Study shows industrial development giving coyotes an edge in wolverine habitat

Industrial development is helping coyotes move into wolverine country and edge out the rare carnivore despite its fierce reputation, newly published research suggests.

Industrial development is helping coyotes move into wolverine country and edge out the rare carnivore despite its fierce reputation, newly published research suggests.

“Roads and seismic lines were actually driving competition between wolverines and coyotes,” said Gillian Chow-Fraser of the University of Victoria, lead author of the paper published in the journal Biological Conservation.

Chow-Fraser said it’s another example of how human activities on a landscape have far-reaching consequences for all the animals living on it.

“We see them changing the animal community in all sorts of ways.”

Chow-Fraser, her university colleagues, and the Alberta government examined data from 154 camera traps collected in 2006-08 and 2011-13 from two areas of the province — the relatively untouched Willmore Wilderness Area and Kananaskis Country, which is heavily laced by roads and cutlines from forestry, energy and recreational development.

Altogether, the study analyzes data from 2,790 weeks of camera deployment.

Coyotes and wolverines have different habitats and wouldn’t normally interact, Chow-Fraser said.

But, as development clears pathways into the boreal forest and foothills of the Rockies, now they do.