wolverines in the US. Internationally, Canada, Sweden, and Norway continue research on wolverines, and 2012 will see the set-up of camera traps in Mongolia.

2011 was a big year for wolverines. The momentum from the 2010 listing decision and the attention from the PBS wolverine documentary and Doug Chadwick’s book contributed to an increase in public awareness of the species. The discovery of wolverines in the Wallowa mountains in Oregon generated excitement. The launch of three non-invasive, camera and DNA-based studies – one in Oregon, one in Glacier, and one in Idaho – point to the new direction that wolverine research is taking: easier on the animal, and (somewhat) less labor intensive for the people, who have known from the beginning that trying to keep up with this animal is an impossible aspiration.

For me, the year began in Cambodia, contemplating ways to mitigate climate change effects, proceeded to Mongolia for a summer of tracking wolverines through the Altai and Sayan mountains, and wound down in Oregon, where I was privileged to have the opportunity to participate in the Wallowa work. I hope that the coming year holds just as much adventure for everyone, and that 2012 is full of good things for wolverines, wolverine researchers, and wolverine fans everywhere. Thanks to the blog’s readership and to everyone who supports wolverine research and conservation, and Happy New Year!

“A strong argument can be made that wolverines – not bears and caribou – should be our focus when assessing the overall health of some ecosystems. They certainly may hold the key to our understanding of landscape fragmentation.”

This notion of wolverines, ecosystem health, and habitat fragmentation is worth considering in greater depth, but I’m going to defer that discussion until after the holidays. The article is worth the read. Enjoy!

1. Shooting bottles of water off a target with a rifle.

2. Running a snow machine.

3. Butchering roadkill.

4. Eating every species of wild North American ungulate except antelope. (Note: this is unrelated to item 3)

It may sound like I’ve been on a crash course on becoming a redneck, but in actuality, all of these skills are essential for the the budding wolverine camera-trapper. Audrey Magoun and her husband Pat have been more than generous in sharing their knowledge of these and other essential and somewhat more esoteric skills (selecting exactly the right configuration of trees for setting up a camera station, creating a gymnastic apparatus that will induce a wolverine to reveal the pattern of its chest patch, using laser pointers to fine-tune a camera’s position, and positioning a vast assemblage of alligator clips to snag fur in a way that won’t alarm the wolverines, among others.) It’s been a great two weeks, and one of the greatest things about it has been the total lack of internet access. But I’m shortly (and reluctantly) to return to the land of the Connected, where I’ll be updating the gulo-curious on recent adventures in the Wallowas! More soon.

Equally exciting, a new article in the Journal of Wildlife Management summarizes the findings of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s multi-year Yellowstone Ecosystem wolverine project. I haven’t had a chance to read more than the abstract, but the findings are explored (albeit briefly) in articles in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and at Mongabay.  I’m looking forward to reading the article itself, especially since it brings some attention to habitat requirements at the southern edge of wolverine range – which has implications for work on the species in Mongolia. I’m also in the middle of reading through a new thesis about wolverine-lynx interactions in Sweden and Norway, which offers another set of insights into gulo requirements in a very different habitat. So it should make for an interesting comparison.

Finally, I try to avoid politics on this blog, but Dan Rather recently stated that, “Newt Gingrich on the move politically is as dangerous as a wounded wolverine.” I have to take issue with this.  Newt doesn’t deserve the compliment, and wolverines don’t deserve the insult. Please, Mr. Rather, let’s start a trend of speaking more respectfully of our wolverine compatriots if we’re going to bring them into politically symbolic public discourse. At the very least, no one should be compared to a wolverine if they don’t look like they could actually climb a mountain.

In the meantime, I thought I’d leave readers with a few brief bits of gulo news:

A wolverine was caught on camera by WWF  in the Russian Altai. These mountains are contiguous with the Mongolian Altai and whatever is going on with the wolverine population in Mongolia is undoubtedly tied to population dynamics in Siberia. So it’s great to have a quick glimpse, even if the bulk of the excitement in this particular article revolves around snow leopards.

A friend of mine pointed me to this Richard Nelson podcast about wolverines. It’s about half an hour long and discusses wolverine biology, and also some interesting Koyukon cultural beliefs about wolverines.

In a recent post about trophic cascades and the wolverine’s role in the ecosystem, I made some statements about wolverine habitat that are not necessarily universally true. Most of my personal experience with wolverines is in mountain ranges at the southern edge of the global range, and so I tend to default to an image of that habitat when I talk about them, and specifically to the Tetons, which is the wolverine-occupied range where I’ve spent the most time. This tendency ignores the bulk of their range in the boreal forests, not to mention variable conditions even between mountain ranges.   So here are a few clarifications:

Wolverines do overlap with wolves and bears in significant portions of their range, and stories abound in Mongolia of wolverines following wolves and feeding on wolf-killed carcasses. In picturing the Tetons, where wolverines are up in the high, rocky peaks and wolf sign is more frequently seen in the valleys, I was picturing a system in which wolverines might, at certain altitudes, be the top predator. But this is unlikely to be consistently true even in the Rockies.

Wolverines are distributed across any landscape in very low densities, and are unlikely to prey on any single species to the extent that they actually have an effect on the population of that species. So saying that wolverines may be a top predator on mountain goats or bighorn sheep in a given area was again a mistranslation between an image in my mind, and science. Depending on what’s going on in a particular wolverine territory, a wolverine might kill a number of animals in a particular herd, but does this affect the overall population of the species? Probably not.

I’m also planning to write a follow-up post about why focusing on trophic cascades is not the only way to think about the value or function of a wolverine. So stay tuned. But in the meantime, I’m off to the mountains to stop speculating and start learning.