Wolverine Monitoring
Wolverines are recovering in Washington, and are an iconic species that represents that need for a
connected landscape. As the largest land members of the weasel family, these rare and elusive
predators prefer alpine environments where snow packs persist well into summer months. This difficult
environment where food sources are scarce, contributes to their low population density and
territoriality over large home ranges spanning more than a hundred square miles. Wolverines were
mostly eradicated from their historical range in the lower 48 states by the early 1900s. Currently
wolverines are unprotected, but motions filed by Conservation Northwest and other organizations are
paving the way for consideration of full protection under the Endangered Species Act. Monitoring
efforts now will help provide information necessary to develop and implement a recovery plan and
critical habitat for wolverines, inform land management, and build upon robust ongoing professional
research on this species in the trans-boundary Cascades.
Our goal for monitoring wolverine in the Cascades this season was monitoring the presence and
collecting genetic information of wolverines in the Cascades outside the geographic scope of the
ongoing North Cascades Wolverine Study. This included follow-up to our winter documentation5 of a
new individual female wolverine in the Highway 2 corridor, and reports of snow tracks in the southern
Alpine Lakes Wilderness and Mount Baker areas.
Five of our total twenty-four remote camera site locations were dedicated to detecting wolverine. All
stations had a unique protocol developed by Cathy Raley and Keith Aubrey of our Advisory Council that
included the construction of run-pole stations. Mid-season the protocol was amended to include hair
snare devices those stations that had documented wolverine presence.
I-90 Corridor Monitoring
The landscape in Washington's central Cascades, spanning Snoqualmie Pass on both sides of Interstate
90, forms a corridor absolutely crucial for wildlife movement and connectivity – this corridor is referred
to as the "I-90 corridor". Our camera stations in the I-90 corridor are building upon a year-round effort
our project has undertaken since 2006 to contribute data on wildlife presence near wildlife crossing
structures designed as part of the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project6 as part of a larger monitoring effort
being coordinated by the Washington Department of Transportation.
Our objective for the monitoring season was to document wildlife presence in the approaches to wildlife
crossing structures in the project area that were under construction – the Gold Creek and Rocky Run
wildlife underpasses.
5
CITIZENS WILDLIFE MONITORING PROJECT: WINTER 2011-2012 FIELD SEASON REPORT,
http://www.conservationnw.org/what-we-do/northcascades/cwmp-2011-2012-winter-report-2
6
I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/I90/SnoqualmiePassEast/
8
