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| Wolverine |
By Felicity Barringer, The New York Times, February 1, 2013
The federal Fish and
Wildlife Service proposed Friday to give Endangered Species Act
protections to the wolverine, one of the largest and hardiest members
of the weasel family, largely because climate change is whittling away its wintry
habitat in the northern Rockies.
The action was prompted by a lawsuit brought by the Center
for Biological Diversity, based in Arizona, and Defenders of
Wildlife, whose efforts to get federal protections for the species
were rebuffed during the administration of President George W. Bush.
About 300 of the elusive animals live and forage in the high mountains
of the Northwest.
If made final, the proposal to list the animal as threatened would put
wolverines, like polar bears, elkhorn coral and staghorn coral, into a small but growing group
of species whose survival is threatened by global warming, rather than
traditional threats like predators or logging.
“Extensive climate modeling indicates that the wolverine’s snowpack
habitat will be greatly reduced and fragmented in the coming years due to
climate warming, thereby threatening the species with extinction,” the proposed
rule said.
The fierce predators, whose wide feet and sharp claws
keep them agile during mountain winters, weigh 25 to 45 pounds when fully grown
but will fight a bear that strays into their territory. They raise newborn kits
in burrows deep beneath snows that do not melt until mid-May.
After being trapped to near-extinction as part of the 19th-century fur
trade, wolverines were so rare that they fell out of the public consciousness
or were confused with wolves, an entirely different species. Even the actor
Hugh Jackman, who plays the Marvel Comics character Wolverine in the “X-Men” movies, recently said he had prepared for the role by
studying wolves.
But for scientists and naturalists who monitor the species, wolverines are a source
of fascination with intricate biological mechanisms, including a thyroid that
supercharges their metabolism and an extra coat for insulation. Their jaws are
strong enough to crack the frozen bones of their prey. The new proposal, as
written, would not restrict logging or winter recreation — like snowmobiling —
in the wolverine’s habitat, but it would end the intentional trapping of the
animals.
Timothy Preso, a
lawyer handling the lawsuit, praised the proposal, saying it offered “a welcome
promise of new efforts to protect the mountains where wolverines are found and
the intervening lands they’ll need.”
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