2-20 SS Wolverines 2

 Last week I reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service named the North American wolverine as a threatened species because climate change was melting the snow at high elevations. It bugged me all week trying to figure out why so I called Fish and Wildlife biologist Shawn Sartorius back and asked for an explanation: “ it looks like climate warming is likely to reduce the area of habitat that they have and consequently reduce populations. (What is it that cold temperatures bring to the table that keeps them viable as a species?) We don’t know that cold temperatures in and of themselves are important. It may be that they are physiologically in need of cold temperatures, a lot of people have suggested that’s the case but we don’t know that for sure. It may also be related to the fact that they can eke out an existence in some of the most inhospitable places and nothing else that could potentially compete with them can do that. They have made a little niche for themselves in a habitat that they can escape from any kind of competition.  if they tried to move out of that they would be at a competitive disadvantage with other species. (Does that mean like wolves, coyotes and such?) yes. Nothing like that can live year round where they live. As soon as you move below that elevation band that they live in, you start to get into competing species such as wolves, coyotes, foxes, lynx, bobcats etc.