wolverine trapping

I helped one of the non-game biologist out last week checking her wolverine traps. Was a beautiful day in the field. Not suprising, there was nothing. They saw wolverine tracks 3 days earlier but it only came within 1/2 mile to trap. These are in the Selkirks, just 5 miles from my WMA.

Beautiful scenery!

A look down the trails we road. Snowmobiling fun!

On the hike to the trap we dragged a dead beaver to leave a scent to attract them.

Also hung a deer carcass in a tree to get it to come in, but not be able to easily reach it, it would then go to the beaver carcass inside the trap. Lovely right. The Gray Jays and Steller Jays were loving it.

The traps are built out of large logs because wolverine tend to chew and injure themselves in most anything else.

This is pretty cool. This is a radio transmitter attached to the trip mechanism, so when the trap trips, this black casing falls forward and flips the transmitter to a different signal. This allows them to check if the traps have been tripped from the WMA bunkhouse, and only have to check the traps every three days if they aren't tripped. I'm on call to help out if she gets something as I'm one of the few folks this far north.

This is a motion sensor camera set on the trap. Alot of martins get in and out of the traps without tripping it, so they get a host of photos of them.