Wolverine to get Endangered Species Act protection

The Obama administration announced Friday that it wants to add the wolverine, a rare and solitary denizen of the Rocky Mountain region's highest and most remote mountains, to the list of threatened and endangered species.

The species is considered vulnerable to climate change-caused loss of its snowy habitat. Gulo gulo luscus depends on late spring snow cover for dens in which to raise young.

"Scientific evidence suggests that a warming climate will greatly reduce the wolverine’s snow-pack habitat," Noreen Walsh, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Mountain-Prairie Region director, said in a statement.

FWS proposed a listing as a threatened species. It did not suggest designation of any critical habitat for the wolverine. The agency will also prepare an Endangered Species Act regulation that would permit most extractive activities now occurring in wolverine range to continue.

"[FWS] does not consider most activities occurring within the high elevation habitat of the
wolverine, including snowmobiling and backcountry skiing, and land management activities like
timber harvesting and infrastructure development, to constitute significant threats to the wolverine," an agency press release said. "As a result, the Service is proposing a special rule under Section 4(d) of the ESA that, should the species be listed, would allow these types of activities to continue."

The 4(d) rule would allow the killing of protected wolverines as a result of activities other than hunting and trapping.

FWS also wants to re-establish a population of wolverines in Colorado. The agency's proposal to do that under the authority of section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act would be implemented by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

In the mainland United States wolverines are known to occur in Washington's North Cascades, portions of the Rocky Mountains in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and in Oregon's Wallowa Range. During recent years single wolverines have been detected in the Colorado Rockies and in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

FWS indicated in 2010 that the wolverine was eligible for ESA protection but said then that other priorities precluded listing the species.

The agency will accept comments on the proposed listing for 60 days.