Stormy—Wallowa Wolverine | RESOURCE PAGE (w/ Audrey Magoun & Pat Valkenburg)

The P/P WALLOWA WOLVERINE RESOURCE PAGE—
updated as new info, reports, images, etc. become available . . .

MARCH 2011: Just had breakfast at the Short Horn
here in Eagle Valley with Audrey Magoun. She leads,
together with her husband, Pat Valkenburg, the
Wallowa-Whitman Wolverine Project.

The one above is of Stormy. Audrey is well-known
for developing a unique system of identification
based on each individual's breastplate fur coloration
pattern. [see above] The wolverine is quickly climbing
to the top of my totem of inspirational creatures,
especially for its amazing skill as winter mountaineer.
For all you biomimickers: think of making a synthetic
material that insulates so well that you can sleep right
on top of snow without one's own body heat melting a
hole into the surface!

WATCHING: My THEATER OF THE NEW project has added the
wonderful documentary, WOLVERINE: Chasing the Phantom
(2010), featuring Pat and Audrey in their home territory of
Alaska, as well as Craig Sechler and Steve Kroschel
(streamed on NETFLIX)

"Hi Cliff, Here are photos of the wolverine at
West Eagle; I think these are good enough
to conclude it is Stormy. Taken from
March 14 to March 27 before he showed up on
the north side of the mountains." Audrey

Watch Gianna Savoie's documentary, WOLVERINE: Chasing the Phantom (2010):

Read an excellent background review of
Gianna Savoie's documentary by wolverine
expert, Rebecca Watters, written for
High Country News

SEE ALSO: Rebecca's THE WOLVERINE BLOG

One feature on Rebecca's blog I found
particularly interesting is a podcast
by Richard Nelson | ENCOUNTERS: radio
experiences in the north, excellent audio w/
field recordings! | This is a special program
on wolverines in the far North. [mp3 26.5 MB]
Two interesting details: Nelson speaks of a
female wolverine raising kits and her sensitivity to
snow machine noise, and the wolverine's
predator / scavenger relationship with wolves.

Rebecca Watters, an artist, writer, ecologist (wolverine & pikas),
and project manager for the Northern Rockies Conservation
Cooperative in Jackson, Wyoming. She has field experience around
the world. Here, in the South Wallowas, she's learning from Pat
and Audrey how to set up a camera bait station.

Pat showing Rebecca the intricacies of a new clip system
to catch hairs for DNA analysis of the wolverine's famously
rich and beautiful fur coat. As Audrey and I were hiking down
to their snowmachines at the head of a forest service road, I
did my best to convince her that testing the fur for Caesium-137
should now also be obligatory, and certainly at the least,
of some scientific interest. Why? Well, I personally was doing
fieldwork in the Wallowas towards the end of March 2011 when
the snowpack was blanketed with a dull green-grey fallout
layer, which I suspect came from the ongoing Fukusima
disaster. And, of course, the above bait station is a mere
200 km downwind of the former Hanford production
facility, which produced the plutonium for more than 60,000
bombs [sic] and is now the largest area of radioactive
contamination in the Western hemisphere. Reason
enough, in my view, for concern.
The South Wallowas . . . XII.8.2011

Featured gallery, 100 MINIATURES, a set of 100 black & white photographs. ONE image. ONE idea. ONE new way of looking . . .

100 MINIATURES—online gallery

Each miniature is a kind of meditation on one idea & one image;
Each lasts 30 seconds; They play in random order;
The music is my BOREA Mix,
for hand-played ePecussion Orchestra.
[ mouse over for controls / lower right fro full-screen ]