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2018). Observations made at Mt. Baker, Sourdough Gap, and Cascade River road add valuable clues
regarding the western and southern extents of wolverine distribution in the Cascades.
Discussion
At a time when resources for winter wolverine monitoring in the North Cascades are limited, we
successfully deployed seven stations in two major watersheds of the eastern North Cascades Ecoregion,
and detected wolverines in three locations. Our detection at the Hairpin of Stella, a female wolverine, on
February 28, 2018 is relevant to questions regarding long-term wolverine recovery and fine scale habitat
use by female wolverines amidst recreational activity. The Hairpin is regularly used for backcountry
skiing, snowmobiling, and heli-skiing with a trend towards increasing recreational traffic in the coming
years. Keeping track of female wolverines and identifying denning habitat—the limiting factor to
wolverine recovery—in the North Cascades will help land managers determine how to regulate the
recreational use of public lands.
Engaging the broader winter recreational community in an inclusive and educational way is
essential to mitigating the potentially negative impacts to wolverine recovery, and can possibly aid
biologists by extending citizen science into the winter season. With photographs, talks, social media,
web resources, and volunteer coordination, we reached upwards of a few thousand people, many of
which were likely outside of the typical conservation-minded demographic. Next winter, we plan to
boost monitoring in the North Cascades as needed, in coordination with the Multi-State Wolverine
Study, North Cascades Wolverine Project, Cascades Carnivore Project, and the CNW Citizen Wildlife
Monitoring Program. We will continue to develop tools to better enable winter recreationists identify
and report rare species observations.
Literature Cited
AUBRY, K. B., K. S. MCKELVEY, AND J. P. COPELAND. 2007. Distribution and broadscale habitat
relations of the wolverine in the contiguous United States. Journal of Wildlife Management.
AUBRY, K. B., ET AL. 2016. Wolverine distribution and ecology in the north cascades
ecosystem. Final progress report.
COPELAND, J. P., ET AL. 2010. The bioclimatic envelope of the wolverine (Gulo gulo): do climatic
constraints limit its geo- graphic distribution? Canadian Journal of Zoology.
