The rare sighting Thursday of a wolverine in Layton, Utah, has piqued the interest of biologists who would like to capture and collar the animal as part of a research project.
A doorbell camera captured video footage of the wolverine – which resembled a small bear – scampering across a front yard. Hikers spotted the same animal on a nearby trail.
It marks the second wolverine sighting in Utah in two months, 35 miles apart, leading biologists to wonder whether both sightings involved the same animal.
“It’s rare to see wolverines, even in the high-elevation areas where they typically live,” the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stated on Facebook. “The recent sightings — on Antelope Island on May 4 and then today in west Layton — illustrate how far wildlife will travel from their preferred homes!”
In North America, wolverines inhabit forested, mountainous regions and are far more likely to be encountered in Alaska and Canada, the North Cascades and northern Rocky Mountains.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not even list Utah as part of their range.
Regardless of where they live, the small but ferocious critters – though they typically weigh less than 40 pounds, they’ve been known to fend off grizzlies and take down deer – are usually solitary and elusive.
In December 2020, motion-sensor cameras in Yellowstone National Park captured the first video footage of a wolverine inside the park. When the footage was released in January 2021, it went viral.
According to Fox 13 in Salt Lake City, only five wolverine sightings have been documented in the Utah. The first was an animal that was shot and killed in 1979, northeast of Vernal. The next sighting was 35 years later, in 2014.
Mark Hadley, the Northern Region Outreach Manager for the Division of Wildlife Resources, told Fox 13 that wolverines are scavengers by nature, but they’ve been known to kill moose.
Hadley advised families in West Layton to keep their pets inside at night, and close at hand during the day.
The DWR hopes to trap and relocate the wolverine.