On December 13th, 2010, the US Fish & Wildlife Service published a long-awaited report on the potential listing of the wolverine (Gulo gulo) under the Endangered Species Act.

Rare by nature, the 30lb (14kg) wolverine has achieved mythical status for its ability to kill moose hindered by deep snow and to drive wolves and grizzly bears from their kills. Scavenging and hunting, wolverines roam the high country where they depend on deep snowpack for denning. In fact, persistence of snowpack into late April is the greatest predictor of their occurrence, something that is measurably shifting due to climate change.

The USFWS report finds that protection under the Endangered Species Act is indeed warranted for the wolverine, but so great is the backlog of imperiled species, and so poor is the funding that protection for the wolverine must be deferred until the USFWS can deal properly with other priority species.

Although the report simultaneously acknowledges the imperiled status of the species and denies it protection, the report is at least significant in that it acknowledges that climate change impacts to habitat and connectivity are serious and reason to give rare and declining species like the wolverine federal protection.

Produced by Conservation Media for The Wolverine Foundation, this short film explores one of the most fascinating and least understood animals on the planet. This small, rare, and elusive creature may be able to kill a moose or fend a grizzly off a kill, but it faces serious threats such as climate change for which it is no match.

You can support scientific research by supporting The Wolverine Foundation. Go to www.WolverineFoundation.org to see how you can help.

We are pleased to announce that our short films have picked up two more Official Selections, and in the same festival no less! Open Space and Crossroads both made the cut at the Colorado Environmental Film Festival this year. We plan on attending, so we’ll see you there!

This is a short web film produced for Montana Audubon addressing the impact oil & gas development has on sage grouse, a species recently warranted by the USFWS as worthy of protection under the Endangered Species Act. This film includes interviews with David Sibley, Dave Naugle, and Amy Cilimburg.

You can view a small version of the film here for faster loading:

This is a demo from our most recent project, which is ever so close to being done. The larger film is about conservation of sagebrush habitat and its sage-dependent species. Things such as oil and gas development and residential development have been displacing sage-dependent species at rates simply incompatible with the maintenance of biodiversity. Keystone species like sage grouse have been so extensively pressured that they occupy only about 50% of their original range and are at about 50% density within that occupied range.

Environmental lawsuits brought by myriad organizations tend to make me uneasy, but I completely agree with the main contention of this lawsuit, which was that the impacts of climate change were not considered in the delisting and these impacts are SIGNIFICANT.  If you live in this area, as I do, you cannot deny the impacts.  The catastrophic collapse of the whitebark pine is something I’ve seen happen in just the last 8-10 years and is nothing short of stunning.  This particular tree is the hub of many ecological systems, and it will be reduced by over 90% in the next decade.  No doubt.  I’ve already seen ENTIRE mountain ranges collapse.  Unfortunately, without a return of those week-long cold plunges of -45F in January, the Yellowstone grizz will probably remain on the list indefinitely.  At least the protection takes the sting off of the food crash by affording more protections on the periphery.

Photo: Conservation Media

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/grizzly_bears_back_on_endangered_species_list/C559/L559/