Wolverines are elusive, wide-ranging mustelids whose survival depends on persistent snowpack for denning, making them highly vulnerable to climate change and one of the species most at risk from warming mountain ecosystems.
Wolverines caught in traps — including conibear body-gripping traps and leg-hold traps — experience acute pain, stress, and often severe injuries before being killed or released. Animals that escape traps with injuries may face reduced foraging ability and eventual death from starvation or infection. Climate change poses a longer-term welfare threat: as snowpack declines, den sites become unavailable, causing reproductive failure and gradual population collapse. Individual wolverines that fail to find adequate denning conditions or lose kits to snowmelt represent welfare losses as well as conservation failures. Protecting wolverine habitat through climate action and restricting trapping in core habitat areas addresses both individual welfare and population-level conservation goals.