After being captured and released into the wild, a wolverine wanders the Utah mountains wearing a GPS collar around his neck.
The capture is being called a “once-in-a-lifetime”Event by biologists at Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, (DWR).according to DWR’s website.
The wolverine was first sighted on March 10, when USDA-Wildlife Services conducting livestock protection work was flying over Rich County, Utah, and saw an animal feeding on a dead sheep. As they got closer to the animal, they realized it was a wolverine.
Officials stated that the dead sheep was among 18 sheep that the wolverine had killed.
A DWR biologist and a trapper from the Utah Department of Agriculture set up three traps using part of a sheep carcass, in hopes of trapping the wolverine.
The traps had been set and the wolverine was captured the next day.
A remarkable feat since it would be the first wolverine ever captured by biologists in Utah, the DWR wrote on their site. It was also Utah’s eighth confirmed wolverine sighting since 1979.
“It’s amazing to get a chance to see a wolverine in the wild, let alone catch one,” DWR Northern Region Wildlife manager Jim Christensen said. “This was a once in a lifetime experience.”
Wildlife officials sedated the animal once it was back at DWR’s Ogden office. During the exam, they were able to determine that the wolverine was between 3-4 years old, weighed about 28 pounds, and was approximately 41 inches long. And, according to Christensen, the wolverine had “Sharp, healthy teeth.”
When the sedation wore off, and the GPS collar was placed on the animal’s neck, biologists transported the wolverine to the North Slope of the Uinta Mountains and set him free.
The GPS tracker will provide information on when the wolverine travels, the size of its home range, and the type of habitat it uses at different times of the year, the site said.
”Having a collar on this wolverine will teach us things about wolverines in Utah that would be impossible to learn any other way,”Christensen stated, calling this research “priceless.”
He stated that in Utah, four different wolverine sightings had been confirmed between 2021 and 2021.
“Were we seeing the same animal or different animals last year? Christensen asked. “Having a collar on this animal will help us solve that riddle.”