When you think of the word “wolverine”, it might conjure visions of sports mascots, superheroes or war movies. Maybe that's because the real animal hasn't been seen in Colorado for a while — more than a decade, in fact.
But state wildlife officials are hopeful about reintroduction efforts with a recent announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency. Michael Booth from the Colorado Sun joined KUNC to discuss that announcement, which classified wolverines as "threatened".
“Besides being the stars of such excellent films as ‘Red Dawn’ and the ‘X-Men’ series, wolverines are a pretty cool creature,” Booth told KUNC. “They look like a bear with long legs, but they're actually part of the weasel family, along with black-footed ferrets.”
Wolverines are rare in North America. Fur trappers and livestock owners mistaking them for predators have hunted their numbers down to just a few hundred. Wolverines haven't lived in Colorado for 14 years, though the mountains here are a great habitat for them.
“They are amazingly private creatures,” Booth said. “Very few people have ever sighted them in the wild even where they do live.”
Wolverines are capable of climbing thousands of feet in minutes. They like to dig their burrows deep under the snow in mountainous areas.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife has now classified the wolverine as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Booth said states considering reintroduction can now start taking some steps. The process can take years, partially to facilitate public and stakeholder comments.
Booth said environmental and wildlife advocates believe wolverine reintroduction should be less controversial than recent grey wolf reintroduction efforts. Wolverines are scavengers, so their diets consist mainly of animals that are sick, injured or dead.
“One wolverine can take over an area that is up to 20 by 20 miles,” Booth told KUNC. “So it's not as if they're traveling in packs and threatening a lot of different livestock. So people just think it would be great if sometime in the next few years we did find a way to reintroduce them.”
