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Figure 6 Wolverine documented by a camera trap set up on a moose carcass discovered by skiers on the eastside of the
North Cascades. Photo by Steph Williams, Drew Lovell, and Ray Robertson
To reduce the risks of disease transmission from a carcass avoid handling the carcass. If you want to
move a carcass to a better location for your camera trap use gloves and wash your hands
immediately after finishing the task. As with artificial attractants, avoid touching a carcass and then
handling your camera to avoid drawing attention to the camera by attaching scent to it. Have one
team member deal with the carcass while another handles the camera.
Genetic Samples
If there is evidence that a wolverine has visited the station (e.g., tracks or a photo detection), the
crew should carefully inspect the area around the station for scats and hair. If a wolverine accesses
the run-pole, there is a good chance that they left hair on the run-pole arm. So it is important to
inspect that surface for potential hair samples to collect. Please collect any possible wolverine scats
or hair according to the directions in the methods document for run-pole camera traps. To prevent
potential contamination of genetic samples, wear Nitrile gloves to collect samples and place them in
collection bags or envelopes. Always use paper bags for scats (a separate bag for each scat) and
paper collection envelopes for hair (never plastic bags which can trap moisture and ruin the
samples for DNA extraction). When using a gun-brush hair-snagging device, place each gun-brush
that has a potential sample into a separate paper envelope (or small paper bag). DNA samples
deteriorate over time, so checking cameras on a regular interval of 4 weeks and collecting samples
into dry and breathable receptacles will help to provide a potentially viable sample to our partners.
