Wolverine Density and Abundance in the Chase Caribou Range
This project will use non-invasive genetic sampling to estimate wolverine density and abundance within Tsay Keh Dene Nation Territory, with a focus on the Chase caribou herd range, west of the Williston Reservoir. This project builds on the outcomes of a Seed Grant project.
Climate change, trapping, and habitat disturbance correlate to declines in wolverine populations and their prey. The last abundance and distribution study of this Species of Special Concern, which is also of cultural significance to the Tsay Keh Dene Nation, was completed in 2001.
Update: 38 wolverine monitoring stations
The project team was busy in year one of this project to estimate wolverine population density in the Tsay Keh Dene Nation Territory. Thirty-eight monitoring stations with a hair snag and camera were established within the Chase caribou herd range.
Wolverines, a species of cultural concern for the Nation, were detected at 76% (29) of the 38 monitoring stations. One hundred and forty-four hair snags were collected for genetic analysis scheduled for completion in fall 2025.
The team is reviewing the photos and looking closely at chest fur colour and patterns to help identify individuals.
Executive Summary
In this project, non-invasive genetic sampling and wildlife camera traps were used to document wolverine distribution and abundance within the Chase caribou herd range. Specifically, the objectives of this work are to: 1) understand how populations of wolverine have changed in Tsay Keh Dene Nation Core Territory over the past two decades; 2) understand habitat occupancy and density in relation to landscape features and disturbance; 3) gather more knowledge on the reproductive status of females and better understand the ranges over which female wolverines move during winter; 4) develop recommendations for population and habitat stewardship actions. In Year 1, we deployed hair snag and wildlife camera monitoring stations throughout 12-km2 grid cells between 6 January and 11 April, 2025, collecting data over three sampling periods (early January to early February, early February to early March, and early March to early April). We deployed 38 monitoring stations and detected wolverines at 76% of them, with an overall naïve detection rate of 0.38 wolverine detections/10 camera-days across all study sites. We are currently reviewing all images of wolverines to visually differentiate individuals based on their chest fur colour pattern to determine how many different individual wolverines visited the sampling stations. As well, we collected 144 hair samples that are being prioritized by quality and sent for genetic analysis to determine species, individual identity, and sex of wolverines at each monitoring station. The results of the individual identification will be included in the
Year 2 report for this project.