![]() Humans seem to pose the greatest threat to wolverines. Read More: Wolf Vs Gorilla in a fight to the death 5. In fact, scientists from the University of Oulu in Finland discovered that wolverines prefer areas that are occupied by wolves, simply because of those additional scavenging opportunities. Wolverines might visit kills that wolves left, eating the remaining bones and flesh, timing it perfectly to get to the carcass after the wolves have left, but before the ravens and foxes have eaten all of the remains. ![]() In addition, they are neither as big (a big wolverine is around 60 pounds while an average wolf is around 90 pounds) nor as fast as wolves.Ī wolf might be a common predator of a wolverine, but their relationship is more complicated than that. Wolverines have strong claws for digging and defense, and incredibly strong jaws for biting and crushing bones and frozen meat but they do not have the same crushing power as a wolf. Successful predation by wolves on wolverines most commonly occurs when a cornered animal can’t escape by climbing a tree, either because of the absence of trees or because the animal is caught in a trap. Interestingly enough, the wolves did not consume their bodies. There have been many recorded wolverine deaths to gray wolves, in North America, Europe, and Asia.įor example, one study from 2003 noted that in North America, 8 of the 14 documented wolf–wolverine interactions resulted in death for the wolverines. Most important and most dangerous natural predators to wolverines are wolves. However, as we learned so far, wolverines won’t just roll over and die, they like to strike back.Īdults are a threat to golden eagles as well – wolverines are one of the few mammal carnivores that might prey on golden eagles’ nestling. ![]() Golden eagles might especially target young and inexperienced specimens. This makes them excellent hunters of different prey, some of which might include wolverines. They have great agility and speed in combination with powerful feet and large sharp talons. Golden eagles are large birds of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. This is what scientists discovered in July 1994, a wolverine with a skull that was punctured and separated from the first cervical vertebra by a cougar. When attacking, cougars go for a neck bite, attempting to position their teeth between the vertebrae and into the spinal cord. Scientists have noted that cougars will occasionally kill wolverines, mostly at interactions around the carcasses. Wolverines and cougars might not get into too many contacts because they live in habitats at different elevations, but deadly encounters still happen. Smaller predators are lower in rank than larger predators – that’s why they will take the risk of being killed to get the chance of having some food. CougarsĬougars, also known as mountain lions, are other wolverine predators found throughout the Americas. There is a documented story of a wolverine killing a polar bear by latching onto its throat and holding on until its much larger foe died, but a wolverine would stand no chance in a fight to the death with a bear. In both recorded cases in the study, wolverines seemed to try to actively avoid encounters with grizzly bears. However, one almost 50-year-long study in Mount McKinley National Park, discovered that wolverines typically avoid grizzly bears since they may not be agile enough to escape bear attacks. Scientists also recorded a few cases of brown bears encountering, killing, and consuming wolverines. This encounter of a wolverine trying to battle head-on with another 10-times bigger carnivore just proves their ferocious and fearless nature. The smaller animal tried to drag the elk carcass away from the bear which resulted in the wolverine’s death. In 2003, researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) discovered a dead wolverine body with clear evidence that it had been killed by a bear. These animals can get in fights over food which might end fatally for the 10 times smaller wolverines ( wolverines weigh 15-61 pounds compared to American black bears weighing 125-550 pounds). This means that their habitat might overlap with that of the American black bears and brown bears. Wolverines live in the taiga and tundra of Europe, Asia, and North America.
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