Wolverines!!

More exciting than Red Dawn, and cooler than camping with Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, and Patrick Swayze, our friends at the University of California's Sagehen Research Field Station have just reported some pretty outstanding news.

Imagine you're protecting a piece of land. Imagine people are studying the plants and animals on that land. They're looking at things like lichens and lilies, and rodents and roaches. Then all of a sudden, you find out--surprise!--the acreage under your stewardship is home to some previously-believed-extinct charismatic megafauna. That's a simplified version of the story that broke a little over a week ago in the mountains of Northern California.

Believed to be extinct since the 1920s or 30s, the Sierra Nevada Wolverine was recently photo-documented by an Oregon State University researcher conducting weasel studies at the Sagehen research facility. For the latest news on the Sagehen findings, hit the above link. More information is also available at the links below:

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/california-wolverine829.html

http://www.ktvu.com/news/15504244/detail.html

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/761071.html

[Photos. Top: "Wolverines!!!" is now more than just a battle cry for the residents of Northern California.  Bottom, a wild wolverine is captured by a research camera in the forested mountains near the town of Truckee.]

Comments

[ConBioAdam]

This is so great. I can only imagine the possible implications this will have on conservation in the region. Hopefully this individual is a resident and not just passing through. The re-emergence of a large charasmatic spp. in the area could really act as a flagship for a large scale conservation effort. I'll be interested to see how this progresses. Thanks for posting the trip camera pic.

[Bjorn]

It is good news indeed. I have heard that the conservation impact of wolverines might be a bit muted due to the very high altitudes they tend to live at... places where there is not a crunch to develop at the moment. Still, it is always nice when nature reclaims a bit of territory.

[GreenLee]

Came close to running over a family (m,f,c) of "Extinct" north american wolverines in 2000-2001 in the corn fields near Cahokia, IL. Wolverine foundation gave a 90% likelyhood the drawings (we thought a wolf-bear hybrid) were the extinct species of wolverines. (black ones with longer snout, I'll find the scientific name again sometime)