Thanks for the story, I could imagine it as a movie in my head as I read it. Great story about a great beast .
Makes me wonder what we don't know about fishers down here. Makes me think we don't know much about animals as we think we might. I guess that is why they are fascinating.

Dale when they did DNA analysis researchers found fisher are more closely related to wolverine than marten. I saw a picture yesterday at a trapper's of a fisher he caught inside a 330, and it's head filled the trap. A real monster

Bush... when you get down there again look up Dan at the Rio Colorado Lodge up in the northwest corner. Terrific tarpon fishing and a nice homey place. There are a few others of varying comfort up there as well. I have been taking groups there for 20 plus years, top shelf tarpon fishing. Kicker is the best is later september.
Thanks for all the interesting posts.
Osky
PS don't be wandering around up there at night, too many coral snakes.

Great info on the wolverines. I'm not sure where we get the notion that everything in nature has to be cut and dried so to speak. I think if a wolverine was pregnant and the time came while crossing a road sh'ed have them there in the ditch and try to raise them. Any animal would.
Again great reads and pictures, thank you.
Osky

This thread is inspiring, even though I am not a scientist, I would love to keep tabs on a few fisher and study and learn what the do and where they go. I know of a few fisher to start watching and set trail cameras for.
They like to hang out a some of my unoccupied marten boxes during the summer.

I think I will change this one out to a fisher den box. A fisher spends a lot of time there but can't get in.

Thanks for the insights to your work, very interesting stuff there. I have a ton more questions but will wait to read your articles.

Made a quick trip out to resupply the cameraman. Glad I brought the Argo, it's a real beast. Lots of snow in most places, but some areas the snow was burnt right off and I ended up crossing a lot of open water and had to winch up one icy hill. Getting some good film footage though.

Some info from the conclusion of last years season:


We live-trapped 24 wolverines from late-November through mid-April.  Traps were open 108 days, or 579 trap nights.  We averaged 24 traps nights/new wolverine capture.  We caught 13 males with an average weight of 13.62 (range is 12-15.5 kg) and 11 females with an average weight of 9.7 (range is 8.5-13 kg).  Seven of the females were lactating and we were able to find one den with two kits.  Currently, 18 of the wolverines are wearing radiocollars that will be collecting GPS data through the summer.  As of mid-April, we were able to collect 425 days of GPS data at two-hour fix rates.
• Males have home ranges that span from 400 - 1200 km2 while females have home ranges from 200 - 500 km2.   Plotted GPS data shows wolverines regularly crossing busy high-grade industrial roads as well as the numerous winters roads and pipelines that comprise the Rainbow Lake landscape. The vast majority of wolverine movements were less than 1 km over a two-hour period (n = 1,782).  These movements are likely of wolverines that are at carcasses or are resting.  The greatest movement distance over a two-hour period was by M6 (14.35 km).        
• We visited wolverine GPS clusters, or GPS points from a wolverine that are within close proximity of each other (generally 20-30 points < 200 m apart), and found wolverines feeding on the carcasses of black bears, moose and caribou (Table 4).  We also found evidence of wolverines hunting grouse, beaver, and snowshoe hare.  We found many sites that appeared to be resting areas for wolverines, where the animals would create latrines, caches, and dens through a system of tunnels and holes under down trees.  The wolverines would use these areas for weeks at a time, likely hunting for grouse and snowshoe hare in the area.  We collected scat from backtracking efforts and will analyze these data in the coming months to better understand wolverine food habits.          
• We also monitored vehicle traffic on over 100 high-grade industrial roads and winters roads in the Rainbow Lake area.  Although we haven't yet summarized these data, initial inspection of these data indicate wolverines are crossing high-grade industrial roads with greater than 100 vehicles/day on a regular basis.

Interesting info Brian ! I have a couple of questions. First how long do you plan to continue this project? Another question is do you think that heavy industry has changed or effects travel patterns in any way? I would think your higher game density down there would enable wolverines to travel less maybe?? I have never believed in "home ranges, or territories" for any of the weasel family, or bears for that matter...they go where the food is most abundant in my experience. We had a real strange year up here. Up in the high country along the NWT border where the wolverine population has always been high, there were virtually none. I know a few trappers up there who put on lots of miles all winter and saw very little sign. Down in the bush country where I was however we were overrun with them! I have never seen anything like it in 30-years of trapping. I ended up taking 6, all males.... 4 of them were big males! Did this on 20-miles of trail. Could have taken a lot more but decided to pull my traps as I didnt understand what was going on. Be intersting to see what next year brings. Just before I left last week we ran into another big male on the trail, and got home to find out my son had seen some too. In bush country it is very rare to actually see them!

This is really interesting, Bushman. The story of Brutus is captivating. Long live Brutus!

Dave - the University is wrapping up their research in April. Low ungulate populations around rainbow. Four seasons of data now and Matt has to now write it up and do his thesis. But the ATA and ACA are continuing on. We have wolverine collared in Birch Mountains, located SE of wood buffalo park. It appears that gulo will tolerate some infrastructure , and Rainbow has a lot, but not heavy traffic. When new logging went into the area and trucks hauled during the night and ran over several wolverine . I actually believe weasel families do maintain territories for the most part, and certainly the breeding wolverines. But why wouldn't they migrate out in search of food if conditions warranted it? Glad u liked it 52

It will be interesting to see what the DNA studies show as far as relationships go.

Looks like the argo is treating you good, about the only machine that can run in any weather.
How many wolverine have been collared in the birch mountain area?

Oh ya, i see you made your passenger get out and walk the edge of the ice to get a picture of you, smart man..

Tundra- As of a week ago they had two wolverine collared in Birch. One female and one male Tougher country

Iqaluk is aptly named. It can be used as a noun, meaning "fish". Or as an intransitive verb, "to catch a fish". So one can say, "Iqaluk iqaluktuq." (Iqaluk caught a fish. or Iqaluk is catching a fish.) Most Inuit get their names based on their character, so if one's rambunctious and gets into everything, they may be named pamiuqtuuq (river otter). Perhaps this isn't the first time Iqaluk and water have met!

For falling in water accidently the old folks use the word "chaqamaq" the a has the "uh" sound. It seems every year I get the chaqamaq award. I too went into the water 2 springs in a row now. Last year a friend from a nearby village was in town for some meetings and wanted to run upriver to hunt birds and look for eggs, as the river had just broken open that day. It's a big deal to get up there first and try to find the season's first seagull eggs and bless elders. Your name will travel all around town and facebook if you do. So, I quickly changed the gear-lube in my 40 horse and launched my 18 foot Lowe boat in the brown, fast moving current with ice chunks and logs floating by crushing everything. I didn't care so much about the eggs, I wanted wood! I had just bought this new 16" easy start Stihl and wanted to try it out.

Sure enough, as we launched, other hunter gatherers were watching and scurrying to get their boats in the water too. I said to my friend, "Yoi, we're the first ones in this year!" Was nice to feel water underneath you, the current pulling you here and there and maneuvering a boat through obstacles. The smell of fresh water, the feel of the breeze, the sight of waves after 8 long months of ice.

10 miles later we entered the mouth of the Noatak River. No eggs, but we did find a lot of good logs. Man, that new Stihl went right to work slicing through straight-grained, dry spruce no problem. I think I got wood just to use my chainsaw more than to get wood. Next thing I know I started getting greedy. Was about 1 AM and I walked on this ice chunk about 20 yards in diameter. There was good wood on the ice and some along the edges. I got the wood on the ice and there was one really good log just along the edge. The ice was grayish in color so I though if I really reach, I may be able to grab a branch and pull it up. Next thing I know I'm in the water. Immediately I threw my $310 chainsaw on the ice. My hip boots filled quickly and the current began taking my legs under the ice. I tried pulling myself up but the ice kept giving way. My partner got out of the boat and went to save me but somehow I got up. Didn't care about getting wet. Just worried about my 'saw.

The spring before another friend of mine and his young son and I tipped over in a 10 foot Smoker Craft but that's another story.

Update on Birch Mountains. they got collars on two more today, a male and female. So 4 with collars now, one a 3-legged female.

It will be interesting to see how their travel patterns differ in summer vs winter.

They caught another female this morning. That's 3 caught in last 24 hours. She was lactating. Yukon- last summer collar data showed a lot of movement along water courses. Clusters at beaver complexes where they stashed beaver in peat meadows. Very cool

Is this up on Neils line Brian?

Last year I had a wolverine steal a lynx I followed his tracks through the bush for about a mile, he went straight for a muskeg area where he dug a hole quite deep and stashed my lynx, after he buried it he urinated on the pile and several other spots around the hole.