Rare California wolverine sighting creates a stir

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Wildlife biologists nationwide were agog when a rare wolverine was photographed Feb. 28 in Tahoe National Forest. After all, wolverines were last spotted in California in 1922. Today the nearest known population of the furry carnivores lives 600 miles from Tahoe in the Sawtooth Range of Idaho.

So the wolverine image captured on graduate student Katie Moriarty’s remote camera created a whirlwind of speculation.

Could a secret colony of California wolverines have survived all these years deep in the Sierra Nevada, eluding generations of scientists who scoured the state in search of the bushy-tailed member of the weasel family?

Now, U.S. Forest Service geneticists have splashed some cold water on the wolverines-in-hiding theory.

Using DNA analysis, the researchers compared wolverine scat samples from Tahoe to genetic samples of the historic California wolverines gleaned from museum pieces, fur pelts and scientific specimens.

Preliminary results suggest the male wolverine found at Tahoe does not appear to be a descendant of the last known branch of the southern Sierra Nevada wolverine family, the Forest Service announced last week. Nor does it appear to be related to wolverines in the Northern Cascades.

Rather, wolverine scat samples collected at Tahoe contain material that appears to be a genetic type found in wolverine populations in the Rocky Mountains, Alaska and Canada, researchers said.

So did the lonely male wolverine hitchhike to Tahoe in a camper trailer or hike on its own from the Rockies?

Research is continuing, Forest Service officials say.

Some rejoicing Sierra residents don’t care where the wolverine came from.

‘Oh my goodness! That is so exciting,’ Truckee High School teacher Susan Lowder told the Sacramento Bee. ‘So when are the grizzlies coming back? And the wolves?’

-- Deborah Schoch