Summer 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

Environment Fund to aid “Wolverine Watch”
by Tony Clevenger
For ages, alpine
climbers and ski tourers
have been inspired by wolverine
tracks that follow aesthetic lines and
retreat to locations that can only be
defined as wild.
Some call the wolverine the toughest
animal in the world. It roams huge
territories along the spine of the Rocky
Mountain cordillera, taking on cliffs,
summits and icefalls, all through some of
the worst weather nature can create. One
of the few mammals anywhere perfectly
adapted and evolved to cold, snowy conditions,
wolverines are rare, occur at low
density and move over vast home
ranges. They inhabit alpine and
subalpine zones and their populations
have experienced considerable
range reduction over the last 50
years.
In the Canadian Rockies,
little is known about this 10- to
20- kilogram, bear-like mustelid;
“Gulo gulo” in Latin. Yet,
the conservation of
this enigmatic species
requires sciencebased
information
to guide and evaluate
management actions.
There are fewer than 300
wolverines left in the
lower 48 states today.
Population estimates in
western Canada are higher but
nonetheless obscure, as most
land managers in BC and
Alberta are cautious about
population estimates and
deeply concerned about the
species’ conservation.
In 2010, research assistants Ben
Dorsey and Tawnya Hewitt and I
received a grant from the Alpine Club
of Canada Environment Fund for our
Wolverine tracks leave a distinctive diagonal set
of three prints in the snow on the Takkakaw Falls
road in Yoho National Park. photo by Lynn Martel.
project, Wolverine Watch:
Implementing wilderness conservation
through education and citizen
science. Wolverine Watch is a
citizen-science based approach
to help add to information
on wolverine occurrence in
the Canadian Rockies, increase
awareness regarding their tenuous
status, and recruit people
who may be interested in assisting
with a survey next winter.
Prior to our survey, important
baseline information on
wolverine occurrence (sightings
and track observations) needs to
be collected. By participating in this
project and information gathering, we
seek to unite the energy and passion of
the skier, climber and conservationist to
protect wilderness flora and fauna.
During the 2010/11 winter, our
researchers will carry out a large-scale
survey for wolverine in Banff and Yoho
National Parks. We will examine how
roads such as the bustling Trans Canada
and Highway 93 affect wolverine movement
and gene flow using a noninvasive
genetic sampling technique consisting of
baited barbed-wire “hair traps”.
Because of their extensive movements
and low densities, hair trap surveys need
to be conducted over a large area and
within some of the most remote habitats
of the mountain parks. The traps consist
of barbed-wire wrapped around a tree
where a whole beaver carcass is secured to
entice the animal to climb. Last March,
we set up hair traps at six sites in the
Banff-Yoho area to learn whether wolverines
would approach the traps, and if
so, how they would react to the offering.
Each site had a remote, infrared-operated
camera to help confirm wolverine and
other visitors. After one month, three of
the six sites captured wolverine visits on
camera, with three sites netting 35 hair
samples. At one site, researchers observed
two wolverines.
The “skunk-bear” lacks the caché
of “grizz” or the noble grey wolf. But
the more we learn about this forgotten
species, the more grizzly bear conservation
looks trivial and simplistic compared
to wolverines. Rare and elusive,
wolverines avoid all types of human
disturbance—roads, forest-cutting,
snowmobilers and heli-skiing—all of
which fragment the land they need to
keep their populations intact. On top
of that, climate change is melting their
numbers away, as declining snowpacks for
wolverines mean less carrion (their main
food source) and lower survival of litters.
They are the FIRST land mammal to
show a population decline due to climate
change and are now being called the
land-equivalent of the polar bear.
Wolverines make a compelling case
for the conservation and management
of our wild areas and the landscape corridors
that link them. The more being
learned about this long-overlooked critter
in North America today, the clearer the
need to safeguard the mountain ecosystems
on which they depend.
We look forward to hearing from
ACC members about any “Gulo” sightings,
how they might help expand our
scientific knowledge and learn about this
increasingly threatened species emblematic
of Canadian Rockies’ wilderness.
Please visit www.WolverineWatch.org
to learn more, or contact Tony Clevenger
at apclevenger@gmail.com to participate.
Lead researcher for Wolverine Watch
Dr. Tony Clevenger has a PhD in wildlife
ecology, and has been conducting wildlife
research in the Mountain Parks since 1996.
This project is part of a five-year partnership
between Montana State University’s
Western Transportation Institute, Miistakis
Institute for the Rockies and Parks Canada,
studying the impacts of the TCH wildlife
crossings.
A remote camera captures a rarely-seen wolverine
climbing a tree to access a beaver carcass secured
there for researchers to collect hair samples on
the barbed wire “hair trap” wrapped around the
tree. photo courtesy Tony Clevenger.