What is Wild Things Unlimited?

Wild Things Unlimited was founded in 1997 to provide a vehicle for the collection of sound ecological information and the dissemination of such information to the American public. Our purpose is to increase the effectiveness of wildlife and habitat management in the Rocky Mountains through two campaigns:

1. conducting vital wildlife research that is not being accomplished in a comprehensive manner by government agencies or private entities, and
2. increasing the public’s awareness of and participation in natural resource issues through education and outreach programs that provide individuals with a greater connection to the natural world.

Wild Things Unlimited is incorporated in the state of Montana and has received tax exempt status from the IRS (copy attached). We are in our third year of implementing plans to provide critically needed information to state and federal agencies, wildlife and wildland advocacy groups, and the general public.

Wild Things Unlimited Seeks to Provide Critical Information

Wolverine

Wolverines, fishers and lynx are among the rarest and least understood mammalian carnivores in the western United States. Like wolves and grizzly bears, these three carnivore species are associated with wild places. Also like wolves and grizzlies, these species no longer occur throughout much of their historic ranges, due to habitat loss and fragmentation associated with residential and recreational development, timber harvest, increased road-building in forests, oil and gas development, and mining. With mounting pressures from industry and recreationists, the availability and security of backcountry habitats required by sensitive carnivore species is coming under question. We believe that human imposed threats to these rare species throughout the western U.S. constitute a significant environmental problem.

We are not alone in that belief. The lynx has just been listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and members of organizations such as the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state fish and wildlife agencies, along with university researchers and carnivore advocates have come together under the Western Forest Carnivore Committee (WFCC) to address the status and needs of forest carnivore populations.  In addition, a growing number of Northern Rockies-based environmental groups share these concerns, and will benefit from the information we are providing, in their efforts to protect forests in the region.

Lynx

One of the primary needs identified by the WFCC is the need for baseline information regarding the distributions and habitat associations of forest carnivores throughout their remaining ranges.  Especially now, with the lynx listed under the ESA, agencies are in urgent need of information on the locations and habitat needs of these rare cats.  Wild Things Unlimited is working to provide that critically needed information relative to wolverines, fishers and lynx in the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems of the Rocky Mountains.

Through this work, Wild Things Unlimited is contributing to greater understanding of rare carnivore distributions, relationships between rare carnivores and forest habitats, and the impacts of human activities such as road-building and motorized recreation on rare carnivores in the Yellowstone Ecosystem.  Ultimately, the information that we gather on wolverines, fishers and lynx will aid resource managers and conservationists in the protection of important forest habitats, the preservation of biological diversity, and the defense of our remaining wildlands.

Wild Things Unlimited’s Plan to Survey Rare Carnivores

Wild Things Unlimited’s Rare Carnivore Surveys project is providing critically needed information by addressing the following objectives:

1. documenting the presence of fishers, wolverines and lynx at numerous locations throughout the Yellowstone Ecosystem, and thereby assisting in the compilation of updated distribution maps for each species;

2. documenting habitat use patterns of fishers, wolverines, and lynx in relation to human activities such as recreation and forest management; and

3. gathering information related to the overall ecology of fishers, wolverines and lynx.

Wolverine

We use non-intrusive methods such as remotely-triggered camera systems, snow track transects, and hair-snaring devices to collect data during our four to five month winter field seasons each year of the ten-year study.  In the fall of 1999 we began using a new U.S. Forest Service lynx hair snagging protocol, involving special scent lures and a rubbing stations that entice wild cats to rub and leave samples of hairs. Samples are then analyzed for DNA content to determine species.

We incorporate the public into our data gathering efforts by conducting interviews with local outdoors people and backcountry users and recording their sightings of rare carnivores in our database. This year we increased public involvement in our project by producing and distributing a brochure that provides pictures and descriptions of forest carnivores and their tracks as well as forms for the reporting of sightings.  In addition, we have implemented a highly successful volunteer program that is actively involving both local people and people from other regions of the United States in collecting data in the field. WTU expanded the volunteer program for the 1999-2000 field season to include volunteer interns from several colleges. 

As a part of our forest carnivore survey work we are also monitoring and documenting backcountry recreational use (including skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling) in a critical wildlife corridor area. As part of this effort WTU staff and volunteers have been monitoring trailheads in the Bridger Mountain Range on weekends throughout the past two winters, documenting numbers of vehicles, numbers of recreationists, and types of recreational activity. We also use spotting scopes and overflights (flight time donated by Lighthawk) to document backcountry use in high elevation areas where potential exists for conflict between recreationists and wolverine denning habitat. Data from these surveys are compiled on GIS generated maps and distributed to the local conservation groups and the Gallatin National Forest. 

In addition to the carnivore surveys in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, Wild Things Unlimited has undertaken a second carnivore survey project along the western border of Glacier National Park, in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.  In this area of northwestern Montana, a dirt road winds through critical wildlife habitat of the Flathead National Forest. A proposal to pave this road has the potential to greatly increase the amount of traffic and human access to this important area, and bring expanded human impacts to this region’s wildlife.  WTU is working with Meg Hahr, a wildlife biologist in that region, to implement forest carnivore surveys, with special emphasis on lynx, in this critical wildlife area.  

Previous Accomplishments and Current Support

Previous to founding Wild Things Unlimited, founders Steve Gehman and Betsy Robinson participated in forest carnivore surveys in and around Yellowstone National Park from 1992 through 1997.  They documented presence of 10 mammalian carnivore species throughout northern Yellowstone, and compared the effectiveness of various methods of detecting carnivores.  Steve made a presentation entitled "Comparison of three methods of carnivore detection" at the 1997 annual meeting of the Western Forest Carnivore Committee.  Steve and Betsy have authored articles about their searches for fishers and wolverines for Yellowstone Science (Vol. 3, No. 4 and Vol. 6, No. 3), and an article including some of their findings relative to pine martens and fishers was published in the April/May 2000 issue of National Wildlife. 

Mountain Lion

During the past two years, with help of the grants from a number of foundations and our growing list of other supporters, we have greatly expanded our efforts to survey forest carnivores:  we currently own 20 Trailmaster camera systems and an seven additional systems are loaned to us each year by the Predator Conservation Alliance, allowing us to operate over 50 camera stations each winter; we have supplies to operate 200 lynx hair snare stations; we were able to employ two full-time and four part-time biologists during our most recent field season, creating an increase in the number of snow track transects conducted and an increase in the overall area of coverage by all survey methods.

Our efforts have resulted in the documentation of wolverines, fishers, and lynx in areas where previous information was scant or non-existent:  52 documentations of wolverines in four different mountain ranges; five documentations of fishers in two mountain ranges where their existence was previously unknown; and three positive plus three possible documentations of lynx in two (possibly three) mountain ranges. In addition, we have accumulated significant information regarding the distributions and habitat use patterns of other non-target, but relatively uncommon species such as bobcats, mountain lions, red foxes, wolves, river otters, and martens.  

Mountain Lion

As we continue these labor-intensive and logistically difficult surveys, information accumulates, we gain a more complete understanding of the big picture of rare carnivore distributions and habitat needs in the Rocky Mountains, and the value of the Rare Carnivore Surveys project increases for agency managers and conservation organizations.

The Gallatin National Forest fully supports the Rare Carnivore Surveys project and has entered into a five year Partnership Agreement with WTU.  To date the USFS has provided $9,000 in funding to the RCS. We have made great progress in learning about the distributions and habitat needs of wolverines, fishers and lynx, and it will help agencies and activists pursue their duties and their dreams of protecting these species and the habitat that they need for long term survival.  

Summary of Rare Carnivore Survey Results
Winter 2002

In the Gallatin National Forest, including surveys in the Gallatin, Bridger, and Bangtail mountains, WTU operated 22 camera stations for 1163 camera-nights and covered 477 km of trails and roads. We documented nine sets of wolverine tracks but zero lynx or fisher tracks; additionally we found bobcat, mountain lion, red fox, coyote, wolf, pine marten, weasel, and black bear tracks. Our camera stations captured wolverines at three different sites, bobcats at four sites, and martens at 5 sites. We also got pictures of moose, hares, climbers, skiers, and domestic dogs.

Wolverine

Marten