​Our story begins in the early 2000’s, when biologists on the Mt Hood National Forest received a report of a wolverine on the mountain. The person who reported the sighting had no pictures to substantiate their claim, so the Forest Service called on Cascadia Wild (who lead tracking outings on the mountain for elementary school kids at the time) to see if they would be able to investigate. No evidence was ever found to support the sighting and it went down in history as another one of those mysteries. But the Wolverine Tracking Project was born. 

Since then, volunteers have gone every year to Mt Hood searching for tracks in the snow and monitoring trail cameras, searching for sign of wolverine returning to our area. The Wolverine Tracking Project produced a lot of good data - some of the earliest detections of gray wolves moving into the area and important information on the distribution of Sierra Nevada red fox - but no wolverine were seen.

Until two weeks ago.

​The morning of March 20, Tom Hunter was out fishing in his boat, as he often does. Done for the day, he headed back home, taking a route that skirts McGuire Island to check on the eagle nests he likes to keep tabs on. This day, however, he saw something unexpected. At first it looked like a young bear cub, so he went closer to investigate. Unmistakably, it was a wolverine! 

He fumbled around for his phone as the wolverine went up the bank away from the water, and Tom worried he might have frightened it away. But at the top of the bank, the wolverine turned and stood there, watching him in the same manner he watched it. After a few minutes, the wolverine went back to the beach and continued on its way, loping down the beach like it had a mission in mind. Tom managed to take a dozen or so pictures of the mysterious animal before it disappeared into the distance.

Tom had seen wolverine before as a kid in the Wallowas, so he recognized the animal and knew it was very rare. His first thought was for the safety of the animal, so he did not want to share the photos widely. He also knew, however, that a wolverine was a potentially dangerous animal especially to small pets, and that people would want to know. He and his wife Terri shared the pictures with a neighbor, who posted them to a private marina security Facebook group. 

Another neighbor, Kim Prothero, was on the phone that day with her daughter and browsing facebook, when she saw the wolverine photo. She stared at it, getting excited. Kim is an experienced community scientist and has been fascinated by wolverines ever since reading the amazing book The Wolverine Way, by Douglas Chadwick. The previous summer when looking for a new community science project to be involved with, she did an internet search for wolverine and found Cascadia Wild’s Fox Scat Surveys. The information she learned at the training about red fox and the project’s other target species, wolverine, stuck. 

“It looked like a wolverine,” she said, “but I also knew that wolverine were very rare and that couldn’t be!” She hung up the phone and called to her husband, and they both scoured internet pictures to see if there was any other animal they may have mistaken it with. But the conclusion was unmistakable. Kim immediately knew that this sighting was very important and contacted Cascadia Wild. 

Meanwhile, the wolverine continued its journey. 

Two days later, it was spotted again near Damascus. How it got through or around Gresham remains an impressive mystery! Three days later, it was spotted further south, near the town of Colton. The last sighting was on April 25th, over a week ago, so it seems safe to assume the wolverine has left has left the populated areas, and the Columbia River, behind. 

Happy New Year! 2022 was a great year for us. We saw so many amazing animal photos retrieved from our cameras, and fascinating tracks and sign of animals on our tracking surveys. We were so excited to get some target species detections in the past year, including several red fox camera sightings, as well as finding marten tracks. We are excited to see what 2023 brings! Thank you to everyone that has supported us over the past year.

We had three tracking surveys in December, and our volunteers saw track and sign of a variety of animals. Let's take a look at some of the last tracks they found before ringing in the New Year!

While trekking through the snow at Mt. Hood, some of the most common tracks to find belong to Douglas squirrels and snowshoe hares. These animals are always on the move, looking for plant matter to eat amongst all of the snow.

Luckily, these animals both have fairly distinct gaits that we can learn to identify! Below is a Douglas squirrel trail. These animals hop forward, with their rear feet swinging around their front feet and landing slightly ahead of where their front feet are planted. Additionally, if the prints are clear enough to make out toes, you will see four toes on the front feet of a Douglas squirrel and five toes on the rear feet.

Next let's look at a snowshoe hare trail. Like the Douglas squirrel, these animals hop forward with their rear feet landing ahead of their front feet. One difference we can see from the squirrel trail, however, is that a snowshoe hare's front feet will land one slightly in front of the other, rather than side by side. This allows the hare to have more stability while moving quickly. With that pattern and such large rear footprints, a snowshoe hare trail is often easy to identify once you know what to look for!

Now you know how to identify two of the more common tracks you might see at Mt. Hood! While our volunteers saw tons of these tracks in December, they also saw some more unique track and sign. Let's take a look at some other highlights!

Here is another sign of squirrel. One must have been sitting in this tree while eating something, and all of its scraps fell to the ground below!

Our volunteers also found evidence of an even smaller critter! A deer mouse left this trough-shaped trail through the snow, before scurrying down into a tunnel below the snow. These tunnels give the mouse a better chance of going undetected by predators.

Our volunteers also found some tracks belonging to members of the mustelid family! These animals generally have long bodies that are low to the ground. Mustelid feet have five toes, and they move with a unique bounding gait. This gait also has the rear feet landing in nearly the same spot as the front feet.

First, we have a weasel trail. These could be from a short-tailed or long-tailed weasel, but they can overlap in size, so it can be hard to positively identify. It looks like the feet overlapped a bit in some spots as well.

Volunteers also found a marten trail! This is a Wolverine Tracking Project target species, as there is a healthy population at Mt. Hood and they are good indicators of forest health. For this trail, you can see a similar gait to the previous weasel. We have also included a single track, where you can see how the feet landed in similar spots and are overlapping.

Those are just some of the animals that volunteers might cross paths with on a tracking survey. Check back in next month to see what else they find!

Our winter season is in full swing and we have been busy meeting and training our Camera Crew and  Tracking Survey volunteers! We have been having fun doing field trainings in local parks and at Mt. Hood, have gone out on our first Group Tracking Survey, and are looking forward to bringing back our first photos for the winter season.

While we don't have winter photos to share quite yet, our last two sets of photos from our summer camera locations were recently retrieved, and we have some amazing detections to share from them!

First, check out this canine - it's a red fox! These animals can display a few different coat colors, or "phases." The pictures below are of a silver phase fox. Even though it does not appear red, it is a member of the same red fox species!

This is one of the target species of the Wolverine Tracking Project. There are a few subspecies of red fox, one being the Sierra Nevada red fox, which is particularly rare. This subspecies resides at higher elevations than your typical fox, and because we carry out surveys for carnivores at Mt. Hood, this is the perfect area to look for these animals!

For our target species, we especially hope to find scat, urine, or hair samples from these animals which can be used for genetic analysis. Not only does this confirm their presence in our survey areas, but there is a lot to learn from genetics too!

Since the Sierra Nevada red fox is a subspecies that is spatially isolated from other populations, we are particularly interested in how the DNA of these animals may differ from other subspecies. Our next detection shows a fox urinating, which would be a perfect genetic sample! Unfortunately, too much snow fell before this camera was visited, so no sample could be collected. We can cross our fingers for another chance as the season goes on!

Next up, we would like to share some adorable black bear detections from the last of our summer photos. These animals will be hibernating very soon, so we probably will not be seeing them for a while. Female black bears can remain in their dens as late as mid-April and will give birth to cubs while still in the den! These cubs will then remain with their mother for up to two years before heading out on their own.

We also want to share some photos of very curious cubs!

Last from these camera checks, we have a sweet doe visiting our camera in the snow! Like the black bears, deer are quite busy during this time of year. They are coming to the end of their rut, or breeding season. The rut is marked by physiological and behavioral changes, where males shed the velvet on their antlers and begin fighting with other males. By this time of year, most bucks have mated with several does. Come spring, we will be seeing sweet spotted fawns with their mothers!

And with that, we have shared some of the highlights of our last summer photos. We are very excited for our hard-working volunteers to visit our cameras again soon, bringing back the first photos for the winter season. Please check back next month to see more highlights and to learn more about the animals we find!