{"id":11510,"date":"2026-01-16T16:26:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T23:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=11510"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:26:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T23:26:43","slug":"education-wolverine-reintroduction-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=11510","title":{"rendered":"Education – Wolverine Reintroduction Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There are fewer than 300 wolverines left in the Lower 48,\u00a0<\/strong>but soon a\u00a0new effort will seek to restore the endangered animal’s population.\u00a0Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) just announced its\u00a0plan<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for the first-ever\u00a0wolverine reintroduction program<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

History of wolverines:<\/strong>\u00a0Wolverines were once widespread in the Lower 48, in states like California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado, according to the\u00a0Center for Biological Diversity<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Since the early 1900s, the population has sharply declined, mostly due to trapping and habitat loss. In 2023, they were added to the Endangered Species List.<\/p>\n

Why reintroduce?\u00a0<\/strong>Beyond helping revive an endangered species, reintroducing the wolverine has other benefits. The animal is naturally an opportunistic scavenger-predator. In addition to hunting small mammals like squirrels and rabbits, they’ll eat leftovers from carcasses of sheep, caribou, and moose that other, larger predators have left behind.<\/p>\n

As the nonprofit\u00a0Defenders of Wildlife<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0explains, “Wolverines play an important role as nature’s cleanup crew. By scavenging dead animals, they help recycle nutrients back into the ecosystem and reduce disease spread by eating carcasses.”<\/p>\n

What’s the plan?<\/strong>\u00a0According to CPW, over 94% of the planned reintroduction habitat is on federal land. The areas include parts of Rocky Mountain National Park, the Elk and West Elk Mountains, and the San Juan Range.<\/p>\n

The department will release 15 wolverines per year for 3 years beginning in 2027. Depending on how the species fares, there may be more reintroductions. Since wolverines have very large home ranges, the state can support around 100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are fewer than 300 wolverines left in the Lower 48,\u00a0but soon a\u00a0new effort will seek to restore the endangered animal’s population.\u00a0Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) just announced its\u00a0plan\u00a0for the first-ever\u00a0wolverine reintroduction program. History of wolverines:\u00a0Wolverines were once widespread in the Lower 48, in states like California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado, according to the\u00a0Center for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-campfire","category-current-events","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11512,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11510\/revisions\/11512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}