This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Wildlife researchers have found that both recreation and roads affect wolverine populations in Canada's Rocky Mountains and Columbia Mountains. It's believed to be the first time a study has shown, at a landscape scale, that recreation is linked to lower population density in a carnivore.
Mirjam Barrueto as part of her Ph.D. research at UCalgary, was published Sept. 29 in Biological Conservation. Co-authors include her supervisor, Dr. Marco Musiani, Ph.D., an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Science, as well as scientists from Parks Canada, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and Montana State University.
"We wanted to figure out how the population is doing and what kind of impacts there are," Barrueto says in an interview. "We found that there were very few wolverines in the Upper Columbia region" in southeastern British Columbia. The paper, which covers one of the largest areas examined for wolverines, shows that there are fewer than 300 wolverines across 81,800 square kilometers (31,600 square miles) in western Alberta and eastern British Columbia.
Barrueto says the population could be about 30% higher without current recreation and road levels. "I was a bit surprised by the impact of recreation, to be honest," she says. "Unsurprisingly, we found that road density is the other main predictor of population density—and also for females.
Road density was also a finding in previous studies." Recreation data, she notes, are based on publicly available heat maps from recreational apps. The data represent backcountry skiing, including heliskiing and cat skiing, cross-country skiing, and hiking in both winter and summer. Barrueto says the data don't include snowmobiling, but notes that the activity is likely captured in the road density data.
"Both human disturbances affected wolverine density," Barrueto explains. "In areas with more disturbances, either road density or recreation, there were fewer individuals than in areas with less. "That's on a population scale.
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