The Lone Wolverine: Tracking Michigan's Most Elusive Animal

Summer, 2006

Summer, 2006 ✦ ✦ ✦ In May 2006, the Human Genome Project announced completion of the ‹nal chromosome sequence in its 17-year initiative to map the genes of human DNA, marking it as one of the largest single investigative endeavors in modern science in terms of time, success, and scope. It was the summer in which the solar system “lost” its ninth planet when the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to the status of dwarf planet. It was also the year in which North Korea conducted its ‹rst nuclear test. But out in the swamp of the Minden City State Game Area, it was none of those things. It was, quite simply, the summer of the Raccoon War. That spring Jeff and his crew had ‹nally managed to solve the frustrating problem of the wolverine making off too quickly with their bait by double strapping the chunks of carcass several feet off the ground between two trees. The innovation was paying off with extended footage of her efforts to solve the novel challenges. One video showed her tugging hard on a 10 × 6 inch hunk of deer rib cage, diligently ‹ghting to free it from its perch four feet off the ground. Unfortunately, it also made it more dif‹cult for her to protect her food source from other scavengers. For quite some time, the men had suspected the wolverine was removing the meat from the bait site to cache it elsewhere in the swamp. Elsewhere, wolverines had been observed using rocky crevices and large deadfalls of trees to store their food caches, but those would have been easy targets for industrious raccoons. Audrey’s best guess was that she was hiding the meat under water in the bog itself, where the odor would be masked. It was a technique researchers had observed in Scan157 dinavian wolverines and made logical sense in Minden, with its similar boggy habitat. But now the bait was staying in situ for longer periods of time, and the raccoons were having a heyday. The trail cameras became the Raccoon News, chronicling their antics. They were like piranha all over the research site, sometimes removing all the bait before the wolverine even got there. Jeff was getting tired of hauling in heavy loads of food only to have the raccoons steal it away. He even found himself getting annoyed with the wolverine. Why wasn’t she taking care of the situation herself? He tried to puzzle out the tantalizing bits and pieces recorded by the cameras. One segment appeared to show a raccoon running the wolverine off, then the wolverine returning two minutes later with the raccoon nowhere in sight. Three minutes after that, the tape showed the wolverine carrying the carcass away. The next recording was of a raccoon standing on its back legs, staring intently off in the direction in which the Gulo had disappeared. It also seemed the wolverine had switched from nocturnal to daytime visits to the site—initially visiting in the mid- to late afternoon, usually from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., but then showing up at all hours of the day and night. What did it all mean? Audrey’s best guess was that since she could no longer easily remove the food to cache it in a more secure location, she’d taken to staying nearby to defend the site from the other scavengers. But they could ‹nd no evidence of daybeds: with the spring melt over, there was no snow in which to check for telltale hollows where she might be bedding down. They decided to purchase a new voice-activated audio system, which might provide more clues into the interactions. The payoff came one night in July, when suddenly the wolverine shot in a blur across the screen from right to left to come down hard directly on top of a raccoon. She brought the claws of her right paw down on the trapped raccoon, letting out a roar unlike anything Jeff had ever heard. He was roaring, too, as he watched it, cheering as if his team had just scored the winning touchdown. Finally she was letting the raccoons know who was boss in the Minden swamp! Then everything changed almost overnight. At one point the bait 158 ✦ The Lone Wolverine remained wedged between the trees for two and a half days without a single raccoon entering the site. It was only after the...