Originally Posted By: RICH G
There are wolverines on the Olympic Peninsula currently. My family has property on Eaglemount near Discovery Bay. I saw one last spring, it crossed the road in front of my truck, it stopped and challenged the my truck, showed it's teeth at me. I called WDFW and reported it, they told me that there had been another report for East Jefferson county a couple months before. Since then there have been two additional sightings within 2 miles of my sighting. The most recent sighting was a different animal. (blondish brown, with white chest patch).

WDFW told me they suspect it swam accross the strait from Vancouver island. The one I saw was mostly black, with a rusty red tail and longer redish hair on he sides. I got a good look at it, as it jumped up on a stump once it got on the other side of the road And looked at me 15 seconds. Thought about plugging it with the 22 mag as I figured nobody would believe me. Truely a buitiful animal, no fear of my vehicle.

It looked to be approximately 40 to 45 inches from nose to end of tail, about 16 inches tall and bowlegged, round ears, black eyes, a face between a bear and dog. Very stout, maybe 40 pounds.

Tried getting some game camera picks of it with no luck, I had 3 camera traps with dead meat hanging from trees, only got coons.


Rich,
In an effort to help you with your game camera skills I'm going to post parts of an e-mail I received while corresponding with a USFS bio. I contacted this bio after my own wolverine sighting. He was very helpful and I hope you find this helpful too.

One interesting fact he told me over the phone was that as wolves expand their range we can also expect wolverines to expand. They make much of their living stealing food from wolves. Also wolves will occasionally kill more then they need which also benefits scavengers.

He also sent me his latest updates to his ongoing study which included a lot of pictures of them chilling in live traps. Cute little buggers until they get pissed at which times they become scary little buggers.

Shoot me a pm if you want contact info for this bio.........

HI Broodbuster,
Thanks very much for sending this information to me! It's much appreciated, as I maintain an archive of verifiable records for 5 forest carnivores of conservation concern in the Pacific states: lynx, wolverine, fisher, coastal marten (west of I-5), and mountain red fox (>3,000 ft. elev.). I think it's entirely possible that what you saw was a wolverine, because they are currently expanding their range in Washington southward in the North Cascades and sighting reports like yours are becoming increasingly common. We have now documented them to occur as far south as the Stevens Pass Highway (Hwy 2), and there is a lone wolverine that has been hanging out on Mt. Adams for several years now. However, we won't know for sure whether you saw a wolverine unless you're able to obtain a photo (i.e., although they are interesting and useful for targeting survey efforts that are designed to produce physical evidence of a species' occurrence (specimens, photos, DNA detections, etc.), I do not include sighting reports or other anecdotal observations in my data base.

I have been putting radio-collars on wolverines in the North Cascades for the last 7 years (we've collared 10 wolverines so far; I've attached our most recent progress report for your information) and it is very clear to me that they are in the process of reclaiming much of their former range in Washington, which once included the Cascade Range from the Canadian border down to about Mt. Rainier in the south.

Re: advice for placing your trail cameras in hopes of getting a photo of this critter, your best bet would be to go off trail and use some sort of bait attached to a tree. Wolverines don't bother using trails like coyotes and foxes do, they just go overland wherever they want! Large pieces of meat are not necessary, as wolverines can smell a dried bone from a long distance away (using less meat will also prevent other critters from running thru your camera card or removing the bait). What we do is drill a hole in a bone (road-killed deer leg bone, or a beef bone will work fine) and then use a 1/4" braided steel cable to hang it from a branch just out of reach, or attach it to a tree. Trapping lures (scents) can also help, but they are not really necessary. If you do get a wolverine coming to the bait, then make sure to look around for scats or hairs that the animal might have left, because we can obtain DNA from both, which can give us very important information on its sex, identity (i.e, we can tell whether or not it's one of our study animals), and the source population it came from.

Hope this is helpful. Thanks again for the information, and good luck with your camera set!! Keith
_________________________
"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." Ronald Reagan

"The trouble with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher.

"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." Adolf Hitler