Wolverines face dual threats from climate change reducing their snowpack habitat and ongoing trapping pressure. Their conservation requires addressing both long-term and immediate welfare threats.
Wolverine welfare involves both acute threats from trapping and chronic population-level threats from climate change. Leghold trapping causes pain, injury, and stress during the capture period — potentially 24+ hours in remote areas between trap checks. Self-mutilation injuries are common in trapped wolverines attempting escape. At the population level, climate-driven snowpack loss is projected to reduce available denning habitat significantly by mid-century, constraining reproduction and survival. The combination of trapping pressure on already low-density populations and habitat loss from climate change creates compounding welfare and conservation risks. Protection as a threatened species would eliminate legal trapping pressure while conservation-focused land management can help preserve remaining snowpack-dependent habitat. Wolverine research using GPS tracking and camera traps provides welfare-relevant data on population distribution and trapping exposure.