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You can make a difference in your community. We can help!Progress in the Fight to End Wolverine Trapping in Montana
In 2008, thanks to hundreds of wildlife defenders in the Big Sky State, the Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission voted to further restrict wolverine trapping – and kept swift fox completely protected from trapping. Wolverines are particularly susceptible to trapping because they eat carrion and are easily lured in by bait – including females trying to feed their newborns.
Because of their fear of humans and the fact that they live in very remote habitat, wolverines are the least understood and least studied carnivore in the nation. They are also one of the rarest. There are fewer than 500 wolverines in the lower 48 states, with an estimated 200 living in the mountain forests of Montana.
Defenders is working on all fronts to protect these vulnerable creatures and has been pushing since 2000 to secure federal protection for them under the Endangered Species Act.
Although the Bush/Cheney Administration’s failure to safeguard the wolverine has forced us to take legal action, the decision to reduce trapping in Montana -- one of the last strongholds for these elusive creatures – is a step in the right direction and will help ensure their survival until they get the protection they deserve.
In the meantime, we are also working to protect mother wolverines from disturbance by snowmobiles and the negative effects of climate change as they bear and nurture their kits in some of the wildest and most remote places left in the American West.
Wolverine mothers go to extraordinary lengths to find these places in an effort to avoid noise and disturbance, so just imagine what kind of stress snowmobiles can put on them and their young.
They also dig as deep as eight feet into the snow to deliver and raise their kits, and they count on snow cover lasting until May, when the kits are ready to leave their dens.
Learn more about wolverines and our work to protect them.
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