Wolverine Photographed in California

A second wolverine has been photographed in the Sierra Nevadas of California.

The first one was captured on a baited trailcam station in 2008 as part of a study on martens. The location was north of Lake Tahoe on the Tahoe National Forest near Hobart Mills Road. They since set up a number of hair traps and they caught hair samples of this same wolverine a number of times. It’s a male, and genetic testing showed that he came from Idaho. It’s not known how he got from Idaho to the Sierras. He’s been apparently looking for a mate in the area, but he hasn’t been able to find one.

This one was photographed in May at Lake Spaulding, ~25 miles away from Hobart Mills Road to the west. It’s not known whether this wolverine that was photographed is the same one as was snapped at Hobart Mills Road. A hiker went into the backcountry for a three hike all alone and saw the wolverine booking it across Lake Spaulding’s frozen surface. He snapped a photo of it as it was running past. Biologists on the forest are very excited about this sighting.

I have a huge article about California wolverines here.

Website Links to My Wolverine Articles

Captain Capitalism*, who has linked to us before, links approvingly to our wolverine articles. The truth is that the wolverine series is probably the best and most up to date series of articles on wolverine sightings, modern and historical, in the US.

Separate posts deal extensively with wolverines in the Midwest, Oregon, Washington, Idaho (here and here), Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada and New Mexico. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California.

If you are in or near any of those states, you might want to look up those articles. They have the latest up to date sightings for each state and region listed along with a lot of great photos of the areas near where the sightings occurred.

In addition to the states listed above, wolverines occur in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and even Iowa. They have not been seen in Nevada since the 1890′s. They are also extirpated from Arizona. Wolverines seem to be recolonizing a lot of their historical habitat, though they have not yet come back to the Rust Belt and the Upper Northeast.

The pieces do need to be spiced up with even more recent sightings that I get on a regular basis. Lately, I got a few sightings from New Mexico, which is very odd.

Some of you Bigfooters might be interested in wolverines.

*Not that we agree with CC on economics or politics in general of course.

Wolverines In Washington

Note: Repost from the old blog.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Idaho (here and here), Wyoming, Nevada , Utah and Colorado, the Upper Midwest and New Mexico. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Re-discovered After 86 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the state of Washington.

First of all, wolverines have been proven to exist in Washington in the past six years. On May 29, 2009, a wolverine was photographed on the north side of Mount Adams on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Another wolverine was photographed on the Yakima Indian Reservation the year before.

The report on the Methow District of the Okanagan Forest below shows that two wolverines were trapped on the forest in 2005. This is excellent news and is the only report of wolverines being live-trapped anywhere on Earth, or possibly ever.

In addition, wolverines have been photographed on the Wenatchee National Forest and on the Yakima Indian Reservation in 2006. In 2005, fur was collected south of Danville on the Okanagan.

Compared to and Oregon, wolverines in Washington seem to be doing a lot better.

Although most reports indicate that wolverines are dire shape in Washington, the truth is that they are probably not in in immediate danger of going extinct, at least up in the far north of the Okanagan, where the wolverines are probably drifting down from British Colombia.

The report on wolverines in the Methow Ranger District in the Okanagan National Forest in far northern Washington near the British Colombian border is here. That location is in the Northern Cascades.

In addition, there have been sightings of wolverines outside of the Hart’s Pass area of the Okanagan. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reports that wolverines are thought to exist on the Colville, Gifford, Pinchot, Kanisku, Okanagan, and Wenatchee National Forests based on 33 reports of sighting and tracks from 1985-2000.

In 2005, wolverine fur was collected just south of Danville in the Kettle Range in northeastern Washington. This area is just south of British Colombia.

Photo of a wolverine shot on the northwest side of Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington in May 2009.

In 2006, a camera station detected a wolverine in the Napeequa River Valley in the Glacier Peak Wilderness to the south of Hart’s Pass on the Wenatchee National Forest.

The Napeequa River Valley in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. The valley has been compared to Shangri-La. The trail to the valley is now damaged and overgrown in spots, but you can still get there. The valley floor is about 4,200 feet. A wolverine was detected at a camera station here in 2006.

In the same year, another camera detected a wolverine on the northeast slope of Mt. Adams on the Yakima Indian Reservation. This is also in the Cascades, but is in southern Washington.

The northeast slope of Mount Adams in the middle of winter. A wolverine was detected here with a camera in 2006. There are many avalanches here. Within the area shown by this photo, there were several avalanche and mountain climber rescues in recent years.One theory is that wolverines evolved in glaciated regions and then adapted to the receding glaciers.

As the glaciers receded, they left behind huge rock fields called glacial moraine. In the steeper areas, there were probably many rock slides as the glaciers receded. These rock slides probably killed many animals, including large animals.

The theory is that the wolverine, with its frost-resistant fur and frenetic lifestyle capable of traversing the most formidable territory, evolved to scavenge the dead animals killed as the glaciers receded. They are now found in the areas that most closely resemble the glaciated environment in which they evolved.

There were also sightings on the Olympic Peninsula and on the Mount Baker National Forest east of Bellingham in the 1990′s.

A wolverine was sighted near Twin Lakes on the Colville Indian Reservation in 2005. This is at the southern end of the Kettle River Range.

Click the wolverines label at the end of the post to see other posts on wolverines in the US, including many sighting reports and photos.

References

Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Predator Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, and Superior Wilderness Action Network. (2000). Petition for a rule to list the wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) as Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act within the contiguous United States. Submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service on July 11, 2000.

Predator Conservation Alliance. (2001). Predator Conservation Alliance’s Literature Summary — Draft — January 24, 2001 — Draft Conservation Status and Needs of the Wolverine (Gulo gulo).

Wolverines In Oregon

Note: Repost from the old blog.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Washington, Idaho (here and here), Wyoming, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, the Upper Midwest and New Mexico. There are also five separate posts on the wolverine in California.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Re-discovered After 86 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the state of Oregon.

It is true that there have been no proven occurrences of wolverines in Oregon since 1992, but there is considerable anecdotal evidence that they live there, including many sightings. Five wolverines have been collected since 1965, one live and four dead. That’s four more than have been collected in California.

Further, aerial surveys in recent years have found discovered what appear to be wolverine tracks, snow tunnels and in a few cases winter dens on the top of high Oregon peaks. No such findings have turned up in California, but no aerial surveys have yet been attempted either. All of this implies that the wolverine is in better shape in Oregon than in California.

The wolverine seems to be in best shape in Washington, then in Oregon, and finally in worst shape in California.

In Oregon, a wolverine was trapped in 1986 in Wheeler County, a wolverine was found dead on I-84 in Hood River County in 1990 and another was recovered as a partial skeleton in Grant County 1992.

An unnamed lake at the end of an unnamed trail in the Wallowa Mountains in far northeast Oregon. This is definitely a Great Basin Range. On April 2 and April 13, 2011, two wolverines were spotted on trail cams here in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. In addition, tracks were found. This was the first positive proof of wolverines in Oregon in 19 years.

Early March surveys by airplane in 1997-98 ( video of the aerial surveys with awesome footage of a live wolverine and tracks in winter in Washington) found 12 sets of tracks, 2 snow tunnels and one possible wolverine den on the Mount Thielsen Wilderness and two sets of tracks on the Rogue/Umpqua Divide Wilderness, both on the Umpqua National Forest.

The elevations in the Mount Thielsen Wilderness were 7,000-7,200 feet.

On March 8, 1997, state and federal biologists found three sets of possible wolverine tracks on 7,000 foot+ ridgelines north of Mt. Thielsen in the Mt. Thielsen Wilderness on the Umpqua National Forest. One set of tracks included a possible wolverine den. On the same day, researchers noted possible wolverine tracks at the head of Devil’s Canyon on nearly Mt. Bailey (8,375 feet).

Mt. Thielsen is a 9,182 foot peak. On March 20, 1998, a federal biologist spotted eight sets of possible wolverine tracks and two possible wolverine snow tunnels in this wilderness area.

The spectacular sweeping and dense forests of the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness. On March 10-11, 1998, state and federal biologists spotted two possible sets of wolverine tracks here.

In 1998 in more March surveys, more tracks were found at 8,000 feet on Mt. McLoughlin and on Devil’s Peak in the Sky Lakes Wilderness in the Winema and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forests, and more were seen in 1998 at Fuller Lake in the Boulder Creek Wilderness.

On March 20, 1998, state and federal wildlife biologists spotted possible wolverine tracks at 8,000 feet on the north side of Mt. McLoughlin, shown here. The mountain rises to 9,495 feet. This peak is west of Upper Klamath Lake, north of Mount Shasta in California and south of Crater Lake.

Devil’s Peak (7,300 feet) in the Sky Lakes Wilderness south of Crater Lake National Park. Possible wolverine tracks were seen by an aerial crew here on March 20, 1998. Note the ugly clearcuts in the background. This is why I oppose clearcutting so much. It’s totally devastating to a forest to cut it like that.

Wolverine tracks were photographed on the side of a Jeep near Silverton, Oregon in Marion County. The sighting occurred in October 15, 2009. The photo was shown to a zoologist, Charles Clapsaddle, who identified them as wolverine prints. Sightings occur occasionally in the next county to the south, Linn County, in the foothills of the Cascades.

Steens Mountain in far southeast Oregon. Hikers resting in a streambed saw a wolverine through their binoculars from 1/3 of a mile away on an overhanging hill. They watched him for a number of minutes. He seemed to be digging. In addition, a wolverine was trapped and released here in 1973. This is high desert, but note the road-killed wolverine above in similar high desert territory at the Dalles.

The area used to be full of lakes and was very lush and productive. Various California Indian tribes like the Miwok, Yokuts and Ohlone probably originated here over 5,000 years ago during the wet weather.

They then moved down the Oregon-California border to Lake Tahoe, where they crossed into the Delta. From there, they probably split to become the Ohlone, Miwok and Yokuts. These three language groups do seem to be related, but the degree of their relatedness is not known. Some say they are all just under Penutian, with no special relationship amongst them.

Strawberry Lake in the Blue Mountains in the Strawberry Lake Wilderness Area. Wolverines were seen on two separate occasions on the Wenaha Unit in the Blue Mountains, one in 2006 and another in 1991. A timber wolf was also seen here, probably a wanderer from Idaho. Another Great Basin Range in Eastern Oregon.

A spectacular shot of the Boulder Creek Wilderness in Oregon. Photo taken by T.A. Klingenberg. On March 10-11, 1998, surveyors found possible wolverine tracks here.

There was an unverified sighting of a wolverine on the Umpqua Trail near Roseberg, Oregon in 2001 along the Jessie Wright Trail Segment in the Umpqua National Forest.

The North Umpqua Trail on the Umpqua National Forest. There was an unverified sighting of a wolverine here in 2001 in Jessie Wright segment of the trail in the Boulder Creek Wilderness.

In 1996, a wolverine was seen on a trail leading down from a peak near Olallie Lake on the Mount Hood National Forest.

In 1993, a wolverine was spotted during summer on Road 100 in the Rogue River National Forest north or Rancheria Road.

This is a recent photo of the area along Cobleigh Road in Butte Falls, Oregon. In summer 1993, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine on Road 100 in the Rogue River NF, which is about 6 miles northwest of here. This is in the same general area as the sighting around Prospect, Oregon, in the Rogue River Gorge.

In Autumn 1992, a wolverine was seen on Dead Indian Road near Lily Glen.

This is Dead Indian Road in the Umpqua National Forest. There was an unverified wolverine sighting seen here in Autumn 1992 near the Lily Glen Equestrian Area, an historical site that preserves one of the area’s first settlements.

In October 1990, a hunter saw a wolverine at Mill Creek six miles north of Prospect in the Rogue River NF.

Mill Creek Falls north of Prospect, Oregon in the Rogue River Gorge. There was an unverified wolverine sighting on Mill Creek in October 1990. An elk hunter saw one at his camp 6 miles north of Prospect.

Wolverine tracks have been seen on the Diamond Lakes Ranger District of the Umpqua.

A wolverine was seen south of La Pine in northern Klamath County in the 1990′s.

Tracks were confirmed on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in the northeastern part of Oregon in the 1990′s, and during the same period, possible wolverine sign was detected on the Malheur, Deschutes, Rogue, and Fremont National Forests. In addition, wolverine tracks were seen at Snow Bunny Snow Park on the Mount Hood National Forest in 1990.

There was an incredible finding west of the Dalles at Rowena on the Colombia River in 1990 when a wolverine was run over by a car. This area is hot, dry Great Basin steppe and is far from any wilderness area. This goes to show that wolverines live in many locales in the West, including the high, dry Great Basin plateaus and mountains.

The Dalles near Rowena Gorge. It’s hard to believe that wolverines live in such hot and dry terrain, but apparently they do. A wolverine was killed by a car here on Highway 84 in 1990.

In the late 1970′s, local newspapers carried multiple reports of wolverine sightings around Chemult on the Umpqua National Forest.

In 1965, a wolverine was shot on Three-Fingered Jack Mountain in the Oregon Cascades. This was the first confirmed report since 1912.

Three-Fingered-Jack Mountain in the Oregon Cascades, where a wolverine was shot by a hunter in 1965, the first verified report of a wolverine since 1912. At the time, the wolverine was thought to be extinct in the state.

Since then, wolverines have been reported from the Cascades, as noted above, and in addition in northeastern Oregon in the Blue Mountains, the Wallowas, and even on Steens Mountain in the far southeast of the state.

There have also been sightings recently near Pullman in southeastern Oregon near the Idaho border.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife feels that wolverines occur or are suspected to occur in the following counties: Baker, Clackamas, Crook, Deschutes, Douglas, Grant, Harney, Hood River, Jackson, Jefferson, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Linn, Malheur, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, Wasco and Wheeler.

References

Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Predator Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, and Superior Wilderness Action Network. (2000). Petition for a rule to list the wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) as Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act within the contiguous United States. Submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service on July 11, 2000.Predator Conservation Alliance. (2001)

Predator Conservation Alliance’s Literature Summary – Draft – January 24, 2001 – Draft Conservation Status and Needs of the Wolverine (Gulo gulo).

Wolverine Sighted in Shasta County, California

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and the Upper Midwest. There are also four posts on the wolverine in California.

There was an unconfirmed sighting of a wolverine in Shasta County, California a year ago, on Friday, September 26, 2008. The sighting occurred at 1 PM on a sunny day. The wolverine was crossing Highway 89 from north to south. It was walking fast more than running.

It was described as paler than most photos the observer had seen – more of a dark tan. This color is actually common for wolverines, and if this was an actual California wolverine, this subspecies was known to have a much lighter coloration. He observed it crossing the road at about 50 feet away until it vanished into the forest.

The observer assumed it was a pretty common animal until he went on the Net and did some research and found out how rare it was. He reported the sighting to this blog, and I believe him. Anyone who wants to talk to the observer about this sighting can try to contact him via me at my email

This area of California has actually had a number of wolverine sightings in recent years, including some by wildlife biologists. In addition, loggers, utility workers and Forest Service workers have been reporting sightings in the Lassen/Almanor area for years now. Bizarrely, even sightings by wildlife biologists are said to be “unconfirmed”.

The sighting was around Dead Horse Summit, about 20-30 miles west of McCloud, between the small towns of Bartle and Pondosa. This area is near MacArthur-Burney Falls State Park. That’s a really beautiful area. This part of California is very White, deeply conservative and very sparsely settled. I have been near this part of California, but it was so long ago, I don’t even remember it.

Dead Horse Summit. This is where the far southern end of the Cascades Range of Washington, Oregon and northern California meets the far northern end of the Sierra Nevada. This is an area where the California spotted owl probably intergrades with the Northern spotted owl. Wolverines are already known to exist at decent populations in southern Oregon. These are definitely California wolverines. If the California wolverine subspecies is to repopulate California and the Sierra Nevada, it will be through this corridor linking the two ranges.There is a fascinating old railroad track that runs through this area. You can take these little several man-railroad cars that cruise along the tracks and check out this train track. It’s really popular with model railroad fans for some weird reason. I’m not even sure if this track is even used by real trains anymore. As far as I can tell, it’s a tourist trap for model railroad dudes. Funny.

Wolverines Extinct in Sequoia – Kings Canyon?

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington , Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and the Upper Midwest. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California .

A new study using baited trap stations, done during winter, failed to find any California wolverines in either Sequoia or Kings Canyon National Parks in the southern Sierra Nevada. However, in 1980, definite wolverine tracks were seen at two locales in Kings Canyon National Park by trained wildlife biologists. However, tracks always count as “unverified”. But not to me.

I say that at least 28 years ago, wolverines were present in Kings Canyon National Park. Wolverine sightings in California in the past tended to be concentrated in Kings Canyon and Sequoia Parks. This area was long held to be the last stronghold of the wolverine in California. Many detailed sightings were made from 1900-1930 in Sequoia National Park. In one, a wolverine chased two adult bears away from a horse carcass.

A map of historical wolverine sightings in Kings Canyon – Sequoia Parks. As you can see, sightings were much more common from 1920-1955 or so and have dropped off quite a bit ever since. Click to view.

The survey utilized many trap stations set in winter for a couple of months. It was designed to test for wolverines persisting at very low densities.

A map of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks showing the locations of the bait stations used in this survey. It also includes sightings since 1980. In the past 28 years, there have been nine wolverine sightings. That is about one sighting every three years, not a very good record.

I am also aware of tracks spotted at Courtright Reservoir in 1990.

Courtright is located at the far west end of of rectangle 5a on the map, outside far northern Kings Canyon in the Sierra National Forest. These tracks were verified by Sierra National Forest wildlife biologists. I conclude therefore that wolverines were present near northern Kings Canyon at least 18 years ago.

I am also aware of another sighting out of Bishop, California on the Sierra crest in 1980. This sighting was by a wildlife biologist. The location of this sighting was just off this map to the north of the station labeled EV, north of Kings Canyon National Park. So from 18-28 years ago, wolverines were present in and around Kings Canyon. Whether the have been extirpated since 1990 is yet an open question in my mind. Click to view.

It failed to find any wolverines, and the researchers concluded that the California wolverine is likely extirpated from the Southern Sierra Nevada. Many other recent studies have also failed to find any wolverines.

However, this winter, a wolverine was photographed north of Lake Tahoe by researchers studying pine martens. DNA analysis has subsequently shown that this animal is from the Rocky Mountains and is not a California wolverine. It is not known how this male wolverine got to the northern Sierra Nevada, since the nearest population is in the Snake River Valley in Idaho far to the north.

There are other sightings in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks since 1995. A possible wolverine was heard near the Lodgepole area in Sequoia in 1995. It growled a frightening growl at a passerby from a small hole in some rocks that seemed too small to hold a bear.

On April 19, 2010, a woman reported to park authorities that she saw a wolverine crossing a road in Kings Canyon National Park. She picked a wolverine out of a sequence that also included photos of bear, fox, weasel and beaver as the animal that she saw.

The researchers advocate that wolverines be reintroduced to the Sierras, since they seem to be absent from most of the range.

I believe that California wolverines may continue to persist at very low levels in the Sierras.

Historical wolverine sightings in Yosemite National Park. Once again, sightings were much more common from 1920-1955 or so. But there were still quite a few sightings in the 1990′s. However, I am aware of some recent sightings in Yosemite in the 2000′s that were not included in this map. I believe that the wolverine may continue to persist at low levels in Yosemite. Click to view.

In August 2006, there was an unverified sighting of a California wolverine in the Soda Creek drainage northeast of Rainbow Mountain in the Mineral King area of Sequoia National Park.

The Soda Creek Drainage in Mineral King, where there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine on the northeast slope of Rainbow Mountain in August 2006. This is at the confluence of Soda Creek, Lost Canyon Creek and Big Arroyo Creek in the Kern River Watershed. I have been to Mineral King once backpacking in 1973. It’s a pretty amazing place. If you can handle difficult hiking, it is worth the trip.

This part of the Sierra Nevada is a lot drier than the northern part of the Sierra where the wolverine photo was taken recently. According to a topo map I just found, the part of the Soda Creek drainage on the northeast slope of Mt. Rainbow would be very high, at about 10,826 feet. This shows that wolverines may well range above 10,000 feet in the Southern Sierras.

Fishing is banned here to preserve a population of endangered Little Kern Golden Trout. There are also endangered Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep in the area. I have seen these sheep in the mountains just outside Los Angeles. A once in a lifetime experience!

In addition, a webpage states that wolverines continue to exist in Mineral King. A backcountry ranger for Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park said that he was 99% sure that there had been good wolverine sightings in Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP’s as recently as 2003, despite these negative findings.

There have also been sightings on the Sequoia National Forest adjacent to these two national parks and the Sequoia National Monument. According to the study, the last sighting was in 1988. Wolverines have been sighted as far south as Monache Meadows in the Dome Land Wilderness on the Sequoia NF, but the last sighting was in the 1950′s.

However, I recently received a report of a wolverine sighting on the South Sierra Wilderness in Cow Canyon at the 8511 foot level. The sighting occurred in the summer of 2008 on July 19 at 2 PM. The wolverine was sighted on the east side of Cow Canyon about 20 feet from the canyon bottom. This is only 1 1/2 miles east of Monache Meadows at the far southern end of their traditional range. The sighting was by an older man who grew up in national parks and knows wildlife very well. A spreadsheet of the sighting location is here.

The suggestion to reintroduce wolverines to the Sierra is probably the correct one.

The California wolverine as a proven subspecies is still controversial, and it seems to persist at either very low numbers in California or is extirpated altogether. California wolverines continue to exist in Oregon and Washington.

References

Graber D.M. 1996. Status of Terrestrial Vertebrates. SNEP Science Team and Special Consultants. Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Report 25:709-734.Graber, D.M. 2006. Disturbing Yosemite. California 117:4.Hudgens, Brian R., Garcelon, David K. 2008. Winter Carnivore Survey Finds that Wolverines (Gulo gulo) are Likely Extirpated from Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks. Arcata: Institute for Wildlife Studies.

Sequoia National Forest. 2003. Giant Sequoia National Monument Management Plan Final Environmental Impact Statement. United States Forest Service, USDA.

Additions to the Wolverine’s Range in Idaho

Repost from the old site.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington , Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and the Upper Midwest. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California (soon to be published).

The wolverine in Idaho is generally considered inhabit three main areas:

The first in the Sawtooth National Forest (northern part), Challis National Forest, Payette National Forest and Sawtooth National Recreation Area in central Idaho.

Yet another population is in the Lochsa River Drainage in the Clearwater and Bitterroot Mountains in Clearwater National Forest.

A third population is to the north in the Selkirks along the Canadian border.

The three populations are considered to be separated from each other, although at least the first population is thought to be healthy.

Nevertheless, we continue to get reports of wolverines in other parts of Idaho. A previous post noted a wolverine on a telephone pole along the Snake River Valley in King Hill, Idaho, earlier this year.

A radio-collared wolverine recently traveled from the Grand Tetons in Wyoming across the Blackfoot and Caribou Mountains in the Targhee and Caribou National Forests in Southeastern Idaho, across private lands to the Portneuf Range west of the Portneuf River. This range is about 20 miles east of Pocatello, Idaho, and encompasses part of the Caribou National Forest and the Fort Hall Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation.

The breathtaking Portneuf Range east of Pocatello, Idaho, where the radio-collared wolverine ended up. It promptly turned right around and went back to the Tetons. In the Basin and Range Region.A grazing allotment on the Blackfoot Mountains in southeastern Idaho. Lance Armstrong, the peripatetic wolverine, crossed this range on his way from the Grand Tetons to the Portneuf Range opposite Pocatello, Idaho. Grazing is thoroughly devastating BLM and Forest Service land in this region. The problem is particularly acute in Southern Idaho, as it is more arid. All livestock grazing pretty much needs to be banned in at least these areas.Incredibly, livestock grazing is allowed in National Forest wilderness areas. This was one of the only ways that the 1964 Wilderness Act could get passed was to grandfather in these grazing allotments. It’s insane that grazing is allowed in wilderness areas. Grazing is particularly devastating in high-elevation forests of the Sierra Nevada and anywhere in the arid West.

The cow evolved in England and prefers a cool climate with lots of water. In the arid West, cows congregate during the summer in the riparian areas, which they completely devastate. A grand total of 2% of all US beef comes from public lands in the West – most beef comes from feedlots in the Midwest. Public lands grazing is welfare – the allotments are rented out to the ranchers at far below market value, so the taxpayer gets totally screwed.

Not only do we get ripped off on the rental of our lands, but we also get our lands devastated in the process. The whole thing is completely insane. If ranchers can’t make it ranching on private land, they need to get out of the business.

Furthermore, increasingly, public lands ranchers, like everything else in US capitalism, is going corporate. Mom and Pop ranchers are going out and ranching corporations are in. A large number of public lands grazing allotments are now being run by corporations as investment vehicles.

The long-ranging wolverine above was finally killed by a trapper just over the Montana border in the Centennial Range. Since the Centennials range into Idaho, we ought to add the Centennial Range in the Targhee National Forest to the wolverine’s range in Idaho.

The spectacular Centennial Range on the border between Idaho and Montana. This is where the long-ranging wolverine named Lance Armstrong was finally killed by a trapper over the border into Montana.

Montana still allows trapping of wolverines, which takes about a dozen a year. Studies are showing that even that small take may be too much for wolverines to sustain. However, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission recently voted to set limits on wolverine trapping for the very first time.

Additional searching around the net noted that a wolverine had been shot dead by some boys in the Snake River Canyon in Idaho a few years back. They were worried and they brought it in to the Department of Fish and Game office, but the wardens let them go because they were kids and did not know what they were doing, although the wolverine is protected in Idaho.

The Snake River Canyon near Twin Falls, Idaho. Some teenage boys shot dead a wolverine here about three years ago, but were not charged. Clearly, wolverines do exist in this part of the Colombian Plateau. This is where Evil Knievel tried his ill-fated motorcycle jump across this canyon decades ago.

There are various definitions about what constitutes the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The most parsimonious definition says that it starts at the spectacular Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls, Idaho. It seems to continue west about 30 miles to 1000 Springs (great pics on that page) at Hagerman, where Wikipedia implies that it ends.

So this wolverine was apparently killed in the canyon between Twin Falls and Hagerman. That’s only about 47 miles north of the Nevada border.

Way further afield, in the Seven Devils Mountains of far western Idaho in the Hell’s River Canyon of the Snake River, wolverines exist As you can see in various places in this large document (page 6 for instance) they are actually doing surveys for their dens.

Included in the appendices is a report called Survey of Wolverine Dens in the Seven Devils Mountains of Hells Canyon.

The gorgeous Seven Devils Range in the Payette National Forest in Idaho. This range borders on Hell’s Canyon and may serve as a steppingstone for wolverines to travel from Idaho across the Snake River to the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon.

There are also reports of wolverines in the Wood River Valley area. Part of the Wood River runs about 30 miles north of Twin Falls, but the Wood River Valley refers to private land about 60-70 miles north of Twin Falls. It includes the towns of Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey and Bellevue. We should extend wolverine habitat down from the Sawtooths into the Wood River Valley. There have been recent sightings in the Sun Valley area.

On the webpage for Power County, a county in southeastern Idaho west and southwest of Pocatello, the county claims that wolverines occur there. There are various ranges there, including the Bannock Range, the Sublette Range and the Deep Creek Range.

The spectacular Deep Creek Range in southeastern Idaho. It is about 40 miles long, and is bounded by Arbon Valley on the East and Rockland Valley on the West as it ranges through Power County. Wolverines may well exist here. Another Basin and Range mountain range.The Bannock Range in southeastern Idaho. Both the Bannock and the Deep Creek Ranges are southwest of Pocatello. The Bannocks extend from Pocatello 85 miles south into northern Utah through the Caribou National Forest. Wolverines may well exist in this range. Also located in the Basin and Range region.

Photos of all of these beautiful ranges can be seen on Ralph Maughan’s excellent blog. Maughan is a professor of political science at Idaho State University in Pocatello. He’s also really big on wolves.

Incredibly, the Bush Administration removed all protections for all wolves in the United States! The Rocky Mountains population is doing fairly well, but they completely removed the wolves from the endangered species list and handed management of them over to the states, who proceeded to slaughter them as fast as they can!

Web page on myths about wolves. Wolves are hardly dangerous at all to humans. Predators killed 12,100 sheep in Idaho last year. Of those, a little more than 2% were killed by wolves. Domestic dogs killed for more and coyotes killed the most of all. There is nothing to do with coyotes and no way to get rid of them. The more you do predator control against them, the more sheep they kill.

Ranchers claim that wolves are devastating Idaho’s cattle industry. Wolves killed 24 cows in Idaho last year, .03 of all losses. All predators accounted for only 3% of all losses and wolves accounted for less than 1% of all predator losses. Ranchers are reimbursed for all of their losses to wolves anyway.

This is a clear consequence of White Rule in America. White Rule has meant a total corporate takeover of every nook and cranny in this nation, along with utter devastation of our environment and every non-utilitarian form of non-human life in it.

What’s odd is that surveys of Americans, including most Whites, show that they are strong environmentalists. But environmentalism is way down on the list. What’s high on the list? Although most US Whites will tell you that they are not racist, the movement of US Whites towards the Republican Party from 1980-present has been pretty much predicated on race.

It’s coincided with a dramatic decrease in the White % in this country. You tell me that is a coincidence? Forget it! When I was coming of age in the late 1970′s, this was probably an 82% White country. The vast majority of people that I grew up with, went to high school, junior college and even college with, were White. The people I met at my jobs and on college trips were almost all White. It was just a White World.

Since 1980, our White World has gotten darker and darker. Whites have dropped from 82% of the US to about 64% and it’s dropping all the time. This has amazingly coincided with Whites leaving liberalism en masse and voting hard rightwing Republican. The White Republican politics has gotten harder and harder rightwing with time.

During the 1990′s and into the Bush Administration, we are now dealing with quite possibly the most rightwing President this country has ever seen – and it’s all the fault of White people. Why are Whites voting more and more reactionary with time? Because their rule is coming to an end.

This is a predictable political trend for any ruling group which is desperately trying to hold onto power in the face of rising opposition. In truth, ruling groups often opt for dictatorship and often fascism as they desperately try to cling to power.

In summary, occupied wolverine habitat in Idaho should be extended beyond the description at the beginning to the post to Power County, Elmore County, the Snake River Valley, the Blackfoot Mountains, the Centennial Range, the Caribou Range, the Snake River Range, the Big Hole Mountains, the Targhee and Caribou National Forests, the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, the Portneuf Range, the Seven Devils Mountains , the Snake River Canyon and possibly the Bannock and Deep Creek Ranges.

References

Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Predator Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, and Superior Wilderness Action Network. (2000). Petition for a rule to list the wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) as Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act within the contiguous United States . Submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service on July 11, 2000.Edelman, Frank and Copeland, Jeff. 1999. Wolverine Distribution in the Northwestern United States and a Survey in the Seven Devils Mountains of Idaho. Northwest Science 62:181-185.

Groves, Craig R. 1988. Distribution of the wolverine in Idaho as determined by mail questionnaire. Northwest Science 62(4):181-5.

Predator Conservation Alliance. 2001. Predator Conservation Alliance’s Literature Summary – Draft – January 24, 2001 – Draft Conservation Status and Needs of the Wolverine (Gulo gulo) .

Wildlife Conservation Society 2004. Wolverine Takes A Road Trip: Scientists Track Male Animal Over A Three-state, 550-mile Walk-about. Science Daily.

Wolverine Spotted in Snake River Valley

Repost from the old site.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington , Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and the Upper Midwest. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California .

This is actually a pretty interesting sighting. We have always known that there are wolverines in the national forests of mountainous central and northern Idaho and there are some sightings in the Hell’s Canyon area of the Snake River along the Oregon/Idaho border, but I was not aware of any recent sightings in the Colombian Plateau of Idaho until I read this article.

The terrain in King Hill, Idaho. Not exactly prime wolverine habitat, but wolverines have been road-killed and trapped in similar locales recently in Wyoming, Oregon and Utah.

However, recent sightings and roadkilled wolverines in similar habitat in the West in Utah, Oregon and Wyoming indicate that wolverines do use such habitats, possibly especially when dispersing.

This wolverine was actually sitting on a telephone pole in the middle of the day near a small town!

A wolverine got stranded on a telephone pole in King Hill, Idaho on March 25 of this year. That photo actually looks kind of ridiculous. Tell me again how these animals hate people so much that they can’t stand to go anywhere near us. Right.

It was spotted along Montgomery Road near King Hill, Idaho. King Hill is located about 57 miles northwest of Twin Falls, Idaho. Wildlife officials were called in and decided to just wait around until the wolverine climbed down off the pole.

The initial caller had reported a badger on a telephone pole, but badgers don’t climb. They can dig a hole faster than any animal alive, but they can’t climb a thing. Badgers and wolverines appear to be relatives – they are both very large weasel-type animals.

There have been two other sightings of wolverines in “the valley” (apparently the Snake River Valley, whatever that encompasses) in the past two years. I don’t know much about the economic base of this county, but at least wine grapes are grown here.

Sagebrush terrain in the Eastern Snake River Valley of Idaho. King Hill is at the western end of the Eastern Snake River Valley. Pretty odd to find wolverines here, but they have been spotted at least 3 times in 2 years in this region.

The fact that wolverines are dispersing out in the Great Basin may mean that some day in the not too distant future they may return to Nevada. King Hill is a mere 63 miles north of the Nevada border.

Click the wolverines label at the end of the post to see other posts on wolverines in the US, including many sighting reports and photos.

References

Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Predator Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, and Superior Wilderness Action Network. (2000). Petition for a rule to list the wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) as Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act within the contiguous United States . Submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service on July 11, 2000.

Groves, Craig R. 1988. Distribution of the wolverine in Idaho as determined by mail questionnaire. Northwest Science 62(4):181-5.

Predator Conservation Alliance. (2001) Predator Conservation Alliance’s Literature Summary – Draft – January 24, 2001 – Draft Conservation Status and Needs of the Wolverine (Gulo gulo) .

Tahoe Wolverine is Not From California

Repost from the old site.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington, Idaho (here and here), Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and the Upper Midwest. There are also four posts on the wolverine in California.

The first wolverine detected in California in 86 years, photographed at a camera station at Sagehen Creek near Lake Tahoe on February 28, 2008, has now been shown to be not from either California or Washington.

Scientists located wolverine scat near where the photo was shot and analyzed it for genes. A single gene was sequenced, the wolverine was shown to be a male, and the gene has been reported only from wolverines in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. It is also found in southern Canada.

The only conclusion possible is that the wolverine is from the Rocky Mountains and is not a native California wolverine. No one has any idea how it got to California. It’s pretty hard to live-trap these things and transport them unless you are a wildlife biologist.

It doesn’t make much sense that this wolverine cruised down from the Snake River region in Western Idaho along eastern Oregon to the Cascades, then down the Sierras to Tahoe, but according to a recent study, that is exactly what it seems to have done. It seems to have some from the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho.

At least they are back in California, but I never thought they left anyway. The Sierra Nevada is their natural home, and I don’t think it matters where this animal came from. They are back, they exist, and we need to keep them around.

As far as how this animal showed up north of Tahoe, that will just have to fall into the category of one of life’s strange mysteries. Captive wolverines have been dumped before – one was plunked down in Iowa in 1960, where a farmer later shot it in a cornfield.

Click the wolverines label at the end of the post to see other posts on wolverines in the US, including many sighting reports and photos.

Wolverines in the Upper Midwest

Repost from the old site.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington, Idaho (here and here), Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada and New Mexico. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Rediscovered After 85 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the Upper Midwest. Until recently, wolverines had been extinct in the Upper Midwest for 85-200 years.

However, one was photographed recently in Michigan. Furthermore, there have been some tantalizing sightings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and even a few in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri in recent years. It is distinctly possible the wolverines may be reclaiming some of their historical territory in the Upper Midwest. If so, this is fascinating indeed.

In 2004, a wolverine was photographed in Ubly, Michigan, 90 miles north of Detroit. They were extirpated from Michigan almost 200 years ago.

DNA testing of this wolverine showed that it was from Alaska. How it got from Alaska to Michigan is anyone’s guess. On March 14, 2010, this wolverine was found dead in Sanilac County, Michigan, south of where it was originally sighted in Ubly.

There has been one other sighting in from lower Michigan. A wolverine was sighted around 1998-2000 in Tawas, Michigan.

The reason it could have come down is because there are wolverine sightings on the Upper Peninsula, and I believe they exist there. Or possibly it could have come from Southern Ontario near Port Huron, though that area is densely populated.

The sightings on the Upper Peninsula have been in Delta County, Tahquamenon Falls State Park and the Keweenaw Peninsula. I assume that the Upper Peninsula population came from Ontario, possibly across the St. Mary’s River, if it freezes over in wintertime.

A forest road in Delta County, Michigan. This road is in Escanaba State Forest. A wolverine was sighted here in an unverified sighting sometime between 1999-2004. During this period, there was about one wolverine sighting a year in Michigan, all from the Upper Peninsula.The forests here have been changed massively from 100 years ago, when most of the White Pine was logged off. I assume what we have here is Eastern second-growth forest coming back in after the old growth was logged off. This second-growth explosion is fueling an increase in wildlife numbers, especially deer, all over the East Coast.

Tahquamenon Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. This area is located at the far east end of the UP near Ontario. The town of Paradise is nearby, as is Whitefish Bay. If the St. Mary’s River is frozen over, wolverines may well come down from Ontario to the UP. The part of Ontario near Sault Saint Marie is pretty sparsely populated. An unverified sighting of a wolverine was reported here in 2002.

There was also an unverified wolverine sighting in the UP on November 21, 2001 at 3 PM, crossing Highway M-64 1 mile south of Silver City in Ontonagon County.

There has been a rash of wolverine sightings lately around Babbitt, Minnesota, which is near Ely in the far northeastern part of the state near Canada. A tiny lynx population has recently also been confirmed there. The sightings around Babbitt appear to be genuine. Babbitt is surrounded by the Superior National Forest and there are frequent sightings of bears and even wolves in the area, even inside city limits.

There was also a sighting on Koochiching County on the Minnesota border with Canada in 1982. That sighting was deemed credible. In addition, there was one documented sighting in northeastern Minnesota between 1961-1995, but details are lacking.

There have been reports of dog and horse kills in and around Rollag, Minnesota lately. Certain things about the killings indicate that a wolverine may be doing this. Rollag is far to the north, getting up near the North Woods. It is east of and not far from Fargo, North Dakota.

In 1974 there was a report of a wolverine in a hay field in north-central Minnesota, near the North Woods.

There is also a report of a wolverine captured on a security camera at a Ford dealership in the town of Zumbrota in Southeast Minnesota. This land is very much prairie. The last positive record of a wolverine in Minnesota was from 1922 in Itasca County.

Old State Route 52 north of Zumbrota, Minnesota. It’s hard to believe that wolverines inhabit such terrain. Wolverines are recolonizing their old habitat on the US prairie. Why?

Many have questioned whether wolverines were actually common in prairies or if prairies merely served as population sinks. It is looking more and more like prairies are a natural home for wolverines, strange as it may seem. If these reports are accurate, it means that wolverines are re-colonizing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and possibly also Iowa, which is fantastic news!

Prairie Island (Sioux) Indian Reservation near Zumbrota, Minnesota. Is it possible that wolverines in the past preyed on the vast buffalo herds of prairie, perhaps especially on dead buffaloes?

The occurrence of the wolverine in Wisconsin is very rare but documented. A wolverine was photographed on top of a woodpile in Green Lake County, Wisconsin in recent years. There are also recent sightings in the Black River Falls area and to the north. A 2003 sighting in Lafayette County in the far south of the state was regarded as credible by the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Furthermore, we received a number of undocumented sightings by email to this site. One man grew up in Land O’ Lakes in far northern Wisconsin on the border with Michigan in an area known as the North Woods. This is an area of very thick, wild forest and swamps. There are supposedly many wolves, bears and wolverines in this part of Wisconsin.

In 1982, he saw three wolves in his front yard. In 1990, they treed 22 different bears in a single day while training bear dogs. They also had a frightening standoff with a wolverine on that day. From about 1983-1995, when he engaged in frequent deer hunting, he saw one or more wolverines every year.

In September 1990, a wolverine was seen several times over two weeks. The last time he saw one was in 2006 near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. All sightings took place between 1983-2006 in the North Woods approximately between Rhinelander and Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. The bear density in this region is said to be incredible, or at least it was 20 years ago (Bangs 2009).

There have been a few unverified sightings of wolverines in North Dakota recently. In 2004, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine near Minot. The observer watched it for a good five minutes. In 1988, two wolverines were seen along the Little Missouri River in the Badlands of far western North Dakota by a very experienced fur trapper.

There have also been wolverine sightings in South Dakota in the past 30 years. There was a verifiable wolverine sighting in the south-central portion of the state in 1961.

There were reports some years ago of a “black animal” going south through eastern Iowa killing dogs. It may have been a wolverine. A female wolverine was shot dead by a farmer on May 21, 1960 in a cornfield in central Iowa. She was infected with Trichinella spiralis, a parasite. No one quite knew how she ended up in central Iowa. However, one report said that this wolverine had been transported into the state in 1960.

Incredibly enough, there have been a number of wolverine sightings in Nebraska in recent years. All sightings have been in northern Nebraska near the South Dakota border. In particular, wolverines have been repeatedly sighted in and around Antelope and Knox Counties in far northeastern Nebraska near the Missouri River and the South Dakota border.

This area is near Louis and Clark Lake and the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation. In this area, there have been repeated sightings along the Verdigre and Niobrara Rivers.

Photo of the area of NE Nebraska around the Niobrara, Verdigre and Elkhorn Rivers where there have been numerous wolverine sightings. That is probably the Verdigre River in the foreground.

There has also been one sighting north of Gordon in northwestern Nebraska on the headwaters of Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This area is east of the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, now the scene of a famous fight over selling booze to Pine Ridge Indians.

A view of the terrain around Whiteclay, Nebraska. A wolverine was sighted on the South Dakota border about 17 miles east of here.

The first Grey Wolf in 94 years was seen recently in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It was a lone male. The UP, Minnesota and Wisconsin all have healthy populations. The Black Bear and wolf populations in Minnesota have shown dramatic increases in recent years and there is now a healthy population of over 25 lynx in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the first time in 30 years.

In other great news along similar lines, an Eastern Grey Wolf, the first in 160 years, was detected in Massachusetts. It killed over a dozen lambs before the farmer shot it to death. The killing was probably justified, but it is unfortunate that the first wolf in the state in over 150 years got shot to death. There will probably be more wolves coming to the state after this one, though.

Click the wolverines label at the end of the post to see other posts on wolverines in the US, including many sighting reports and photos.

References

Aubry, K. B., McKelvey, K. S., Copeland, J. P. 2007. Distribution and Broadscale Habitat Relations of the Wolverine in the Contiguous United States. Journal of Wildlife Management 71(7): 148-158.

Bangs, Ray. 2009. Personal communication.Haugen, A. O. 1961. Wolverine in Iowa. Journal of Mammalogy 42: 546-547.Jackson, H. T. 1922. Wolverine in Itasca County, Minnesota. Journal of Mammalogy 3:53.

Zimmermann, W. J., Biester, H. E., Schwarte, L. H., Hubbard, E. D. 1962. Trichinella spiralis in Iowa Wildlife during the Years 1953 to 1961. The Journal of Parasitology, 48:3:1, pp. 429-432.