Denali National Park and Preserve on Saturday shared images of critters so elusive that even staff and frequent visitors almost never see them.
“A rare appearance by two wolverines quickly became the talk of the park this week,” Denali announced on Facebook. “These critters spent part of their day peeking at visitors from a culvert along Denali Park Road.”
The post continued: “Since these animals are so rarely seen, some park staff had to brush up on their wolverine knowledge!”
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The park explained that wolverines are related to weasels, mink, martens, and otters; that they’re super scavengers “that will eat just about any type of meat they can find.”
Wolverines roam expansive territories, often in rugged terrain, and are solitary except for a short mating period during the summer. So the sight of two wolverines was extraordinary for Denali visitors who observed them.
Pregnant females, according to the park, build snow dens for birthing and nursing.
Because of their solitary, wide-ranging nature, wolverines are extremely difficult to study.
The population in Alaska is stable, but numbers have declined in the western contiguous United States and Canada.
In January 2021, Yellowstone National Park shared its first-ever trail-cam footage of a wolverine, and the footage went viral.
Last March at Yellowstone, a father and daughter on their first trip to the park spotted a wolverine walking across a snowy road. MacNeil Lyons, their tour operator, told FTW Outdoors:
“For the rest of the tour, the 9-year-old daughter couldn’t stop saying, ‘Wow… we saw a wolverine today! She told me it was the most amazing day ever in her life.”
Last April, a trail-cam operator in Canada’s Yukon Territory shared a video compilation featuring amusing wolverine footage captured during a six-month period on multiple trails.
To be sure, trail cameras are the most effective means of capturing footage of wolverines in the wild.
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