I am going to be camping in the Northern Rockies and I was wondering what I should need to know should I come face to face with a Wolverine?
I have camped many times in Wolf country, I consider them a pleasure to camp with. Generally speaking there are few predators around when there is an active wolf pack hanging about or passing through. I also love hearing them howl at night in the woods, it’s full of mystery and a small amount of fright, even though I know they want nothing to do with me or my fire and generally stinky-human self. It’s my experience wolves don’t like the smell of humans.
Anyway, I digress, a wolverine: I remember Marty Stoufer in Wild America back in the 80’s not really liking these large weasels, and after reporting on their general habitat and feeding habits saying that people should stay away from them.
So I am wondering what specifically should I look out for if I find myself face to face with a wolverine? Will she charge? Does one stand still or move if they do? Are they as strong as say a pit-bull? Could I fend off without using my bear-spray?
Wolverines are especially dangerous to people from Ohio.
I saw a special of wolverines a few years ago. it said when a wolverine moves into a new territory, one of the first things it does is kick out the bears. That seems pretty scary.
I think you should somehow cut Wolverine exactly in half, vertically. Always wondered if his healing factor would then create TWO Wolverines. And then they get cut in half, and make two more, and so on…
People, please. The rule in GQ is that you wait until there’s at least one serious answer before you start joking around!
That said, I took a large predator class at Yellowstone Institute a couple of years ago, and we spent quite a bit of time on wolverines. First of all, what do you mean by “Northern Rockies”? If you’re using the standard terminology, that means Canada, and there are wolverines up there. If you’re referring to the northern U.S. part of the Rockies (i.e., Montana), then running into a wolverine is highly unlikely. The last population survey showed only four wolverines in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
The old stories of wolverines (a 40-pound wolverine is more vicious and dangerous than a 400-pound grizzly) were mostly exaggerated. They can be nasty little buggers, and I wouldn’t bother one while it was eating, but if one spotted you on a trail it would be much more likely to hide or lope off than to attack. If one were to actually attack you, bear spray would be a great solution.
Do not try hand-to-hand combat with a wolverine. Their jaws are among the most powerful in the animal kingdom, and their claws are long and sharp. Just get away from it or pepper-spray it.
There have been only a few recorded attacks by wolverines on humans and all resulted in serious, serious injury, but not death. Unless they’re going after food or you corner them they will generally give a human a wide berth though. As long as you follow all the food related precautions that you should be in bear country you should be fine. If you happen on the one and a million chance to be a human attacked by a wolverine you’re just screwed really. I have no idea what bear spray will do to a wolverine but since it doesn’t even work on bears for the most part I wouldn’t count on it.
Also, while wolverines have a reputation for scaring off bears that’s only really because bears don’t want to risk the bite. The only recorded fight between a wolverine and a black bear was in Yellowstone. They were fighting over a carcass and the bear killed the wolverine.
I’m going to call for a cite on that statement. I’ve read pretty extensively about bears, and talked to a lot of experts on the subject (I live near Yellowstone and I’m a nature writer). While it certainly isn’t 100% effective, the majority of the problems with bear spray seem to happen at the trigger end–people not understanding how to use it.
My first response was, “Make sure your medical insurance is paid up.” If you’re talking about the Canadian Rockies, we hear about bear encounters all the time, but in 20 years of living an hour away from the Rockies, I’ve never once heard about a wolverine encounter. I’d be a lot more worried about a cougar encounter - we hear about them fairly often, too.