Female wolverines require deep, persistent spring snowpack for denning, making them one of the species most directly vulnerable to climate warming that reduces mountain snowpack and exposes dens prematurely.
Wolverine reproductive failure from premature snow melt is a welfare harm of the most fundamental kind: reproductive mothers lose their kits to exposure, and kits experience hyperthermia and starvation. The mother's welfare is also compromised by the reproductive investment lost to climate change. Unlike some climate-threatened species where habitat shift is possible, wolverines require mountain snowpack that will not shift geographically - there is no uphill refuge if mountains lose their snowpack entirely. The welfare solution is climate mitigation that maintains the snowpack these animals evolved to depend on.