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Spring, 2006 ✦ ✦ ✦ It had now been a full year since Jeff and his buddies had captured their ‹rst photos of the wolverine. But while Jeff’s passion for wolverine watching had blossomed over the months into a full-blown obsession, Jason and Steve found their enthusiasm on the wane. On March 29, Jason sent an e-mail to Jeff that marked the slow beginning of the other partners pulling away. I think we need to get on a two-week schedule for checking cameras. Working six days and trying to get things done around the house is getting to be too much. With Melissa going to school next year, I need to get all my [deer] scouting and stands placed this year because next year I can’t afford to be running all the time. It looks like this will be my last hunting season for two years ’til Melissa is all done. She is going to be working and going to school so I am going to have to be doing everything I can to make sure she gets enough study time. Starting next year she will be working every weekend for the year . . . Saturday I will bring the turkey and the camera. That will put my pack at about 30 pounds. It’s up to you if you want to bring some big pieces of venison. Also after the Elkton presentation, I don’t want to do any more. It just takes too much time and I don’t get much time at home. Jordan and Morgan start baseball in a couple of weeks. Jeff wasn’t surprised. He’d known all along that his interest in the wolverine had bordered on mania—and if he didn’t, his wife and family had no trouble pointing it out. How many times had he canceled on family get-togethers because he “had to go out to the swamp for research”? His wife Amy knew the whole litany by heart. He had to collect the hair samples before the 133 DNA deteriorated and became unusable. If he didn’t check the camera batteries, he might miss that one moment he’d been hoping to capture on ‹lm. He had to restock the bait supply or risk losing the wolverine’s interest. It didn’t matter if these were excuses or a valid rationale; the end result was the same. Weekend after weekend, she was left to fend for herself with the kids. Even Jeff’s parents were starting to get concerned. They gently suggested that maybe his obsessive level of research should be “toned down a bit.” Jeff’s reaction was angry and de‹ant. So he was supposed to just walk away? Give it all up after all this expense and time? The rarest mammal in North America walking around the Thumb, practically in his own backyard, and he should just quit? To hell with that. To hell with everyone. Then his dad took a different approach. Didn’t Jeff realize his camera baiting might be fostering in the wolverine a dependence on humans for a steady food supply? That could reduce its natural instinct to avoid the scent and presence of humans and even encourage it to seek out human habitations as a source of food. Jeff should consider that he might ultimately end up being the indirect cause of the wolverine’s death. The words hit him like a ‹st in the gut, going deeper than any of Amy’s quiet complaints ever could. There was no one on earth Jeff respected more than his father. As a teen fresh out of high school, Jac Ford had started out sweeping ›oors at General Motors’ Saginaw Steering Gear. Despite his lack of a college education, he stubbornly worked his way up through the ranks to become superintendent of quality control at two of the plants, with thousands of employees under him. Two years before retiring, he enrolled in college classes at Central Michigan University, earning a degree in business management for no other reason than the simple personal challenge and satisfaction of earning it. In the years following his wife’s tragic death, Jac Ford had remained ‹ercely devoted to raising his two children even while working long hours. He’d taught Jeff and his stepbrothers everything he knew about hunting and ‹shing, instilling in them a love and passion for the outdoors as only a father can. 134 ✦ The Lone Wolverine [18.224.44.108] Project MUSE...

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