First Lady of the Wild Gone

Sanilac County Wolverine Found Dead

A female wolverine living since 2004 in the “Thumb” of the Lower Peninsula died in mid-March.  Hikers found the carcass, which was fairly fresh, in the water along a trail by a beaver dam in the Minden City State Game Area.  The wolverine was likely about nine years old, “grandma” aged, according to Jeff Ford, one of three Deckerville-area citizens who studied and photographed the animal for almost six years.  

In February of 2004, many newspapers and magazines ran stories and photos of what DNRE officials called “the first live wolverine documented in the wolverine state.”  Hunters with hounds chased the animal near the border of Huron and Sanilac Counties.  They eventually called in a Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologist, Arnie Karr, who was taken by snowmobile to photograph the wolverine.  

There was (and still is) much speculation as to where the wolverine came from.  Some DNRE officials thought it must be an escaped or released pet, other DNRE staff said it likely came from the James Bay Region of Canada, eventually crossing Lake Huron on ice.  One outrageous notion was that it rode in from Canada on a garbage truck.  (Michigan landfills accept trash from Canada— especially in Michigan’s Thumb area.)  But all wildlife officials seemed to agree that the wolverine was of no real importance—coming from who knows where, and going to who knows where.  The implication was that the big member of the weasel family should not change the conventional wildlife wisdom—that “Michigan has no wolverines.”  No research on the wolverine was conducted by the DNRE in the six years it was confirmed in Michigan, even though the animal stayed mostly on state-managed land.  The DNRE’s Karr, speculated after the animal’s death that it likely was simply an exotic pet that was let loose years ago.  

Ford, a science teacher at Deckerville High School thinks the wolverine came in from Canada, but acknowledges some things just don’t add up.  “We know wolverines aren’t supposed to set up territories where there is no potential mate,” he said.  “So we think it must have become ‘land-locked,’ forced to stay where it is by the Great Lakes and developed, populated areas to the south.”  Ford, working with fellow citizen wildlife enthusiasts, Jason Rosser and Steve Noble, was still photographing the animal just before its death with trail cameras set up over baits.  Those photos along with tracks found over the years clearly indicate that the wolverine was a resident, not a transient animal.  It spent much of its time in very dense swamps.  “As best we can tell from the tracks we found, this wolverine had a home range of about 15 by 15 miles,” Ford said a few years ago.  

The three men spent a lot of time and effort monitoring the animal, which spent most of its days in the Minden State Game Area and periodically visited the Verona State Game Area.  They gradually obtained more information, and shared it with wolverine researchers in the northwestern U.S. and Canada.  The trio sent the experts hair samples from barbed wire wrapped around a tree where baits were hung.  Genetic analyses revealed that the animal’s DNA was consistent with that of wolverines in Ontario and Quebec.

The status of the wolverine in Michigan needs to be reconsidered.  The DNRE classifies the wolverine as “extirpated” (gone), contends there has been no evidence of the wolverine in Michigan, and states that the closest ones are at least 400 miles to the northeast near James Bay.  However, a wolverine was recently photographed in the Manitoulin Islands just a few dozen miles from the border of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and over the past 100 years many Michigan citizens have reported seeing wolverines.  The sightings have traditionally been treated like those of cougars—wildlife officials have scoffed, claiming the citizens must have seen bear cubs, raccoons, or badgers.  Yet, a wolverine was killed, near Portland in the Lansing area in 1932.  The incident was documented in a 1936 article by A.M. Stebler in “Michigan Conservation,” the official publication of the Michigan Department of Conservation (later to become the Michigan Department of Natural Resources).  

Stebler reported that biologist Harry Ruhl (later to become chief of the Wildlife Division of the Department) investigated the shooting and took the skull and one foot.  He subsequently gave the skull to the Zoology Department at Michigan State University for use in teaching.  The significance of the wolverine itself was blown off by the Department of Conservation which concluded “the animal likely escaped from a Detroit zoo five months previously.”  

 The Department of Zoology at MSU could not find the skull.  The Detroit Zoo (established in 1928) did have wolverines at that time.  However, according to the Registrar of the Detroit Zoological Institute, the Zoo kept very detailed records that indicate no wolverine ever escaped from the facility.  “The escaped animal story used to explain the wolverine shot in Portland was likely just made up by the Conservation Department,” says Larry Massie, one of Michigan’s foremost historians who has written about the incident.  “They no doubt felt they needed an explanation that would get rid of the matter.”  

History aside, the six-year occupation of the Thumb by the wolverine Ford, Rosser, and Noble had been studying shows that wolverines can live in Michigan and that the species does not necessarily require “huge expanses of wilderness” as many biologists have assumed.  The DNRE actually explored the idea of a reintroduction 25 years ago (although it’s unclear how seriously).  However, it’s unlikely to ever occur.  “The DNRE is adamant that it will not allow any wolverines to be brought into Michigan,” said Ford during a recent presentation in Saginaw.  “We asked the DNRE about a project to bring in a mate for the wolverine in the Thumb, but they said ‘no way.’”  

The public would know little about the animal if it wasn’t for Ford, Rosser, and Noble.  Now, the wolverine is as dead as the one killed in Portland 78 years ago.  It has been marked with the specter of being nothing more than a pet.  In a couple more decades, wildlife biologists may return to the mantra: “There’s never been evidence of a wild wolverine in Michigan.”  

The Michigan Wildlife Conservancy’s research on cougars and recent discoveries by citizens of nesting great gray owls, evening bats, lynx, wolves in the Lower Peninsula, and wolverines show we don’t know everything that’s found in this vast and habitat-rich state.  Systematic surveys aren’t among the priorities of modern wildlife management and record-keeping on rare wildlife over the past 100 years has been abysmal.  If we want to understand our natural heritage, we should keep both our eyes and minds open to evidence of species presumed extirpated—hopefully, that’s the lesson the old wolverine of the Thumb will leave with us.

Dr. Patrick Rusz
Director of Wildlife Programs

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