Not sure what your point is yet Spek. Unless you're just nit picking language? Bottom line is I don't believe wolverines are eating conifers like a beaver. But needles have been found in scat. I wasn't writing a scientific paper for peer review I was throwing out some ideas for discussion. Got any of your own for consideration?

I for one will certainly be giving turpentine a try. It has an odor that will carry a long ways I would think....... Spek not sure about your area but anyplace I have ever been, bears are not marking their territory or presence when they bite / claw trees......they do it in the spring to get the sap running.....then they rub out their fur......course they often use the same tree year after year......You will find lots of bears use the same tree......yesterday I counted 25 such trees in 20-miles of trail......I stopped at a few and showed my clients the different hair colors .....I always wondered why biologists never used these trees as hair traps.....

Bushman, thanks for clearing that up. When I mentioned a number of ways they could be ending up with needles in their stomach besides deliberately eating "conifers" it seemed
to me you pretty much blew that possibility off with the "it's happening" statement. I guess you didn't really mean that though. Maybe I took your words to literally, so I apologize for my lack of understanding on that. As far as scientific papers I could post, yes I have a lot of them on a wide range of subjects. A few of them are interesting to me, but IMO most of them are just junk science.

Yukon254, I do recall seeing a brown bear tree or two the last 57 years or so, and I agree with some of what you're saying. It is commonly believed that the rub trees are used as a means of marking their territory. I'm not convinced of that myself either. Many bears use the same territory, and while they may battle over a choice spot at a fishing hole, they don't battle over large areas of land like wolf packs do. So I'm not sure anybody really know one way or the other. But they do not just rub on green trees with sap in them. They will use about any thing that is situated right
to rub on. On the Alaska peninsula there are no spruce trees and so they do their rubbing on alders and rock points. Some of the rocks are wore smooth and polished from being rubbed on by thousands of bears, for ages. Here on the Kenai they do rub a lot on green trees, but they also rub a lot on dead trees. They also rub a lot on my cabin wall and the hitching rail. And they chew on all the same stuff, so I think the chewing is done for some other reason than to get sap running. I have wondered if maybe their teeth or gums ache when they come out of the den and maybe
thats why they chew on things so much at that time. Howsoever, all conjecture on this end.

I've wondered the same thing about the biologist. They did some DNA testing on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge a couple years ago. I found a couple of their hair snag traps. They had areas
with 3 strand barbwire fences about 40 X40 feet square, with a bait in the middle. They collected hair off the barbs to do DNA test as a means of counting the number of bear on the refuge. These traps that I found were set up in places where bear seldom pass through. Roughly three miles away on one and about one mile away on the other there were well used bear trails with dozens of these rub trees along them. They were checking them with a helicopter. Our tax dollars at work.

Spek I sit on the fence about research. I've seen really bad results usually as a result of computer modeling. But I've sat on the Board of ACA for over ten years ( www.ab-conservation.com ) and we spend millions and collaborate on research all the time. What I'm trying to do in a small way is incorporate traditional knowledge and skills into the research. The collaboration between the ACA and the Alberta Trappers Association on wolverines is a small example but we have other efforts going on as well. We're even tested doing game surveys through apps on smart phones. It looks like that method is as acurate as arial surveys and a lot cheaper, but it uses citizen efforts.

But if I just ignore the academic community or marginalize them I have no chance of changing the way game management happens in this province I've also stood tall and fought bad science. I was very vocal during the grizzly bear hunt debate here in Alberta and represented a few groups in the on going debate. Our estimate of 1000 grizzlies turned out to much more accurate then the 280 that was being quoted. I've written columns in Alberta Outdoorsmen on the voodoo science.

In regards to Bears.
I have a lot of bears at my lodge. highest densities of grizzlies in Alberta and lots of black bears. I've also put out multiple trail cams for five years
and got to watch bear behavior. They are a neat animal. What i noticed is in spring they strip conifers at the base to access the spring sap. The cambium layer is still there so I don't believe they're after that.

I also have many bear rub trees in my area. They look like they've been used for years. Cameras show that multiple bears use them and really have a good scratch, but they also sniff around so it must be their email to each other. Other animals come along and sniff it as well, elk, moose,lynx, and all the weasel family have been caught on our cameras.

But have you ever noticed that a grizzly will create a new marking tree in close proximity to a human disturbance like a new cabin?

Now that was awesome. Amazing the length of time that family of bears stayed there.

I picked up a wolverine last season under one of these bear rub/scratch mark trees. although I used half a moose backbone so I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the tree. Just looked like a good spot

I wonder wolverine will chew through a log to get into a cabin, and there were reports of wolverine chewwing out of log traps used by researchers. I wonder if wolverine chew into trees to get bug larvia in the spring. Would they also chew to make a squirrel hole bigger to get a at baby squiireels? A combination of these things could account for them ingesting spruce. I know they will also chew up plywood Martin / mink boxes if they have lure / whale oil on them.
I like to think of wolverine chewwing spruce gum like Hubbabuba gum.

Bushman, I saw your video on the news the other day just after i watched it. News said it went viral 1.5 million hits I hope you have partnership. If so you should be getting a nice cheque in a year or so. Enough to stay at West Ed. or River Cree for a night or two maybe.

I doubt that wolverine would expend the energy to get at bugs or larva. Not enough return for the energy expended. But I have had one try to chew through the roof of my cabin. Almost made it before he gave up.

They might try to dig out some squirrels but there's easier food in the form of voles.

I have twice caught wolverine in under ice beaver sets. One in a 330 at a lodge entrance and one in a baited snare set that also had a beaver. I believe the beaver was caught before the ice froze over the hole, the wolverine found it and was caught by pure luck. The 330 at the lodge entrance though I still wonder. The wolverine was going into the lodge and I never did figure out how it got under the ice. No tracks around a small lake that appeared to be froze solid. Makes your whole season to pull a wolverine out of a beaver set! I believe in that area beaver was and still is a major food source for wolverine.

I had an old boy here tell me wolverines regularly go under the ice and into beaver lodges and kill beaver I found it hard to believe but said he saw where they went under at a spillway and pulled out a beaver.

I once stopped at a sledom used trapper cabin up the Big Fish river in the Richardson Mountains. The door was open so I went in the trapper had cardboard around his bed and there was a hole. I told my wife I'm going to stick my head in hear and see if there is a wolverine in here. So Id did next thing she is yelling at the door trying to get the gun off her back as a wolverine took off out the hole it chewed in the logs out the back wall. By the time I got out and got Margos gun off her back the wolverine was up the mountain and into the timber.

I don't think wolverine calculate energy expenditure. I think they are always hungry and available food triggers a responce and they do what it takes to get it. Plus there is never just one bug or baby squirrel / bird. Breaking into a nest would probably always be worth while, especially in energy poor areas.

I noticed this is not about wolverine trapping as the title suggest. I need to have somebody explain to me how knowing that there is conifer needles in wolverine Doo helps a trapper catch one?

Always figured it was a critical factor to know what the animals I trap eat!
I prefer to know as much as I can about the habits of the animals I trap. I love this kind of discussion. Makes me think outside the box. Which always helps me be a better trapper.

Generally, it keeps a guy from making sets in the palm trees

Dirt - I bet if you work through that ADD and focus you might find the odd nugget of information that could help you out. For example if you were to start drinking turpentine so you could pee turpentine I bet your catch ratio would go up. And since when has any topic on this forum stayed on track? That's part of the fun of it, seeing where it goes. Do you actually trap wolverines up your way?

You're getting cranky. I'll leave this alone.

Maybe not. I was finishing up your recommended read.

Pages 250 and 251 “ The Wolverine Way” by Douglass H. Chadwick

“Suppose the population isn’t within a fully protected park. How many of those half-a –males and half-a-females-the vehicles for dispersing the gene pool-might get shot or trapped while out foraging in winter to find food to bring some back for their kits? We recorded mothers in Glacier regularly traveling several miles from den sites to hunt. During his Sawtooth study, Copeland caught a female nearly 10 miles from her den.
If a nursing mother is taken in a trap anywhere within her wide hunting range, you’d have to subtract both that breeding age female and her young starving back in the den from the population. Should the resident adult male be trapped instead during the course of his still wider and more frequent travels, a transient male could come in and kill the kits. If the newcomer doesn’t kill them, the kits will still grow up with less protection from other wolverines and less experience gained with traveling with a father after they separate from their mother. Both factors lower the offspring’s chances of successfully reaching adulthood and either replacing numbers in the population or transporting genes to other homelands.”
“ The mortality data from dispersing wolverines show that they run a fairly high risk of being killed by people outside strictly protected lands such as national parks ( remember: wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, state and provincial parks , and other types of reserves permit trapping and hunting.) In British Columbia, studies by John Krebs revealed that wherever wolverines were in decline, the primary cause was mortality from trapping.
Here in the Lower 48, the number of traps specifically set for wolverines is no longer much of an issue. Only Montana allows gulos to be trapped, and the state finally reduced the legal quota to a token handful in 2008. What needs to be considered is the number of traps put out for other midsize carnivores but capable of catching a wolverine-or a protected lynx or rare fisher.”

Good grief! The poor gulos don't stand a chance!