A female wolverine peeks out of a trap near Moose Creek in 2005. Wolverines received federal protection Tuesday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
JACKSON — Wolverines officially have federal protection after federal wildlife biologists determined the species is “less secure” than previously believed in the face of climate change and habitat loss.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the elusive, rare alpine-dwelling mesocarnivore — an animal whose diet is only slightly above 50% meat — would be listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.
The decision comes after a lengthy legal battle between environmental groups and the Fish and Wildlife Service that lasted decades.
“The Center first petitioned to get wolverines listed in 1994. It’s been a very long-fought battle,” said Andrea Zaccardi, the Center for Biological Diversity’s carnivore conservation legal director. “Carnivores are important to ecosystem health and they’re native to these lands. We should be protecting them.”
The decision was expected based on a “status assessment” released in late September, the document in which scientists said wolverine populations were “less secure” than previously believed. The reasons: climate change, the possible interruption of connectivity between U.S. and Canadian wolverines, and the animals’ small population size in the Lower 48.
In contrast to other, high-profile listing decisions, like those for wolves and grizzly bears, Western governors were quiet Wednesday afternoon. Spokespeople for Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon and Idaho Gov. Brad Little declined to provide statements on the decision. In the past, Idaho has intervened in lawsuits to argue against listing wolverines.
Idaho disagrees with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision, said Joshua Uriarte, species program manager and policy adviser for the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation. The state is, however, waiting for the final delisting rule to be officially published before weighing in further, he said. That’s expected today. Officials want to review interim rules preventing “take” of wolverines before deciding next steps.
A public comment period on those rules is open for the next 60 days. Generally, the interim rules are expected to allow exemptions to the “take” provision for research, as well as “incidental take” for wildfire prevention and legal trapping.
Some conservative lawmakers in Montana have promised to challenge the listing, arguing it could impede winter recreation like snowmobiling and skiing. Federal scientists worry that the increasing popularity of backcountry skiing and snowmobiling could hurt wolverines in the future.
The designation marks the first time wolverines have actually received federal protection, in spite of decades of fighting over the issue. Federal wildlife managers have twice proposed Endangered Species Act protections for wolverines, then withdrawn the proposals, once during the Obama administration and once during the Trump administration. Each time, environmentalists have sued.
Wolverines depend on spring snowpack for denning, caching food and reproduction. Like all species, they also require genetic diversity to survive and avoid extinction. Only some 300 wolverines are thought to exist in the Lower 48, and they rely on connectivity to the larger Canadian population to maintain strong genes. But environmental groups have long argued that climate change is threatening snowpack while development and recreation threaten that connectivity and, thus, the gene pool.
This week, the Fish and Wildlife Service officially came around to that point of view. It said new research has changed the landscape from 2020, the last time it withdrew a proposal. Some of the research the feds cited in this week’s decision was from 2020, or before, like papers about climate change and snowpack.
But a number of studies were new, including a handful authored by Montana-based wolverine researcher Mike Sawaya on genetics. Sawaya’s studies showed that wolverine populations in the western United States are fragmenting, while the Trans-Canada Highway in southern British Columbia is keeping female wolverines from reaching mates from the United States, listing documents said.
Both trends increase the risk of inbreeding and threaten gene pools, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
They were also documented alongside a 41% collapse in wolverine populations in the Canadian Rockies, Purcell Mountains and Selkirk Mountains, a critical region for connectivity with U.S. wolverines. Listing documents said that slump could have been the result of trapping, backcountry recreation, human development or food availability.
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