50 SMITHSONIAN | March 2020
Matt Kynoch, a Wildlife Conservation Society
biologist, inspects a wolverine trap. Researchers
lure wolverines with meat, sedate them with a
“jab stick,” and then attach a satellite collar.for miles before bringing it down. “They’re
just a vicious piece of muscle,” says Qaiyaan
Harcharek, an Inupiat hunter in Utqiagvik,
on Alaska’s Arctic coast. “Even the bears
don’t mess with them little guys.”
Wolverines were once relatively common
in the contiguous United States, but trap-
ping and habitat loss have shrunk popula-
tions to just 300 or so animals, now mostly
confi ned to the Cascades and Northern
Rockies. Arctic populations are thought to
be healthier, but the animal’s furtive nature
and the vast area each one covers pose a
challenge to scientists. “The eff ort you have
to put into fi nding enough of them to make
reasonable conclusions about the popula-
tion is considerable,” says Tom Glass, a fi eld
biologist with the Wildlife Conservation
Society, or WCS, which is conducting a com-
prehensive fi eld study of Arctic wolverines.
From low-fl ying airplanes over Alas-
ka’s North Slope, the researchers have ob-
served that wolverines live “pretty much
everywhere,” says Martin Robards, of the
WCS. Dozens of wolverines trapped on the
tundra by researchers and outfi tted with
satellite collars are revealing how the ani-
mals live. A typical day might include a
12-hour nap in a snow den, followed by
12 hours of nearly ceaseless running to
fi nd food, covering as many as 25 miles
When a wolverine takes the bait, a tripwire
closes the trap and sends a signal relayed by
satellite. The scientists jump on snow machines
to reach the animal before it gnaws its way out.