Rare wolverine spotted in California,
second confirmed specimen in a century

So: No one has seen one in the last 100 years, but the Forest Service believe this is the only one alive? Pretty obvious that there are more around somewhere.;

I was night hiking in the Sierra foothills around 2am one August. I was in a dark skies area during a meteor shower. I don't normally use a light as I can see pretty well in the dark. Something came out of the woods behind me and ambled casually by me then headed into the woods on the other side of the trail. It looked like a small bear with short legs and stubby tail. It acted as if it could care less that I was there. It was in an area of the Sierra where the previous sighting of a wolverine occurred and matched every picture and video of a wolverine I had seen. Others who have had wolverine encounters in Canada have reported the same behavior. One witness said one crossed a trail in front of them with an elk's head in its mouth. Warning: do not try to pet one. (I have seen people walking up to baby grizzles in Yellowstone.)

If what you saw was a Wolverine, your nose would confirm it....they smell worse than skunks. I would hazard a guess that "Another Govt Agency" or someone affiliated with one, trapped several in Canada/Alaska and is releasing them. Just as they have with Puma, and wolves, in several places. Some they have NO place being in. They released tundra wolves in some areas, nearly double the size of native grey wolves. A mountain lion was hit/killed on a hwy in Long Island, an enterprising LOCAL ranger had the blood tested and confirmed that it was a previously Federally handled lion from North Dakota, logged as darted, tested and released there a mere six months prior,No WAY a cat traveled 1600, across six states, through several major cities in that time. Neighbors near my farm, further upstate reported several lion sightings and the DNR insisted they were wrong, even scat and pug prints were false...swore game camera pics were "Inconclusive", someone with coyote tracking dogs tweaked his radio collar receiver/tracker and confirmed the cats were wearing Federal registered tracking collars and had been released by the Govt. Forced to fess up...the Feds still tried to fight paying for the calves, foals, and lambs the cats killed, let alone the deer, dogs, other livestock/pets. They do the same thing in the cities, "release dangerous predators" into areas where they had been eradicated or taught to fear the populace enough where they did little harm. Ignoring the historical reasons "the people" had done so in the first place.

I respect nature and I respect that predators have to eat too. What I no longer respect is any arm of our federal government. They now lie regularly when the truth would be less harmful. Their method is to lie to us rubes for political purposes. They feel that their lies are justified for the “greater good” or a political agenda.

I spent about five minutes watching a lynx at a range of about 25 feet, as he watched me, while hunting deer in south western Wyoming mountains. I looked at him with binocs, too, so got a very good, long look at details. But - the Wyoming Fish and Game says that there are not any lynx in Wyoming. Just like the KS Fish and Game say that there are no mountain lions in Kansas....but I saw one of those, too - with my wife and we agree on what we saw. And farmer friends say that they regularly see mtn lion tracks around their cattle water tanks in dry country in eastern KS. The wolverines have probably been there all along, just not very many, and they were being shy.

The less publicity the better. Leave the wolverine(s) alone and let them go about living.

When I was a kid deer, turkey and lot of other large animals were quite rare where I lived. Now they are everywhere along with bobcats, black bears and now armadillos.

We’ve had bobcat sightings in my northern Indiana county for several years. DNR just acknowledged there is one after years of denying it. Like poster #1 said, where there’s one, there is likely to be more.

I read that wolverines are honey badgers on steroids. Honey badgers are fierce little animals that aren't scared of predators like lions, hyenas and large snakes. If they're like that I wouldn't come within 100 feet of the bigger wolverine.

A full grown wolverine might weigh 45 pounds, but Alaskans have seen wolverines take on 800 pound brown bears and drive them off. They're incredibly tough animals. There are probably more than several California wolverines, undiscovered as yet by people. In November 1982 at East Lake Woodlands North Course in Palm Harbor, then a 2,200 acre marsh and piney bird sanctuary, my best friend and I, recently turned professional, looked to the left of the second tee and saw a large tawny cat, probably 100 pounds, with a very long tail. It was a mountain lion! (Florida panther) We couldn't believe it, but but there it was for a moment before walking slowly away, unafraid of us. Forty years ago the population of Florida panthers was tiny, thought to be as few as thirty in all, most of them living around Big Cypress in southwest Florida. But the big cats are mobile. (To improve the breeding stock, cougars from west Texas were imported into the Florida panther habitat. Now the cats are more plentiful.)