Wolverine animal sighting occurring nowadays is so rare that wildlife biologists have become surprised after finding the rare species in the Mountains. Installed last winter, a trail camera on the northern slope of the Uinta Mountains has captured the first ever official Wolverine animal sighting in the state of Utah for over 30 years. According to the Washington Post, this is the first wolverine animal sighting since a carcass was found in 1979.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources announced the discovery of wolverine animal sighting taken as taken by trail cameras Wednesday. Retrieved this June, photos of the wolverine animal sighting show the rare creature sniffing an empty bait station in February.
According to the Associated Press, the DWR and Forest Service biologists utilized snowmobiles to get to different stations where they could set up the trail cameras. It was this spring that the same group of people started retrieving the cameras, not knowing they would be seeing the rare wolverine animal sighting.
Reports say that the wolverine animal sighting wasn't apparent upon inspection of the third and fourth station cameras. There was nothing unusual there. But it was images from the second station camera where officials found a totally different and unexpected story. The Spectrum reports that the footage on the second station showed the first ever verified wolverine animal sighting in Utah since a carcass was found in 1979.
Kim Hersey, mammals conservation coordinator for the Utah DWR said biologists from the DWR and the U.S. Forest Service set four bait stations which was closely monitored by trail cameras along the north slope of the Uinta Mountains last January. Hersey said they set the stations in order to capture images of mysterious carnivores in the forest, which includes wolverines.
Hersey said, 'Ashly Kula, a U.S. Forest Service biologist from Evanston, Wyoming, picked the four spots. She did a great job. She put us exactly where we needed to be.'
Along with the wolverine, marten, jays, squirrels and a red fox were the wildlife which raided the station.
Hersey also said that biologists used a deer that had been killed by cars as bait for the second station. She said, 'The fox took off with the bait. All it left behind were the wire wrappings that were supposed to secure the bait to the area.'
Apparently, though the bait was already gone, the carcasses left odor behind which was enough to attract a wolverine to the area and thus a wolverine animal sighting on the area.
According to the Post, the fox already took off with the bait two days after the bait was set up. However, on Feb.18, the wolverine animal sighting was still through the trail camera as the strength of the bait's odor was still strong enough to attract the creature.
Though the wolverine animal sighting lasted only about five minutes in the area, apparently this was enough time for the motion-sensing trail camera to capture as many as 27 images.
Almost three months later, another wolverine animal sighting was captured in Wyoming by a trail camera there. The station in Wyoming was reportedly about 20 miles from Evanston. The wolverine animal sighting photographs were taken between Apr. 10 and Apr. 27.
Adam Brewerton, regional sensitive species biologist with the DWR said, 'We don't know if the wolverine in Wyoming is the same wolverine in the images from Utah.'
Brewerton added that biologists are now planning to compare the images of the wolverine animal sighting in Utah to those taken by trail cameras in Wyoming.
He said, 'We'd like to determine if the wolverine in Wyoming is the same animal in the Utah images. If it is, we can determine a time frame when the animal or animals may have been in the area. We can also determine if the wolverine was wandering through the area or if it's a resident animal that's making its home here.'
Wolverines are known as elusive, snow-loving carnivores which roam terrains as large as 350 square miles. These include portions of northern Europe, Asia and North America. Living in forests, tundra and mountains which thrive on cold, snowy conditions, according to the Spectrum, they are also the largest terrestrial member of the weasel family.
Though there was a wolverine animal sighting in Utah and though the creatures were historically found in Utah mountains, Hersey said they are probably rare. She also said wolverines have been recognized for their ability to travel large distances. She said, 'They'll occupy territories as large as 350 square miles. In 2009, a young male wolverine was documented traveling over 500 miles from Grand Teton National Park to Colorado.'
According to reports wolverines in the continental United States were largely decimated in the 20th century due to unregulated fur trapping and predator control. There are now fewer than 300 wolverines left in the lower 48 states, with a large population of the species dwelling in Alaska and Canada.
There is also a reported estimate of 250 to 300 total individual wolverines living in the Northern Rocky Mountains of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and the North Cascades in Washington.
Wolverine animal sighting may decrease still in the future as increasing temperatures cause loss of their habitats. In addition, reduced late spring snowpack attributed to climate change also pose a challenge to the wolverine population. Wolverines in the contiguous United States are reportedly proposed for listing as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
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