No. I doubt you can look it up on the ADF&G website. Have to get it from the area biologist or get it from ARLIS. ADF&G may not have even collated the data?

Wow, this is fascinating stuff, and great observations from guys in different areas. No wolverine here (anymore), but I joke with my youngest son (age 3) that he should be a wolverine researcher when he grows up. There's so much to learn.
I can't help but wonder though.....what's up with added harvest restrictions on a population with no evidence of decline??? I thought that only happened with fish.

About six years ago I got a data base frm F&G of the statewide wolverine harvest. Broken down by GMU but I don't recall that it had any info on transport methods. I'v had a hard drive crash since then but I may have it on a thumb drive. I'll look around.

To be blunt, whats up is that a lot of those doing the research and making the rules are anti trapping to a certain degree. Some are outright against hunting and trapping and make no bones about it.

I suspect that "climate change" alarmism is behind a lot of it. There are those who are pushing the notion that warming will reduce snow pack ( they should come here this winter or in the California Sierras) and thus denning areas for wolverine litters. Of course the assumption is that they can't den without snow. I don't believe there is evidence on that one way or another.

Shortening the season won't influence snow depth and it sure won't affect parturition dates !

I know that top three targeted species in South central are Marten, wolf, and wolverine.

Source: Trapper Questionnaire.

Statewide Wolverine is 4th behind Lynx.

Remember wolves and wolverines are trophies. It ain't commonly about money.

We see that same thing at the federal level here

martentrapper, I cant confirm, but have heard from several friends there is a trapper, let’s just say on the slope and not where who has harvested around a dozen and a half wolverine. What effect does that have on the population?

3 fingers, does the second wolverine from the right have a tail rub? I am only curious because one of my wolverine this year that was caught toward the end of February had a rub at the base of the tail and I was told by friends with much more experience than I that that is a common rub come springs warmer temps. Nice catch and great thread.

I have. At least twice that I can remember, I caught a female wolverine in March that had already given birth. Both times were back in the '70's when the season was open until the end of March.





I catch pregnant females all the time. I have no idea how many,... but enough to know approximately when they implant, and when they would typically give birth. I don't know how much this varies around the state, but around here, they typically would implant from late Nov to mid December.



Around Christmas time (last half of December) is about the earliest that I have ever seen a wolverine fetus that is big enough to able to be removed from the tubes and to see it forming into it's proper shape. Even at this stage it's very fragile and difficult to extract,... and I don't remember ever seeing even a round bump in the tubes before about mid-December. (But it happens, as you shall see).





Typically in January, they are formed well enough to be able to handle them without difficulty, and towards the end of the month, determine the sex, etc.




And by February, they are no longer transparent,... most of the time towards the end of the month they are looking like they are getting close to being viable,... if I catch a female with pups that look like this at the 3rd week of February, I think it is a safe bet to assume that these guys would have been born sometime in March,...




And then once in a while, I'll catch a female wolverine at the end of February that has pups that look like this,... just a day or two away from being born. They're about 6" long, fully furred, fully formed, nose-mouth open, claws harden,... fully ready to start life. I got these two guys last winter (male & female) on February 27 (according to my trail camera),.. and from the dozens of pregnant wolverines I have examined, I am convinced that pups this far developed, this early in the winter, is from a November implant. I have only seen this a couple times in my life,.. and wolverine pups like this can be worth half or so of what the adult was,... so at least at this stage, they are not wasted.



In 1983 (the date on the slide), I caught a pregnant female wolverine that had 5 pups, at this same fully-developed stage, in late February. I took them to the ADF&G office in Glennallen, and the area biologist told me at that time that this was the first documented case of a wolverine having 5 pups that the department had records of, at least in this area. I donated them to them, and as far as I know, they are still on display there.

MT to answer a few of the questions you asked in order yes, Yes and I bet it would but can’t say for certain I do know this 35 yrs ago there were maybe 4 or 5 taken in the village I lived in. Back then all the men trapped mostly for beaver but many had a few sets on the side and 4 or 5 of us went all out. Now days the amount taken that I know of is closer to 8-10 and only 3 or 4 guys trapping at all and primarily they are trapping marten wolves and wolverine. I know on my lines I have seen an increase in recent years where I seldom saw a track often times for several yrs in a row I now am regularly seeing tracks and catching them more often than ever before and in places I have never seen sign of them. To me that says there is an increase at least on my two lines that lay in completly different directions and cover 75 and 140 miles respectively. I know of two wolverines possibly three that were taken this year within 3 miles of town something really unheard of in the past Can trappers make a significant dent in the populations probably not but I firmly belive their numbers are on the rise around here

If reducing the season to end of Feb. makes you an anti, I guess ADF&G must be real bad since most of the seasons in South Central end in Jan. and some even have llllllllllllimits.

Those are some great pix !! The one above is really interesting because of the color of those kits. Were they really that dark or is it the photo ??

Kits are usually white when they are born

Very interesting pictures Wolverinebait. If the female you caught last year had implanted in Nov. wouldnt the kits have been born in mid to late December? Im assuming a 30-40 gestation period.

Dirt you're missing my point. From a management standpoint I think its pretty obvious that shortening the season with the stated intent to protect pregnant females is a bit far fetched since all females are assumed pregnant through the trapping season. If the intent is to reduce overall harvest, then thats a different conversation entirely. Shorter seasons and quotas would obviously reduce harvest. I think its safe to say that the bios are smart enough to put all this together, so Im left with my original thought which is why do they REALLY want to shorten the season?? I know there are a lot of people that think the wolverine should be on the endangered species list...

It's the picture. That was taken with an Olympus OM-1 back in the 35mmSLR days. They're more of a grey-ish-silver color in real life. The 2 pups from last year have some rust-colored stains on them from the fluids in the sacks, which would have come off with a little rubbing (or "licking"), but I didn't want to risk damaging anything,... and didn't really want to lick them clean either,...



No, I don't think so,... I think the gestation period has to be longer than that. I think virtually every pregnant female is going to have developing kits that are obvious to see by late December,.. I have seen this myself many times, it's common. If the gestation period is only 30-40 days, then all those pregnant wolverines that are already underway with pup development in December would surely be giving birth by late January/early February,... and then catching females that are post-birth would happen with equal frequency by late Jan/early Feb and later. I've never had that happen even once! Like I mentioned, I've only had that happen twice that I can remember, both times in March. I don't know all the scientific details of how this all happens,... it's just that I've kept personal records of things like this that I have personally seen myself, for almost 50 years now,... and these are just conclusions I have come to, based only on what I have seen, which very well may not be the full picture. I would think tho too,... that these sort of things should be pretty much nailed down by now, because altho difficult, there have been enough successful wolverine breedings in captivity to eliminate a lot of the speculation of how/when/where this all happens. And I , like you, find this all to be quite interesting!

I seen the rub too. I figured that one was caught last. I’ve always heard that they rub that area in the spring. People that sew just use the tail to fill in that gap.

Sorry to be slow to respond there Nook. To answer your question, truthfully, I don't know what effect that would have on the population. I do know that a trapper can't catch lots of critters unless there are LOTS of critters to trap. If your info is correct, the guy is trapping a very healthy pop. of wolverine. I also know from years trapping around Nome in a similar environment that the guy likely covered a large area in his trapping. So the 18 wolverine would likely have come from a large area.
If you google "wolverine studies" you might come up with a study or 2 by Audrey Magoun. She lives here in Fairbanks I think. Her and I believe, Bob Stevenson, did a couple studies on wolverine in the Brooks Range. Check that out.

Wolverinebait: Cool stuff. Nice to have good data like pictures and written records. I think we can all get a better idea of wolverine breeding, pregnancy, and birthing times thanks to you.

Thanks for that tip Ryan, I’m tanning that one up to be ruff for my boys parkas.



Mt, thanks. I’ll look at those studies. I found the collaring done in the chugach to be interesting also.

I know a fellow up in the White River country that takes more than a dozen wolverine each season and has for years.

The best wolverine numbers I've ever seen was down in the Turnagain River country in northern BC. I spent the month of February 5 years in a row down there feeding horses and I've never seen anything like it. There were actually hard packed wolverine trails in some areas. That country doesn't get a lot of snow, and has the best ungulate population of probably anywhere in NA, so thats probably a factor. There were lots of fisher down there too. I would actually see them occasionally. Very few marten though.