Climate models project significant wolverine habitat loss by 2050. Adaptation strategies combining habitat protection, connectivity, and climate advocacy offer the best welfare outcomes.
The welfare implications of climate change for wolverines are both direct and indirect. Direct effects include reduced denning success from insufficient spring snowpack, food stress from altered prey distribution and carcass availability, and increased energy costs of ranging in a changing landscape. Indirect effects include habitat fragmentation from increased human development in areas that become more accessible as climate warms, and changes in predator-prey dynamics that affect wolverine food security. Conservation adaptation strategies that prioritize maintaining connectivity corridors northward into climate refugia, protecting highest-elevation habitat as long-term refugia, and reducing all other stressors to increase population resilience represent the most welfare-compatible responses to this climate threat.