Trapping has to go….

After decades of uncertainty, researchers have established population estimates for wolverines in two boreal forest areas in Alberta and Ontario.

The results reveal that the carnivore’s populations are denser in Alberta than Ontario, though trapping was a major conservation concern for both populations.

In both areas, trapping caused twice as many deaths as predation and vehicle collisions combined, said Matt Scrafford, a conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada who was the principal investigator of both studies.

In a study published recently in The Journal of Wildlife Management, Scrafford and his colleagues analyzed and compared the two populations of wolverines (Gulo gulo)—one in each province. In northwestern Alberta, Scrafford and his team tracked wolverines around Rainbow Lake from 2013 to 2016. In Ontario, they estimated the population around Red Lake in the northwest of the province from 2018 to 2022.

“They’re very hard to study,” Scrafford said. “They live in very remote places.” Read More…