Is that a bear? A badger? Or maybe a wild dog?
It’s easy to mistake all of the above for a wolverine – but wildlife officials confirmed that two people spotted a wolverine on the Columbia River near Portland for the first time outside of the Wallowa Mountains in over 30 years.
Wolverines are the largest member of the weasel family, weighing about 17 to 40 pounds, with brown fur and small rounded ears, like a bear.
According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the elusive animals were thought to be eradicated from Oregon in 1936, but scattered sightings that started in the 1960s proved their perseverance.
The last sighting outside of the Wallowa Mountains was in 1990, after someone surrendered a wolverine they hit with their car near Cascade Locks to state wildlife officials.
Wolverines are considered a threatened species in Oregon due to past hunting and haphazard predator control. They typically live in Canada, Alaska, Wyoming, Washington, Montana, Idaho and make rare appearances in Oregon. Approximately 300 to 1,000 wolverines still roam the United States.
Kayla Shively, research director with the Wallowa Wolverine Project that documents the species, said wolverine sightings in Oregon are always a good sign.
This wolverine, seen by two people who were fishing, likely came from Washington, Shively said.
Wolverines have had a breeding population since the early 2000s in the North Cascades in Washington. Over time, they have slowly trickled down south, she said.
“It suggests that they’re expanding their distributions southwards and recovering historic habitats,” Shively said.
The two fishers who spotted the wolverine took photos and sent them to Cascadia Wild staff to review on Monday. The nonprofit conducts community wildlife surveys for wolverines and other rare carnivores in the Mt. Hood National Forest.
Cascadia Wild surveyors and Fish and Wildlife biologists confirmed the spot where the photos were taken and found a set of wolverine tracks but no other signs of the animal. They set up monitoring systems equipped with small cameras and hair-collecting devices to see if the wolverine is still in the area.
Oregon’s only documented resident wolverine named Stormy was first spotted in 2011 by Audrey Magoun, the founder of the Wallowa Wolverine Project. Stormy is 13 years old and was last spotted in 2022 in the Wallowa Mountains.
There were two other wolverine sightings from the public in 2022, one near the Eagle Cap Wilderness and another near Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, which are near Stormy’s usual stomping grounds. The Wallowa Wolverine Project cannot confirm that both were Stormy but it’s very likely, Shively said.
If any lucky person happens to spot a wolverine in the wild, they should take in the moment after taking a photo, she said.
“Even wolverine biologists can go their whole career without seeing a wolverine, so that’s a really special thing,” Shively said.
