- DETROIT - A biologist has
confirmed the sighting of a real Michigan wolverine, about 200 years after
the species was last seen in the state that uses the small but ferocious
animal as its unofficial nickname.
- Coyote hunters spotted a wolverine near Ubly, about 90
miles north of Detroit. Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife
biologist Arnie Karr saw the forest predator Tuesday and snapped pictures
of the animal as it ran out of the woods and across a field.
The wolverine, a member of the weasel family that grows to about 25 pounds
but is ferocious enough to fight off bears and wolves, once ranged across
the northern and western United States. It is now limited mostly to northern
Canada, Idaho and Alaska, with sightings in a few other states, but its
last confirmed sightings in Michigan were by fur traders in the late 1700s
and early 1800s.
The appearance is "up there with having a caribou or a polar bear
turn up," Department of Natural Resources spokesman Brad Wurfel said
Wednesday. "It's unprecedented."
How the scrappy animal returned and even whether it ever really left are
mysteries in the state, where the best-known Wolverines are athletes at
the University of Michigan.
Raymond Rustem, supervisor of the natural heritage unit in the department's
wildlife division, said the wolverine could have traveled to the state,
been released or escaped from captivity.
"What it means, who knows?" Rustem said. "When you take
a look at the wolverine, there's always been this debate about whether
wolverines ever were a part of Michigan's recent past. Some evidence shows
that, some says no."
The wolverine was on Michigan's endangered species list until the late
1990s, when it was removed because it wasn't expected to return, Rustem
said. Conservationists asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to put
the animal on its endangered list in 2000, but the agency in October declined
to study whether the species should be added.
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