‘It bodes well’: New sightings bring hope endangered wolverine is returning to Labrador

For decades, this ferocious scavenger has been absent from the Labrador landscape but there’s renewed hope the wolverine might be making an official comeback.

The wolverine is considered endangered in eastern Canada and the last confirmed sighting in Labrador was in the 1960s. However, what’s believed to be tracks were recently spotted near Nain, prompting excitement the elusive animal could have returned to the region.

Shelley Moores, director of the Wildlife Division in the Department of Forestry, Agriculture and Lands, said they’ve been collecting recent sightings.

“We are very interested in any sightings and actually some of our staff observed one last winter while doing caribou surveys in western Labrador,” she told CBC Radio’s On the Go.

The team did capture images from the survey work, she said, which will be shared with the public at some point in the future.

In the early 2000s a recovery team carried out a wolverine survey in northern and central Labrador, but it didn’t produce any sightings, Moores said.

“We were at a point where we didn’t know what to do next. There was a discussion about whether or not we just let nature take its course and see if the populations elsewhere in Canada increase, would they then immigrate into Quebec and Labrador?”

She believes the recent tracks near Nain are a good sign, and a possible indicator the sole wolverine the caribou survey spotted last year isn’t alone.

“Hopefully we’ll get more images. We’ll get more pictures,” said Moores.

She also wants people to reach out to her department if they have sightings to report.

‘It bodes well’

Nunatsiavut Government deputy minister of Land and Natural Resources Jim Goudie said he’s hesitant to say the tracks spotted near Nain are definitive proof the creatures are back in the area.

“I’m always … a little bit cautious on saying, ‘Yes, this is definitely a wolverine.’”

Still, he said recent images of the tracks are “exciting,” adding they’ve been sent off for analysis to determine if they were left by a wolverine.

Goudie said he’d like to see the animal return to the traditional area it previously lived in.

“I think, to me, that would be kind of a sign that the environment’s healing itself,” he said.

While there have been no official sightings of wolverines for decades, Goudie said the government gets two to three incidental reports a year, including an incident about three years ago in the Postville area. He added there have been other sightings reported across central, west and northern Labrador.

“It bodes well. But you also have to remember the wolverines’ migration pattern is massive. So it could be one wolverine making all these sightings,” said Goudie.

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