 |
| Wild Trails, Wild Tales - Sample Chapter |
There are not many trappers in northern BC who haven't had a problem with wolverine at one time or another. This animal has caused me considerable trouble over the years as well.
At times it can seem very easy to catch a wolverine and a new trapper may wonder what all the fuss is about. If there is one animal that learns fast it's old skunk bear. It seems he only has to get nipped by cold steel once and he never forgets. I had a trap-smart wolverine dog my trails for a month in the winter of 1989. This beggar would help himself to my marten baits and knock about half the boxes off the trees in the process. He would approach a cubby set for a lynx and paw snow onto the number three jump traps I had out front. When he had snapper the traps, he helped himself to the beaver carcass inside.
I thought I'd be smart. I put a 330 conibear, a large killingtype trap, at the entrance to a cubby and set the leghold traps about eighteen inches in front. I then camouflaged them with balsam boughs. He tripped the legholds, ignored the 330 and opened a hole near the back of the cubby and helped himself. All right. I set a 330 over this new hole too. Wrong! He opened a new hole opposite from the first and demolished the whole set without getting caught. By then it was getting late in January so I conceded defeat and pulled my traps.
Not long after this experience I was talking to an Indian in Fort St. James. He told me how, in the old days, the only way to catch a smart wolverine was to rig up set gun at the back of the cubby on a trip wire to the bait. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police might have something to say about this idea today. I've heard of trappers who were faced with either losing the entire trapping season or eliminating the problem. They would weld up a large baited treble hook and hang it up off the ground about four feet. The wolverine would jump up in the air to grab the bait and would gaff himself. Fortunately, today this sort of practice is against the law and no ethical trapper would resort to this tactic.
A lot has been said of the courage of wolverines. I once caught a wolverine in a leghhold that had been set for a lynx. It was one of the new offset traps and was wired to a four-inch-thick pole six feet long. When the wolverine saw me coming at him he tried to run off through the willows, but the drag slowed him down. I took a shot at his head with my .22 and missed. At the shot, flight turned into fight, and the animal turned and came for me. U didn't miss with my second shot.
The fellow who trapped the Muskeg fifty years before me had a bad time once with a wolverine. Martin Shaffer seldom carried a rifle; when he caught anything large, he would cut himself a club to dispatch the animal. This would work with a lynx, but once, a wolverine he caught kept dodging around so Martin decided to pin the animal and choke him with his knee and hands. It didn't work out as planned and a trip to the hospital was required, as well as new clothes; the old ones were shredded.
I guided for several years in the mountains around Tatlatui Park, and it is here on the slopes above timberline that a person can watch wolverines at work. This is an animal that never seems to slow down to walk; he always seems to lope along even if the hill is steep. I recall a time two hunters and I were watching about twenty caribou grazing and moving along an alpine slope when a movement caught my eye. On a dry creek bed, what at first looked liked two wolves, turned out to be two wolverines. The creek bed went almost straight up the mountain and the wolverines were following it up at a fast pace. They never stopped once and ran over the crest of the mountain out of sight. They were in our sight for about five minute and traveled 2,000 feet up and over the ridge. It would have taken about thirty minutes for a man in good shape to make the same climb.
One spring day, another guide and I were watching for grizzly on the open slopes of the mountain across from camp. Three mountain goats, a billy, a nanny and a small kid, were feeding on the new grass above tree line. As there were no bears to be seen, I decided to fix up a pot of tea. Just about the time the water was boiling, my partner shouted, Bernie, come and look at the two wolverines! They looked to be two full-sized adults and they made a beeline for the billy goat. The goat, who had his head down, didn't see them until they were about fifty feet from him. You don't see goats run too often but this one did. He was trying to get to a small cliff on the shoulder on the mountain and had about 100 yards to travel. The lead wolverine caught up to the goat and climbed part way up its back; the other wolverine was trying to bite the goat's back quarters. The goat carried . . . . |
|
|
Return to Full Product View
|
|
|
