Posted on 01/15/2021 9:34:17 PM PST by nickcarraway
An animal not often seen around Yellowstone National Park was captured on film in a trail cam video last month, officials say. Video of the Yellowstone wolverine is very exciting for park biologists, who say this is the first video footage of the species since remote cameras have been deployed in the park.
In a Facebook post, Yellowstone park officials said one of the ecosystem’s most elusive mammals triggered a remote trail camera outside the Mammoth Hot Springs area last month – the Browning trail camera footage shows the video was recorded on December 4, 2020 at 7:41 A.M.
Pretty awesome, right? Being from Michigan – and the college basketball fan that I am – I have to say this is easily my favorite thing I’ve seen all week. Go Blue!
“Wolverines (Gulo gulo), mid-sized carnivores in the weasel family that typically occupy high-elevation alpine and forest habitats, exist in low densities in the park and are rarely detected,” Yellowstone officials wrote in the Facebook post.
Climate-change models predict that by 2050, the spring snowpack needed for wolverine denning and hunting will be limited to portions of the southern Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada range, and greater Yellowstone, of which only the latter currently has a population.
Since 2006-2009, there has only been seven documented wolverines living in eastern Yellowstone and adjoining national forests, according to the National Park Service.
Despite rarely being seen, wolverines are actually active year round. Except for when they are breeding, wolverines prefer to live a solitary life (who could blame them these days!). Their breeding period takes place between April and October where females will have a litter of 2-4 cubs (or kits). Females give birth in dens excavated in deep snow, under log jams, or uprooted trees in avalanche chutes.
In August 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew a proposal to list wolverines living in the lower 48 states as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
Due to uncertainty of the effects of climate change on wolverines and their habitat in the foreseeable future, plans to list the species are on hold.
Someone should get a realistic bigfoot suit on, start grunting and sniffing the camera then disappear out of sight.
It’s so cute. I just want to run up to it and pet it.
I can’t advise that.
Sasquatch doesn’t even like lo-res cameras much.
They can see IR and these cameras stick out badly in the woods.
Wolverines are known for being gentle creatures. They make great pets in fact. They’re great with little children. I just put that on the internet and you read it so it’s true now.
“I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him...”
I’ll try to make sure the scraps of you we can find are given a decent Christian burial.
If you’re ever around a wolverine, you want to put your face right up to his. Just get right in his face. That shows him that your dominant and he’ll back right down.
You should only run up to a wolverine to pet it at the start of the breeding season.
Scratch it between the ears and tickle its tummy. They like that.
Porcupines, bobcats, and Tasmanian devils like to be hugged too.
In before the... nevermind
Pound for pound wolverines, otters, mink are the most vicious fighting machines. Look at them claws! There are others in that family. I have heard stories of trapped otters tearing their way of steel cages in back of a pickup truck to escape.
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Mustelidae is a family of mammals in the order Carnivora, which includes weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks, and wolverines, and many other extant and extinct genera.
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“That shows him that your dominant and he’ll back right down.”
LOL!! Someone from NYC will try to pet one. Wait and see. A Bison got one tourist last year. I’ve seen idiots walking right up to Bison with a camera.
I see several a year in Alaska, we have some of them in the interior and more out in western Ak. Once I had one jump on a moose gut pile 30 yards from me. He kept grinning and snarling at me; let me know those moose guts was his. I didn’t even think about shooting him.
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