Bringing Wolverines Back to the Rocky Mountains

A wolverine restoration bill has been massively approved by lawmakers in Colorado, the United States. The bill would reinstate the extremely solitary member of the weasel family in the Rocky Mountains, its preferred habitat, as it thrives in high altitudes.

“We could be restoring a population in somewhat of a climate change refugium,” explains Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s David Klute. “Colorado’s High Country is expected to weather climate change as good or possibly better than Wolverine habitat provided by lower elevations and other parts of the range further north.”

The North American wolverine was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act late last year, as there are between 300 and 400 specimens in mainland America. Colorado could eventually host up to 180 wolverines in high-altitude areas from Rocky Mountain National Park to Steamboat Springs in the north and Alamosa to Durango in the south. Up to 45 wolverines will be released over three years, not before going through an acclimation retreat to ease into their new surroundings. No date has been announced since much remains to be done in preparation for the species’ restoration.