by Alison Blackduck
Northern News Services

NNSL (June 2/97) - The reproductive rate of the healthy wolverine population in the Kitikmeot could be threatened by industrial development, preliminary research suggests.

Wolverine behavior is poorly understood, however, and the race is on to gather as much information as possible before mining and other developments change the animal's habitat forever.

Inuit and Dene alike have always valued wolverine fur for its durability and insulation properties.

Because the hair strands are hollow, they make excellent parka trim. The air inside each hair shaft gets heated by the wearer, making frost formation next to the face or wrists impossible.

Unfortunately, there's not much else that's been scientifically documented about the wolverine population, now

living in an area being opened up to mineral development, the Kitikmeot.

"When we started gathering baseline data in March of 1996," says GNWT wolverine biologist John Lee, "there was no proper western scientific research on the wolverine in the Slave Geological Province."

But the hunters and trappers living in and around communities like Kugluktuk had knowledge that Lee uses in his study.

With his assistant, Allan Niptanatiak of Kugluktuk, Lee has been trying to bring science and the traditional knowledge of Inuit hunters together in a way "that complements the other."

"I've mostly worked with the Inuit," he says. "Allan and the other hunters knew where to find them but he didn't know the wolverines had such small ranges."

The largest range Lee has documented is 1,000 square kilometres, which belongs to a juvenile male. The smallest, 64 square kilometres, belongs to an adult female.

Another curious feature is that male wolverines usually have about two females living in their range.

"It's like their own little harem," he jokes.

To track the wolverines' movement, Lee and Niptanatiak capture the animals and place radio collars around their necks. Fourteen animals have been collared so far.

Another method used in the study is paying hunters $25 dollars per wolverine carcass. The bodies are weighed and measured by Lee and Niptanatiak and then dissected to determine things like age, reproductive status and diet.

Since beginning his research, Lee has turned up evidence that female wolverines return each spring to the same den to give birth and raise their kits. But the evidence thus far is inconclusive.

With the rapid growth of mineral exploration and development in the region, this information is crucial.

"Although wolverines will go into camps, they aren't found living around civilized areas," he explains.

It's important to gather as much baseline data on the wolverine before the project ends in 1999 because "there are going to be displaced animals and we need to know whether that makes them incapable of reproducing."

The wolverine is listed as an endangered species in Northern Quebec and Labrador. Hunting, predator control and diminished caribou populations were the main reasons for the wolverines' decline in there.

Said Pearl Benyk of the West Kitikmeot Slave Study, of which Lee's project is a part: "There's a lot of baseline work that should've been done before all this development began but we're starting now and that's something."