Wolverines and wilderness: a review of wolverine response to human disturbance

Wolverines ( Gulo gulo) are associated with wilderness areas with minimal human-caused habitat degradation and mortality. However, their future is uncertain, as an increasing portion of their range that was de facto wilderness now overlaps with industrial development, recreation, and fur harvest. We reviewed the North American wolverine literature, with insights from Fennoscandia, to determine the relative effects of nonlethal and lethal human disturbances on wolverines and whether populations in nonwilderness habitats can be viable. Wolverines occupy home ranges that partly or completely overlap areas with industrial development and recreation. There are positive nonlethal effects, including wolverine use of industrial infrastructure for cover, movement, reproductive den sites, or forage. Nonetheless, much of the evidence suggests that wolverines do not use areas with nonlethal human disturbance, with occlusion stronger as the magnitude of human activity increases. Nonlethal disturbances also might have negative effects on reproduction and increase competition. There appears to be an association between population decline and nonlethal human disturbance, although it can be difficult to disentangle from lethal human disturbances that often occur coincidentally. In landscapes with human disturbances, most deaths are associated with fur harvest facilitated by road access, while vehicle collision, nuisance control, and predation occur to a lesser extent. We found a relatively clear link between population decline and lethal human disturbances at local and intermediate scales, particularly in fragmented habitats in the southern mountains, although we are uncertain how this relationship translates to broader scales. We suggest the viability of wolverines in nonwilderness habitats will vary based on the type and magnitude of human disturbance, with populations potentially capable of overlapping with low-intensity nonlethal human disturbances if mortality is controlled. Wolverine conservation should focus on the creation of refugia, but we propose numerous methods to achieve this outside of creating protected areas that include land-use planning, caribou habitat management, reduced incidental harvest, and management of industrial attractants. Lastly, our review highlights the need for monitoring and enhanced research aligned with the knowledge gaps in wolverine ecology that we identified.

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