These are not my finding. A study tested a variety of sunstances on penned wolverines as well as field test in Montana and NWT.

Wolverine scat often has conifer needles in it. Turpentine contains many of the same chemical components as conifers and proved to be quite a draw fro wolverines. They did test gas as well and in some cases it worked almost as well. Mink musk was another scent that while not as good at pulling them in, held wolverine at the scent station for quite a while.

Interesting ! Hard to keep your lure from evaporating but it won't freeze

http://www.rmrs.nau.edu/wildlife/unitoverview/unitpdf/TE_Summer%20Detection%20Wolverine.pdf


Here's the complete study. There's a lot of info if you can tease it out.

Muskrat411- Where in NWT are you from. I'm just about to jump in my vehicle heading for Ft Providence today.

I have never seen even remote evidence of them snacking on spruce needles.

May be from eating the crop of spruce hens or stomachs of rabbits and porcupines.

You do know Mackenzie Days are cancelled right?
I'm from Aklavik in the the western edge of the Mackenzie Delta right near the Yukon border and 60 miles south of the Beufort Sea. a long way from Providence, my dad's people are from there though, he came down river cutting wood for steam boat, met my mother and stayed.

Scent is nice, but ravens can be heard from a long way.

Quite a bit of conifer has shown up in wolverine scat analysis Spek so it's happening. They also find the Ketones (?) in urine samples which are naturally occurring in conifers.

May be happening there BM, where you have a variety of conifers, but the only conifer we have here is spruce, and they don't deliberately eat them here. I'm sure they would ingest some while eating some prey, but there is no evidence that I have ever seen where they deliberately ate spruce needles as a part of their diet.

I've never seen that either. It would be interesting to see if it is seasonal.

Yeah, and what variety of tree. "Conifer" is a pretty broad term.

In Gwich'in medicine spruce gum is one of the primary substances used. Maybe wolverine get hurt a lot as they live a rough life and have found out that the gum helps to prevent infection so they eat some every now and then by instinct.

Well, I'm a believer. I'm gonna start making cubbys out of frozen beaver carcasses and put spruce bows inside for bait.

I am going to have a martini and drink about trapping gulo's.....

I am going to go buy some Turpentine!!

Muskrat I was introduced last year to using spruce gum for healing sores and burns etc. I was working in Fort Yukon with the Gwich'in. Worked well and I found it interesting how the next day under a band-aide it was no longer sticky. Worked well.

the lady who use to be our neighbor makes traditional medicine and she uses a lot of spruce gum and she also used porcupine fat. It works really good.

Balsam fir pitch is also a traditional medication for many ailments, cuts,and infections.

"Well, I'm a believer. I'm gonna start making cubbys out of frozen beaver carcasses and put spruce bows inside for bait."

I don't know how Dirt firgured it out but that is one of the deadliest sets known to Siberian wolverine trappers.


How do you guys know whether wolverines are ingesting conifer needles or not? I've been around them all my life and never had any reason to check their scat before but I'm going to look at bit closer now.

Another study:

a b s t r a c t
Urine deposition has been observed as an important scent-marking behaviour among
wolverines (Gulo gulo, Mustelinae, Mustelidae). Solid phase microextraction (SPME) of
headspace volatiles of the urine from free ranging wolverines were examined by gas
chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Urine samples were collected directly from
the bladder of live-trapped animals or from frozen samples deposited in snow. Nineteen
potential semiochemicals were identified in the headspace from 22 urine samples. The
composition of these volatile compounds varied by type and amount with each sample,
but a number of chemicals were regularly found in many samples. The most commonly
found constituents were the ketones; 2-heptanone, 4-heptanone and 4-nonanone; and the
terpenes: a-pinene, b-pinene, limonene, linalool and geraniol. Mammalian urinary
discharge of ingested a-pinene, b-pinene, limonene and other hydrocarbon terpenes is
unusual, as these compounds are usually oxidized before excretion. The source of the
hydrocarbon monoterpenes likely includes conifer needles, as they have been found in
wolverine scat.