Wolverine need vast undisturbed wilderness areas to survive in Jasper National Park.

Banff National Park web site, describing the wolverine as a “legendary enigma,” warns that “in Canada‘s Rocky Mountains, their numbers are few and threats to their habits and habitats are increasing ... Denning females with young are particularly vulnerable to disturbance from skiers and hikers.”

Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. It doesn’t mean they don’t need habitat, and it doesn’t mean they’re not important

– Vivian Banci – wolverine biologist

WOLVERINE Gulo gulo : "species of special concern"

The wolverine – largest land member of the weasel family – looks rather like a bear cub with a long tail and large skull with heavy jaws for crushing bones. It has short legs and a lumbering gait but can travel at a tireless lope on constant lookout for carrion. It is found throughout the circumpolar boreal regions of the world but its numbers have plummeted in the past 200 years due to trapping, poisoning and disturbance of its once remote habitats.

In North America it is found mostly in Alaska and mountainous areas of western Canada. In the contiguous United States only Montana and possibly Idaho still have viable populations. In eastern Canada it is now listed as ‘endangered’ under the Species at Risk Act (SARA).
In western Canada it is listed as a species ‘of special concern’ under the Committee on the Status of Endangered Species in Canada (COSEWIC). It was thought to be extinct on Vancouver Island but in recent years a few sightings have been reported. To move the wolverine to the SARA list would give it more protection but so far this has not happened largely because of consultation issues or socioeconomic considerations.

Disturbance by logging, mining, and seismic lines as well as recreational use by snowmobilers, snowboarders and skiers have rendered a lot of habitat unusable for this wary species. The Alberta Wolverine Experimental Monitoring Project sees habitat loss as likely the largest factor affecting wolverine survival in Alberta. In an era of unprecedented economic growth it points to the province’s network of Parks and Protected Places as being the notable exception.

In Jasper National Park there is very little data on the species. Rare sightings of the animal and its tracks reported by cross-country skiers and hikers make up much of the sparse data available to park managers. Their tracks may occasionally be seen crossing snow-covered Maligne Lake in winter and running for miles along alpine ridges. Tracks in the dust on the trail up Bonhomme Mountain within sight of the town of Jasper indicate that this may be part of an individual’s territory and the actual animals have occasionally been seen crossing the Athabasca valley near Jasper in November and March. From tracks and encounters it is evident that the area adjacent to the Marmot Basin downhill ski hill is wolverine habitat and Parks Canada must take this into account when considering allowing any development outside the ski hill's present footprint.

This free spirit of wilderness, solitary and reclusive, habitually avoids man (except to raid his traplines, food caches and cabins). While it may have a mixed reputation among people who have suffered from its depredations, it also has its fervent admirers. Dr. Olaus Murie, who spent six years studying the biology of the Alaskan peninsula, wrote of the wolverine, “I wonder if there is another inhabitant of northern wilderness that so excites the imagination”. The great naturalist, Ernest Thompson Seton, described it as “a tremendous character … a personality of unmeasured force, courage, and achievement so enveloped in a mist of legend, superstition, idolatry, fear and hatred that one scarcely knows how to begin or what to accept as fact.”

Wolverine tracks in the snow could be mistaken for those of the wolf, but they have the five toes of the weasel family and run with the distinctive offset twin-print pattern of that family. They climb trees with ease and are good swimmers. They rely on their sense of smell instead of their rather poor eyesight.

Males may have territories of nearly 1000 square kilometres. Marmots, hibernating in family groups, may be dug out of their snow-covered rock dens any time during the winter months. Sometimes, even large ungulates are not safe. A warden in the Sunwapta area of the park once followed the trail of a running moose. There were tufts of hair and spatters of blood on either side of the tracks. Finally he came to the remains of the moose, surrounded by the tracks of a wolverine. He concluded that as there were no tracks following the running moose, the wolverine must have dropped onto the moose from a tree and hung on, biting at the neck until the moose collapsed.

One of Jasper’s most interesting – albeit elusive – animals, the wolverine needs vast, undisturbed wilderness. The park still offers that – for now. While data on them may be lacking park managers should not forget there is a rarely seen presence out there roaming the high country that needs protection in a national park because it is not going to get it anywhere else.