[Hamilton Reef]

I hope they didn't accidently radio-collar a a lost hairy UofM fraterity jock's girlfriend.

History made in region
By Staff - The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal
December 16, 2003

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=19936

A ongoing project to study wolverines in Ontario has produced the first live-trapped and radio-collared wolverine in the province’s history.

The wolverine — a female, likely between one and two years old and weighing 21 pounds — was nabbed Sunday by the Living Legacy Trust Boreal Wolverine Project in a live trap between Ear Falls and Red Lake.

It was fitted with a tracking collar and released into the wild, and will provide invaluable information about rarely-encountered Ontario wolverines, project leader Audrey Magoun said from Red Lake yesterday.

“She has two kinds of transmitters on this collar,” Magoun said. “One of them beams up to a satellite. This is actually one of the first times one of these collars has ever been used on a wolverine. They’ve only developed satellite collars small enough for wolverines in the last couple of years.”

The collar is important because it’s unclear how far Ontario wolverines travel, for example, or even if they live in the province or just pass through. They reportedly have a range of up to 1,000 square miles.

“We were a little afraid if we get one collared with a standard transmitter that we’d rapidly lose touch with it,” Magoun said. “We’ll know now for sure whether she’s living here or not.”

The satellite collar will track for about four months, she said.

The collar also has a standard transmitter, which allows for tracking within about 10 km by project officials in the bush and carrying a transmitter. That will last for about a year, Magoun said.

Magoun said there are still five tracking collars available, so it’s hoped five more wolverines for the study will be found this winter.

Ontario wolverines are a special concern for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. That’s not necessarily because they’re endangered, but rather because so little is known about them that it’s unknown if they are endangered, Magoun said.

The animals are most often encountered farther north, in the Yukon, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, for example.

Wolverines have been collared in each of those places.

Magoun said nobody’s ever done a study on Ontario wolverines, but some dead samples have been brought in by trappers in the past.

However, Ontario has always had fewer dead wolverines turned in than provinces to the west, and it’s possible that Ontario is as far east as wolverines go, Magoun said.

 

[Nine Milly]

I wonder when and where the last one in Michigan was taken?

 

[Robert W. McCoy Jr]

But from what I have been told we are called the wolverine state because of the fur trade that went through our state.

The trappers would catch them up in canada then they all got shipped through michigan to other places.

So we got the name wolverine state because they all came through our state.

I think I am correct but maybe Trout or somebody else would know for sure..

 

[YPSIFLY]

I'm no expert but I seem to remember hearing that some wolverines lived in a part of the UP, but were wiped out.

I also read somewhere that we got the nickname from the Toledo War. During that time the wolverine was regarded as a vicious, un-sporting beast which is how folks in northern Ohio viewed residents of MI.

We got the UP when the whole ordeal was settled, so they can call us any name they want.

 

[MSUICEMAN]

through all the research i have done, it seems as if we have the nickname of the wolverine state because of the personalities of the first settlers that settles in Michigan. Also for a long time, no one would really come to Michigan because the only place that had been explored was the monroe county marshland. they believed that michigan was one big inhospitable swamp.

steve

 

[Sarge]

Its generally accepted that wolverines live mostly inside the actic circle. A few wander farther south but not very far.

 

[WAUB-MUKWA]

Originally posted by MSUICEMAN
through all the research i have done, it seems as if we have the nickname of the wolverine state because of the personalities of the first settlers that settles in Michigan. Also for a long time, no one would really come to Michigan because the only place that had been explored was the monroe county marshland. they believed that michigan was one big inhospitable swamp.

steve

I wish that was still true today, I know we are still a lot of swamp but sure would be nice if there were less people in the state. I blame Ford for the downfall.