New Wolverine Photos
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 29th, 2008
A wolverine has been captured on camera by an Oregon State student, Katie Moriarty.
Confirming new photographs (below) have been recorded from the Tahoe National Forest in California, during mid-March 2008.
Earlier, it was established this is the first wolverine verified in California since 1922.
Side view of a wolverine photographed by a remotely triggered camera at a snare established, by another study, for the purpose of collecting hair from American martens. The snare is comprised of a black plastic base from which brass gun-cleaning brushes are attached. Bait, which is normally attached immediately above the marten hair snare, had already been removed by another animal prior to the wolverine’s arrival (Photograph courtesy of the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station and Oregon State University)
Top view of a wolverine photographed by remotely triggered camera at the same snare established for collecting hair from American martens. (Photograph courtesy of the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station and Oregon State University)
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Amazing! Hopefully they can be protected from the invariable idiots that will flock to the area to hunt them.
samson77
why do you think idiots are going to hunt them. what exactly is your problem with hunters. your posts seem to come from a hostile and preconceived notion about hunters.
i urge you to educate your self about hunters sportsman and the difference between them and common criminals. it would temper your uneducated view of just what hunters are and more importantly what they do for the environment.
self education in the Internet age is very easy and much preferred over some talking points memo handed out by environazis.
Well they’re safer in the Sierras than within the Chugash National Forest in Alaska where, as the “reasoning goes” since they’re almost never seen by recreational hikers, there wasn’t much sense to protecting them from trappers. Logical, I guess, unless you had the hopes of actually seeing one in the wild someday. Last year trappers in the Chugash bagged two of them..oh, and six domestic dogs.
This is right in my back yard. Truckee and Tahoe are just a few hours up the main highway from me. I am glad to know they are still around. Cute little buggers, aren’t they?
chrisandclaudia:
1. I have never posted anything about hunting whatsoever on this site before.
2. I am WELL aware of what hunters are and I am WELL educated. The only hostile one here is you and your insecure name calling and assumptions.
3. Just because you feel the need to kill something by your own hand doesn’t make it necessary or justified. And dont give me your “culling the herd of the weak and hungry” nonsense, been there heard that.
4. Someone like you would be the first to shoot a magnificent animal like this and hang it on your wall.
“Look what I killed, I am lord and master over this kingdom”
Get a new hobby like collecting paper clips or making a rubber band ball. Peace to you almighty hunter
Hunters? Men today aren’t real hunters, they go out in a group with a pack of dogs & shoot down a bear or cougar that they’ve cornered in a tree. What kind of sport is that? Especially when the dogs do all the work, they just do the shooting. I’d like to see them armed with just a knife or their bare hands and go one on one with a bear or cougar, they would not stand a chance!
As far as the internet teaching us, your right it shows just how callous hunters are. There’s plenty of footage of that all over the internet.
And why are people who care about the earth & it’s animals environazis? I’m Native American & it just comes natural to us.
SAMSON77 and CK:
I think what CHRISANDCLAUDIA were trying to say was that just because they are hunters does not mean they would go out and recklessly shoot a badger. I’m not totally against hunting, and I’m not totally for it, either. I just think CHRISANDCLAUDIA were saying that you were “stereotyping” (i.e. lumping) ALL hunters together under one banner. Not all hunters are irresponsible idiots.
i wont argue with someone so angry over something they obviously know very little about. it will just degrade into an angry battle where no information can be exchanged
i will say I’m not a trophy hunter trapper or pelt hunter. do you know the difference? from your response it doesnt sound like it.
i have nothing mounted nor hung anything on my wall. i have never killed anything based on how big it was nor have i picked out anything to kill based on how it rated by some scale or preconceived notion about its grandeur.
i have hunted and killed coyotes. some scream murder till their little teacup designer dogs are shredded all over their yards because there are 2 or 3 times more coyotes than their area can support. it becomes easy to accept certain things when the reality of the situation comes home to roost.
i have also never killed any thing weak or sick. mother nature does that way before most hunters come across them.
finally no one but common criminals kill or trap animals who are endangered or rare in the area and that are illegal to do so.
i suggest the next time you see an illegal kill or predict one you lay off hunters and go after common criminals who violate the laws.
the only name i called you was the one you use to sin in with. im sorry if that offended you.
Waaay back in the early 60s, I hunted in full camouflage, with a Ruger Single Six .22 Magnum single-action revolver with a 7″ barrel and a 1.3 Power Bushnell scope strapped to my hip, just to give the squirrels & rabbits a chance, and myself a challenge.
Once the crosshairs got onto them, they seldom survived.
After one particularly sickening kill of a terrified grey squirrel dashing thru treetops, I vowed to thereafter hunt only predators, and used a pair of plastic calls to lure them in close, just to give the foxes a chance, and myself a challenge.
Hungry foxes, skunks, hawks, owls, bobcats, mink and other gorgeous animals appeared nearby, noses high, oblivious to the danger, and once the crosshairs got onto them, they seldom survived.
Finally, to keep a running red fox from jumping into my face, I put the crosshairs on his chest and yelled, “BANG! You’re dead!”, then watched triumphantly as he reversed course in mid-bound and escaped in a blur.
Realizing that the true challenge was in the hunt, not the kill, I put the Ruger into its holster for the last time, and switched to zoom-lensed SLR cameras for the “shots”.
Animals don’t have a chance against modern optics and firepower, and there is really no reason to hunt them. Most of us don’t need the meat, and our weapons, scopes, ammunition, hunting licenses, vehicles, equipment and accessories cost way more than a similar volume of meat. I believe that the only reason most people hunt today is a misguided macho hunter-gatherer instinct coupled with blind disrespect for the animals’ lives.
Respect yourselves, Dudes – buy a camera with a long lens, and let’s see if you’re up to that challenge!
I hope people realize that wolverines are incredibly dangerous and don’t try to go pet the cute animals.
Long lenses are great. But I’ve still had to shoot rabid skunks.
It’s great to see the wolverine reestablish itself in Oregon. I hope the numbers grow large enough to set sustainable harvest quotas.
I much prefer ‘killing by my own hand’ to having someone else do it for me and the great thing about this country I live in is that I don’t have to justify that to anyone.
Very nice Artist. I have read something similar before but I can’t remember where
Wrath: Thank you.
Sschaper: Shooting rabid animals is not the recreational hunting of which we are speaking. I referred more to the warped mindset that allows and encourages wanton, unnecessary and indiscriminate killing of healthy wild animals.
Destroying a trophy buck removes him from the gene pool, allowing less successful males to produce less competitive offspring, depleting the entire lineage – survival of the weakest, until eventually, the species disappears!
Native Americans, hunting for sustenance, chose, apologized to and then “harvested” (using “Huntresses” unfortunate term) smaller females, with respect for Nature’s constant struggle for balance.
What gives anyone the right to “harvest” a wolverine? Hunger?
The challenge to capture a wild image of one is enough for me.
Can’t help but note that Artist got in his bonafides by slaying way more than any notion of decency warranted, for far less reason than, say, someone hunting for meat would have, and got in a good solid brag about it, before he got the notion that ALL of you are bloodthirsty, under-challenged and, well, wrong. 😀
As a confirmed non-hunter (I simply don’t need to, nor have I ever wanted to), I can say bully for meat hunters! Life is Life. Life takes Life to live. (Plants are life. If you think they’re “lower,” maybe it’s because you can’t hear their screams.) We evolved as hunters, long before we decided to start spoiling the fun with “morality.”
Wanna read about this? Read the book “Bloodties,” by Ted Kerasote. (Who hunts, for meat.) He makes a damn good case that the meat hunter does less harm to the world than the vegetarian who gets everything by driving to a supermarket. And no, he’s not trying to justify what he does; in fact, even he never sounds sure. But that seems to be his point: who gets to cast a stone here? What IS this all about? Why do you not want to do it, and why do I want to? Even when I’m not totally sure I do? He seems particularly careful not to cast any, at ANY part of the hunter/nonhunter spectrum. He’s trying to get it. Trust me, very non-phony humility underpins the entire piece.
(My “brag.” Had a bird dead in the sights of my BB gun once. Just as I thought, it’s dead, you WILL hit it, I moved the barrel zero point one-eight degrees right. On purpose. Just did. Scared the crap out of it, though. Got my deader-than-dead-shot bonafides in, at like eight years of age, and didn’t hurt nothin’. Oh. Fifty-five yards. I WOULD have bagged it, period. You feel it.)
Right. Wolverines. 😀
The only thing that will ever justify “harvesting” wolverines is giving ALL their former habitat back, which unless we leave, will never happen. Some things are, and will always be, too rare to kill. That’s life.
Speaking of respect for animals…
https://cryptomundo.com//cryptozoo-news/elephant-paints/
For the lesser orders, try to emulate their instinctive abilities… get some yarn, and build a spiderweb, or get some grass and sticks, and build a birdnest.
Artist
‘Sustainable harvest quotas’ is not my term. It’s used by many wildlife agencies to describe the number of animals that can be safely removed from a population within a given area, leaving only the amount that the habitat can support.
Your description of trophy hunting deer is flawed . It takes 5 or more years for a whitetail buck to reach it’s trophy potential. Even if that buck did not breed the first year it still had at least 3 years to pass on it’s genes. What most people don’t realize is that hunters who manage land for trophy bucks do more for wildlife conservation than the average ‘anti’ ever does. In creating cover, food and water for the deer they are also supporting birds, foxes, raccoons, and in some cases….wolverines.
If you read the article that accompanied the picture you would know that the California Department of Fish and Game was partially responsible for this study. Hunting and fishing license fees help support this agency so without hunters you may have never seen the picture of the wolverine in the first place.
Good points, well made, all.
Nevertheless.
amen Artist!!!. Your words ring truer than chris/claudia and the rest of the “sportsmen” hunters will EVER admit. I have chosen not to respond to further rants from chris/claudia or similar posts so as not to further a vicious circle of rationalizations and lack of knowledge accusations. Great post.
Now let’s hear from the canned hunters on the danger they face.
Huntress:
Would you like to explain to us “antis” how you provide food, cover, and water for the deer?
To entice animals to their slaughter?
Whats the matter, it isn’t “sporting” enough to simply hunt them on their terms?
Please, do tell us how you feed the masses of deer with your enduring generosity. Oh let me guess, by slaughtering (oops hunting) as many animals as your urge propels you to, you are generating additional food for those you don’t kill.
Gee that is mighty swell of you.
You have me convinced, I’m pro hunter now.
Samson77
I would be happy to explain it to you.
Many years ago I found a large piece of property for sale. Some of it was being farmed and the rest of it was hills and ravines with standing timber. When I inquired about it I found out that the farmer (who was renting the land) wanted to buy it and clear cut the timber. Long story short I purchased it, continued to rent out the farmable land and hired a forester to make recommendations. In our first meeting I told him that I wanted to create the most diverse habitat that I could out of this property. I have followed his plan to do some select cutting to open some areas for new undergrowth, planted thousands of trees and shrubs for food and cover, dug a pond and turned some of the farmland into permanent food plots with deer, bear and turkeys in mind. Many dead trees have been left standing for woodpeckers and as homes for various small mammals. I am not rich but I have spent thousands of dollars to make this property attractive to ALL wildlife. One neighbor claims to have seen a wolverine near there, another has twice (last summer) seen a mountain lion and two of the best Bigfoot reports in this state were within a few miles of this property….I too hope to see one of these cryptids in the future and hope they will make this land their home.
I am not the exception to the rule either. Many hunters who own land do the same thing. One acre or a thousand, they manage for diversity. Even hunters who do not own property contribute to wildlife habitat as there is a tax on hunting equipment for just that (see the Pittman-Robertson Act). Money from hunting licenses help support the various wildlife agencies who in turn do research like the study that captured the wolverine on the game camera. And speaking of game cameras, it was only a few years ago that these cameras cost hundreds of dollars. The fact that hunters purchased thousands to use them to view deer has brought the price down to where almost anyone can afford one now. Many hunters also contribute to organizations such as Whitetails Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, etc. These organizations have a large hand in preserving habitat of all kinds from wetlands to desert.
I don’t know where you developed your aversion to hunters but there is good and bad in every ‘group’ of people. Just because I fill my freezer with game meat doesn’t make me any more of a monster than the guy/gal who shops for meat at the grocery store. Unless you are a true vegetarian (don’t consume flesh of ANY KIND, do not wear leather shoes/belt , etc.) you are getting someone else to kill for you and that makes you a hypocrite.
huntress:
If you eat, and don’t harvest it yourself, you are getting someone else to kill for you.
The “anti” sentiment as regards hunting tends to the ignorant and naive; and this is coming from a nonhunter.
Whatever you eat, and however, seems you paid for in spades.
Back to wolverines; but thanks for helping them out.
DWA
Thank YOU for understanding!
It may be that some are ignorant and naïve but I think the clash here also comes from lack of tolerance toward other’s lifestyles. You don’t have to understand it in order to be tolerant of it. If someone chooses to be a vegetarian or buy meat from the store that’s fine with me even though I may not understand why they want to live that way. I only wish that that others would be as tolerant as you….then maybe we could ALL concentrate on preserving habitat for all the creatures on this planet.
huntress:
for my money the chief cause of intolerance is ignorance.
Here’s to fixing it.
Huntress:
Why must you sink to insults and name calling?
Because you hunt and kill does that mean you are “not ignorant”
and “not naive”? You seem very defensive towards anyone who does not hold the same values as yourself. Before accusing anyone else of being non-tolerant maybe you should examine yourself. Have a nice day.
BTW huntress and dwa, what I am 100% NOT TOLERANT of is killing for sport. This does not make me or anyone else who is against killing for sport ignorant, naive, or otherwise ill-informed.
DWA: your “brag” speaks volumes of your perceived power over the lesser animals of this earth.
samson77:
And your posts speak volumes of how wonderful you are, and how awful anyone is who disagrees with you.
It must be a GREAT feeling to have. 🙂
Although I’m glad wolverines aren’t like that.
Power, dude, is what it is. (YOU used “lesser,” not me, guy. Hint: they AIN’T lesser.)
Samson77
If you truly do not see the hypocrisy in your statements then I apologize. But please answer my question now. Who does your killing for you?
DWA
I am beginning to see things your way…..Cheers.
Loren
Thank you for indulging this exchange.
The great thing about the country we live in is freedom of speech and ideas. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you go back and read the 1st post of this thread, I never attacked hunters in general. I made a comment regarding the idiots who thrill hunt.
chris/claudia took it upon theirselves to stand up for the hunters of the world. The self proclaimed hunters in this thread have shown bitterness and spite for anyone whose ideals differ from theirs. I never said I disagree with your rights. Again, I said thrill/sport hunting is a personal choice with defintive personality traits shared by many who do it. My choice is I am against it, nothing more nothing less. You (DWA and huntress) seem determined to show the non-hunters of the world the error of their ways. Its my choice not to hunt, just as it is your choice to hunt as you wish. Despite our differences, we share a common interest or we would not be here. Peace to you and have a great day.
it’s good to see they’re coming back. quick post on the little discussion going on currently:
i am against hunting for sport. (although personally, i’d prefer to see all meat consumption come to an end, but that will never happen) i also dislike trapping for fur or pest control (beavers being a prime candidate) unless several relocate attempts have been made and the animal just keeps coming back. there are idiots and ill-informed in both the hunter and environment groups, i wish people could just see both sides of an issue instead of just instantly claiming the other to be wrong. so ends my little rant, thank you.