Wolverine Publicity in the Tetons and Beyond

Outdoorsman and mountain adventurer Forrest McCarthy has posted an account of six years of work on the Teton wolverines. McCarthy refers to his time on the Teton projects as “the best job I ever had,” and offers a great selection of stories and pictures. Also in the blogosphere, the Adventure Journal has a tribute to the toughness of wolverines, based on the recent study by Bob Inman of WCS.

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.

Den Search

A few weeks ago, Jerry Longobardi,  Wyoming Game and Fish game warden for Teton County, came across a hole in the snow on the west side of the Tetons, with wolverine tracks leading into and out of it. Photos of the site circulated among WY Game and Fish, WCS, and NRCC, and the verdict was clear: they were wolverine tracks. The critical question was, was the hole a den, or did it simply represent a food stash, or a curious wolverine digging in the snow for a rodent?

The hole, with wolverine tracks

WCS ran a research operation in the Tetons for many years and documented what to date remains the only confirmed instance of wolverine reproduction in Wyoming, also on the west side of the Tetons. WCS is still the primary research organization for the Tetons even though they are not currently operating traps here. But because their operation is based in Montana, coming down to Jackson to investigate the site would have been a haul. I volunteered to ski in with Jerry a few weeks after the original sighting, to see if the area was still being used and, if it was, to try to collect DNA samples by picking up some scat. We set out on Friday. It had been snowing heavily for the past six days, pure wolverine weather, and as we headed west, the prospect of finding a den buoyed my spirits more than the first glimpse of sunshine in a week.

The chances of stumbling across a wolverine den by accident are minute, and den detection remains one of the elusive objectives of most wolverine research projects. An instrumented female will provide a location by localizing – staying in one spot for a number of days – which wolverines seldom do unless they are denning. But detecting dens this way requires a trapping operation before the denning period, reliable capture and instrumentation of female wolverines in the region, and the money and skilled pilots to fly repeat telemetry flights in rugged mountainous terrain three times a day over the course of four days at the beginning of the denning period. If all of these circumstances come together and the instrumented female is picked up in the same location over the course of the four days, then you know you have a den. This method is time consuming and expensive, due to the front-end investment in trapping in remote locations, and the costs of telemetry flights. For years research operations have tried to develop flight-based surveys for dens, but despite the Absaroka-Beartooth Project’s success in developing a flight-based systematic survey for presence-absence of wolverines in a given region, no one has been able to reliably locate dens of uninstrumented females from the air. So finding a den by any means other than telemetry is rare.

The site, as pointed out on the map, was not in what I would have considered denning habitat – generally, one thinks of a mother wolverine choosing to situate herself in a high cirque, and the forested ridge where Jerry had come across the hole didn’t seem quite right. But then again, what do we really know about wolverine denning habits in the Tetons, with only one den ever discovered? Besides, I wanted it to be a den, so I suspended judgement and remained optimistic.

We took a snowmobile for the first few miles and then skied in from there, not wanting to disturb the wolverine, if she was there. GPS coordinates led to a swath of snow on a steep hillside,  where despite high hopes, there was no further sign of disturbance. We removed our skis and slid down the slope to investigate for tracks, but there was nothing. My heart sank almost as deeply as I did – the snow was thigh deep and I plunged through the bottom of the snowpack and snagged my foot in a tangle of branches. In the struggle to extricate myself, I ended up upside-down, head pointed downhill. It might have been a dangerous situation if I’d been alone, but it also illustrated that this could indeed be denning habitat. Wolverines seem to favor slopes underlain by either sizable talus, or downfall. It seems that they dig into the snow for access, and use the cavities formed by the boulders or trees to provide structure to their dens. The hollow that I’d fallen through, and the branch that had snagged my foot, would be perfect for a wolverine. And the depth of snow, along with the cover provided by the forest, suggested that the snowpack would probably be adequate to provide necessary cover through mid-May, when wolverine kits are finally independent enough to travel on their own.

We dug into the den site until we hit ground, but found nothing – no sign of bones or of anything else a wolverine might have been eating. Jerry had found a second hole several hundred yards uphill from the first, so we skied up to investigate that as well. Again, there was no sign, and because the snow was terrible, we called off further searching and headed back.

Later, Jason said that the lack of tracks didn’t necessarily mean that it hadn’t been a den. Female wolverines generally occupy a series of dens in the course of raising their kits – a natal den, in which the kits are born, and successive maternal dens, in which the kits are nursed, raised, and eventually weaned. Jason estimated that a mother wolverine moves about 300 yards between den sites – which was approximately the distance between the first hole that Jerry found, and the second.

Even if it wasn’t a den, Jason suggested that it would be a good idea to go back and dig more extensively to see if we could uncover some sign of what the wolverine might have been doing in the hole. Food habits data, while not quite as thrilling as the prospect of finding a den, are also rare and valuable.

We’ll give it a few weeks, and then I’ll head back up to check out the site again.

Tracks!

On Saturday I went skiing in Death Canyon, and on the way down, took a detour to follow some interesting tracks. They caught my attention for a couple of reasons; the distinct and very regular 2x gait, and the trough through the snow.

The regular 2x gait and the trough around the prints prompted me to follow the tracks

They were clearly made by a medium-sized animal moving determinedly across the landscape. There aren’t that many candidates for tracks like these. They appeared too big to be marten, although in places the stride seemed short for a wolverine. I followed the tracks for about a mile; the animal would move rapidly across open spaces, and then duck under a grove of trees, look around, occasionally put its paws onto the snowy bark of a pine and, presumably, look up to see if there was anything to eat, before returning fairly quickly to its original course to the north, hauling across open meadow towards the next grove.  To the sides of the prints, on the edges of the trough, the drag marks of long fur were occasionally visible. On close examination, I could see claw marks at the front of the tracks, and in a few places, where I crawled under the trees to examine the tracks against harder snow, I could see imprints of widespread toes and, once, the impression of what appeared to be a chevron-shaped interdigital pad. Canid tracks have a distinct triangular shape, and if it had been a cat, the claw marks probably wouldn’t be visible. Odds were good that I was tracking a weasel.

Impressions of clawmarks and a widespread print indicate that this is not a canid or felid

I was at about 7100 feet, which seemed low for a wolverine, but not impossible, especially given the abundance of game at this elevation; squirrel and hare tracks were visible near the trees, and moose wandered the slopes. The 2x tracks eventually went straight up a steep, downfall-tangled hill; I followed them upslope just long enough to collect what I had been sure would show up eventually: scat. The scat was small too, but I tucked it into a folded square of paper and then headed back.

When I showed the photos to Jason on Monday, he ranked the tracks “probable” – too big for marten, all wrong for wolf. The only other possibility was an otter; the tracks weren’t far from Phelps Lake and Jason said that he’s seen otter tracks across high mountain passes miles away from water. But he also said that otters tend to place their feet directly beside each other, rather than offset in the way these tracks were. Hopefully we can send the scat to the lab and that might provide a more definitive answer. In the meantime, though, it was a good way to spend a Saturday in the Tetons.

Another single print - look closely, and the interdigital pad is almost visible

Tracks in the Tetons - to the left are the probable wolverine tracks, to the right those of Homo sapiens skierensis

Wolverines in 2010

Happy New Year!

Here in Jackson, we’re hoping to make 2010 a Year of the Wolverine. With funding for our citizen science project, we’re putting together a website and a backcountry wolverine track ID card to encourage reporting of wolverine sightings in the Tetons. We already have two talks scheduled here, and as I was putting up posters this afternoon, I was encouraged by the way everyone’s eyes lit up when they saw the picture of the wolverine. PBS Nature plans the release of a documentary on wolverines in March; I accompanied Absaroka-Beartooth field director Jason Wilmot and cameraman Bill Campbell on a test filming expedition for this documentary in 2008. Although neither Jason nor I appear in the film (thankfully, for my part),  Jason is the voice of the preview and we hope to host a couple of events on wildlife films in general and on the making of this film in particular. Also on the media front, The Wolverine Foundation website will be receiving a makeover sometime this year. We’re hoping to raise the profile of this fascinating animal without generating the kind of self-righteous, rectitude-based narratives that have plagued wolf and bear conservation efforts.

The wolverine listing decision of 2008, in which wolverines were deemed not warranted for protection under the Endangered Species Act, is due to be reconsidered this year after a lawsuit by a number of environmental advocacy organizations. If the wolverine receives protection, it will probably join the polar bear as a species listed due in part to its  vulnerability to climate change; since wolverines require deep spring snowpack to den, it’s a logical step to consider climate change a threat . Unfortunately, when the polar bear was listed the Bush administration issued a special rule stating that conservation actions can only be taken within the animal’s habitat. This means that even though an animal might be listed due in part or primarily because of the risks of climate change, the ESA can not be used to force legislation on climate change mitigation measures on a larger scale. So we might, for example, be threatening the polar bear or the wolverine through emissions, but even though we know this, we can’t use the ESA to push action on regulating emissions. Effectively, this conundrum has pulled the teeth out of the ESA in the face of a critical conservation problem. In the 20th century, the age of pesticides, development, and resource extraction as the primary environmental threats, the ESA was adequate to protect species. In the 21st century, where the conservation challenges are systemic, global, and threaten multiple ecosystems at once, we may have to rethink our approach. Perhaps 2010 will mark the beginning of a decade in which we are pushed to a new level of understanding of what will be asked of us to ensure the survival of high altitude, arctic, and boreal systems and the species that inhabit them.

On a more basic level, as of January 6th, the wolverine fur trapping season has been closed in two of Montana’s three trapping regions. In region 1, which has a quota of three animals, two animals were taken and the season closed; I’m assuming that this is because at least one of those animals was female, fulfilling a subquota that automatically shuts the season. Region 2, with a quota of one wolverine, was closed when a wolverine was taken. Region 3 is still open – this is the region in which two of our research animals, F3 and the Menan Male, live. I still break out in a cold sweat when I think about those animals in danger. Again, I recognize the importance of hunting and trapping to Western culture, but in this case the survival of the species takes priority.

The research project’s live traps reopened on January 6th after a holiday hiatus. Our field kit is ready to go, several bulky boxes occupying a substantial chunk of floor space in the office. When and if an animal goes into one of the traps, we’ll head up to participate in the collaring operation.

On New Year’s Eve, a sedate occasion which I spent in Ennis, Montana, with several friends, I had a dream (perhaps champagne-induced) that we discovered three wolverine dens. In the dream, we scrabbled down through the snow, digging out the kits, which were still half-white. The kits were small, but fierce, and the one I held twisted in my hands and latched onto my jacket and ran up to perch on my shoulder. There, instead of biting me, it balanced and, in the way of dream-creatures, spoke to me in a language that I couldn’t identify but nevertheless understood. On waking, I couldn’t remember what it had told me, but I maintain a sense of optimism. I hope that this year will hold dens, and kits, and perhaps the dream is a sign.

On the other hand, the dream also featured a swimming chicken, so who knows?

Backcountry Skiers for Wolverines

In April of 2009, all three staff members of the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative – Jason, the executive director, Lydia, the associate director, and I, the project manager – strapped on our skis and set out from the Bradley-Taggart Parking Lot in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Our objective: ski to Idaho, on the other side of the mountains, and see if we crossed wolverine tracks in the process. Accompanying us were eight friends, all ardent backcountry skiers and amateur wolverine biologists. As we toiled up the south fork of Avalanche Canyon and down Alaska Basin, we chatted about how this ought to be an annual event. When we stumbled across wolverine tracks just below timberline, the idea solidified into a necessity – Jackson, Wyoming had to have a citizen science effort that would capitalize on dedicated backcountry skiers’ enthusiasm for hanging out in wolverine habitat.

There was a major challenge, however; the wolverine is so little known that few people know what it or its tracks look like. People who do know wolverine are generally enthusiastic about seeing one, or its tracks, but those tracks are easily confused with marten, a much more common timberline species. NRCC gets consistent reports of wolverine sightings in the Tetons, and we know that the range is saturated with wolverines, so these sightings are probably reliable. Without documentation, however, we can’t truly count a sighting of a wolverine or its tracks as verified. So the first step in a citizen science project involves standardizing documentation and reporting. With this in mind, NRCC applied for a small grant from the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole to develop a pocket-sized card that backcountry users can take with them to id tracks and appropriately document the sighting. We also proposed a series of community presentations, the development of a website for reporting sightings, and a Second Annual Teton Traverse for Wolverine.

Last week, we were excited and honored to receive news that the grant was funded. We look forward to a winter and spring of wolverine-focused events in Jackson and the park. If you are interested in further details or in participating, please leave a comment here. Updates will follow on this website and on NRCC’s.