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Yellowstone Wolverine Captured on Trail Camera for First Time
An animal not often seen around Yellowstone National Park was captured on film in a trail cam video last month, officials say. Video of the Yellowstone wolverine is very exciting for park biologists, who say this is the first video footage of the species since remote cameras have been deployed in the park.
In a Facebook post, Yellowstone park officials said one of the ecosystem’s most elusive mammals triggered a remote trail camera outside the Mammoth Hot Springs area last month – the Browning trail camera footage shows the video was recorded on December 4, 2020 at 7:41 A.M.
Pretty awesome, right? Being from Michigan – and the college basketball fan that I am – I have to say this is easily my favorite thing I’ve seen all week. Go Blue!
“Wolverines (Gulo gulo), mid-sized carnivores in the weasel family that typically occupy high-elevation alpine and forest habitats, exist in low densities in the park and are rarely detected,” Yellowstone officials wrote in the Facebook post.
Climate-change models predict that by 2050, the spring snowpack needed for wolverine denning and hunting will be limited to portions of the southern Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada range, and greater Yellowstone, of which only the latter currently has a population.
Since 2006-2009, there has only been seven documented wolverines living in eastern Yellowstone and adjoining national forests, according to the National Park Service.
Despite rarely being seen, wolverines are actually active year round. Except for when they are breeding, wolverines prefer to live a solitary life (who could blame them these days!). Their breeding period takes place between April and October where females will have a litter of 2-4 cubs (or kits). Females give birth in dens excavated in deep snow, under log jams, or uprooted trees in avalanche chutes.
In August 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew a proposal to list wolverines living in the lower 48 states as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
Due to uncertainty of the effects of climate change on wolverines and their habitat in the foreseeable future, plans to list the species are on hold.
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