The state of Montana plans on suing the federal government over a recent ESA listing
By Benjamin Alva Polley EBS COLUMNIST
Glimpsing the ghost is almost mythical. Wolverines’ elusiveness has more to do with their low population numbers than how hard they are to see. Their numbers are much more stable in northern and western Canada and throughout Alaska, but these populations are isolated from the 300 or so wolverines left in the Lower 48 as populations in southern Canada decline. Wolverines live in western Montana, northwestern Wyoming, northern and central Idaho, north-central Washington, and Oregon and occasionally appear in California, Colorado and Utah. Most of the 300 live in Montana’s northern Rockies and Washington’s Cascades.
Should states own them and do what they want with them—allowing trapping, for example—or should they be federally managed because the creatures need vast amounts of land and travel between states and countries?
On Nov. 29, 2023, Wolverines were listed on the Endangered Species Act because they face many threats, including climate variation and changes to the landscape. Their habitat needs to be more cohesive and it has become harder for isolated populations to connect. Wolverines are solitary, wide-ranging, medium-sized mammals, the largest member of the weasel family that moves beyond state and international borders. States should have the right to manage animals that solely reside inside their boundaries, but most boundaries are porous, and animals, especially wolverines, move back and forth regularly if they have the habitat to do so.
They don’t need states creating more threats when they already have it hard.
History
Historically, wolverines were trapped and hunted to near extinction for their beautiful fur in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Fur trappers craved their thick, oily, water-repellent fur that keeps wolverines warm and dry through harsh winters. Wolverines’ fur prevents them from needing to hibernate like bears. Their fur was typically used as trim for parka hoods, one of many reasons it became valuable to humans. Wolverine populations declined and were extirpated from much of their range by the early 1900s. Between 1921 and 1950, one wolverine was in Washington, one in Oregon, five in Idaho, 15 in Montana, and one in Wyoming. Wolverines most likely sought safe havens in remote mountainous areas and slowly dispersed down from southern Canada when their numbers were more stable and they had connected habitat to do so. Their numbers are finally starting to rebound, but they face new threats on the horizon.
Habitat requirements
Wolverines are creatures of northern latitude, often living at high elevations in summer and lower elevations in winter, threatened by climate variation and habitat fragmentation. They are wide-ranging individuals. Wolverine spatial patterns include intersexual overlap where a resident male’s home range covers 500 square miles and overlaps two to six resident females. Female home ranges usually cover 150 square miles. They can travel 15-40 miles daily over mountains or through low valleys; no landscapes are too treacherous for the wily wolverine. They need a lot of open, wild space and room to roam and to connect to other isolated populations.
They prefer to reside in remote, extensive wildernesses dominated by coniferous forests or open tundra, in undisturbed habitats with few roads, and far from human development, including agriculture, suburbia, logging, mining, and oil and gas exploration.
Habitat fragmentation carves up wildlands. Many wolverines live in isolated populations like national parks and wilderness areas. Unfortunately, many national parks and wilderness areas have become biological islands in a sea of development, cutting off the gene flow needed for species’ health. As more and more humans push recreational sports like backcountry skiing, ultra-running, and snowmobiling deep into wild and remote areas, wolverines are displaced and retreat further into the backcountry, especially females with young who need north-facing slopes that retain snow into late May to raise young.
Ninety percent of Canada’s human population lives within 100 miles of the U.S.-Canada border. A 2023 University of Calgary study shows wolverine populations in southern Canada have decreased by 39% since 2011. Now that populations are shrinking in southern Canada, that gene flow isn’t flowing as smoothly into Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Southern Canada’s wolverine population is no longer as viable. This hurts the long-term viability of wolverines, especially if the species in the Lower 48 needs it to connect to the northern populations.
Wolverines and many other wide-ranging carnivores need migration passages where habitat is connected and linked through wildlife corridors or buffer zones surrounding these parks. Hence, more development on the wildland-urban interface is not a recipe to save wolverines or other wide-ranging carnivores.
New protection or new threats
On Jan. 26, 2024, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks notified the Department of the Interior of their intent to sue, claiming the decision to list wolverines as threatened was based on “flawed, outdated science.” The state argued that wolverines regularly move between Canada and the U.S. and are not isolated, but according to the latest science, that doesn’t happen as much as it used to as southern Canada’s population wanes.
Wolverines finally receive the protections they deserve, but politics get in the way. Montana is not the only state crying wolverine; Idaho and Wyoming don’t like the ESA decision either, nor do industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, the International Snowmobile Manufacturing Association, the Western Energy Alliance and the Utility Air Regulatory Group.
The state of Montana wants to be able to allow trappers or hunting guides the opportunity to hunt wolverines, and they don’t want a federal agency mandating their protection. Even with wolverines being protected by the ESA, it doesn’t mean they won’t accidentally be caught in traps intended for other species like pine martens, foxes, coyotes or wolves, which could cause a further decline in wolverine numbers.
Regardless, states should follow scientific data and allow animals to be animals, roaming freely across their habitat. If states were in the business of conserving and preserving species, then there would be less need for federally mandated protections.
Wolverines don’t need to be held in political limbo.
Benjamin Alva Polley is a place-based storyteller with stories published in Outside, Adventure Journal, Popular Science, Field & Stream, Esquire, Sierra, Audubon, Earth Island Journal, Modern Huntsman, and other publications at his website www.benjaminpolley.com/stories. He holds a master’s in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism from the University of Montana.
