Wolverine Update
....Scientists: Tahoe Wolverine not from state of California.
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The mysterious wolverine captured in photographs from a remote camera in the Tahoe National Forest is not a native of California or Washington, U.S. Forest Service scientists revealed Wednesday.
A DNA analysis of scat collected near where the feisty predator was photographed last month revealed that the animal is a male that shares genetic traits with wolverines in the Rocky Mountains, but it was not clear exactly where it came from or how it got to California.
"This is just one gene we've looked at and this one is most prevalent in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, but it can also be found in lower portions of Canada and Alaska," said Michael Schwartz, a research ecologist and the genetics team leader for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Mont.
"While we can't rule everything out, we know that this type never occurred in the historical California population and it does not occur in the contemporary Washington cascade population," he said.
Cameras set up in the forest north of Truckee last month twice captured images of the wolverine, which some speculated could have descended from the historic population that once roamed the Southern Sierra Nevada.
The last documented California wolverine was killed off around 1922. Despite several reported sightings over the years, many believe the California wolverine is extinct.
The new findings do not shed much light on where the wolverine that was photographed came from or how it ended up in Tahoe. The nearest known resident population is about 600 miles northeast in Idaho's Sawtooth Range.
"I don't think I want to speculate at this point," Schwartz said.
Wolverines have been known to travel great distances, but the farthest any particular animal has been documented going is 235 miles, Schwartz said.
The other possibility, Schwartz said, is that the wolverine was a pet or captive that was released into the Tahoe National Forest.
The ability to rule out a connection to California wolverines was possible only because research station scientists last year extracted DNA from skulls of California wolverines.
Seven specimens were available from the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley. They had been collected between 1891 and 1922 in Fresno, Tulare and Mono counties and from Yosemite National Park. Analysis done at the Wildlife Genetics Laboratory in Missoula found that the California wolverines all had the same genetic makeup unique to California, Schwartz said.
"It's just so cool to be able to go back to a skull collected by naturalists at the turn of the (last) century and extract DNA," Schwartz said. "We're still doing research, looking at other parts of the genetic code to narrow down the exact origin."
Online resource
For more information about the Wildlife Genetics Laboratory:
links.sfgate.com/ZCXE
E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them- these are the best guides for man. A.E.
How neat
Originally Posted by Betty Hiner
Univ. of Michigan playing basketball in Calif this weekend?
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