Wolverine in the wild

[Per Johan Naesje]

As discussed in a previous thread at uwol challenge forum, I have uploaded a short footage of a Wolverine in the wild at Dovrefjell Nationalpark, Norway.

The Wolverine is a very shy species which is almost impossible to discover in daylight. It's almost as large as a medium dog and weight between 10-25 kg (adult).
The Wolverine is known to actually kill prey as large as moose, although most typically when these are weakened by winter or caught in snowbanks.

Last weekend I was staying in tent up in the mountains for 3 nights. In a beautiful winter scenery, sunny and almost no wind as high as almost 6000 ft asl. I was packing up my sledge with the gear and put on my snowshoes one morning when a Wolverine suddenly appeared only approx. 150 yards in front of me. I think we both was surprised over each others present!
I had all my gear packed in the sledge and I was afraid that the Wolverine would get away before I was able to get any footage of it. Luckily it didn't and it was moving slowly away from me stopping several times to look for me. I was packing up my gear as slowly as I could, getting the tripod in position and the camcorder ready. The Wolverine was now at approx. 300-400 yards distance from me.
I got several minutes of footage of this beautiful animal, which I haven't seen before in the wild! Guess that I had my day there up in the mountains! Just me and the Wolverine.
The footage is shot with Canon XLH1 camcorder and a Canon 500mm 4.0L lens, a focal lenght of 3600mm! Due to the large focal lenght you will see some air haze, but what the heck... ...this is a very rarely seen animal filmed in the wild.

Footage link:
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/wolverine.mov (12.8 MB)

Enjoy!

[Herman Van Deventer]

Johan,

Staying in Africa, I have seen a lot of animals, but I've never seen one of
those......

Beautifull , Inspiring post.

Greetings.

Herman.

[Chris Barcellos]

Nice one Per... also interesting to see the shimmer from the temperature difference in the snow/ground and air...

[Hugh Mobley]

I hope you know how lucky you are to get a nice shot like that on such an elusive animal. This is probably the main reason I purchased an HD cam, to film some wildlife, outdoors, maybe some fishing trips. I hope I'm as lucky as you are when the time comes. I hope to go back to Colorado this year to film some elk and whatever. You really have to appreciate the new Planet Earth show on Discovery tv when it takes weeks, months, or even a year to get one shot of a particular animal or bird.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Johan Per,

That truly is a wonderful piece of footage to have!!!

I was most impressed with the pan with it jogging along, so smooth at such a magnification!!!! Now there would be an animal to do a documentary on!!! would need someone to sponsor you a couple years of wages to do it would be my guess!!!

[Ken Diewert]

Nice Job Per!

That could have easily been one of those ones that just got away. I dare say without that 500mm lens, it would have got away.

[William Boehm]

how fortunate you were. i have spent years in Alaska, bc, and pac nw and have seen five wolverine. i recalled one trip on the tatshenini river in the yukon territory in 1978 sighting a wolvering loping with its characteristic mustelid gate down an alpine slope. i angled off downhill hoping to intercept it to grab a still shot, and sure enough, the wolverine had stopped on a snow gully to clean its rear lets and paw. he still didnt see me 25 feet away until i clicked the photo. he growled, hissed, then shot up the bank with incredible speed, then stopped for several seconds to look at me while i snapped a couple more photos...then he took off.

you are so fortunate to be in the environment where you are..and obtaining such great experiences. thankyou for sharing them. bill

[Geir Inge]

"Det var berre lækkert" (norwegian).
I've only seen the wolverine at the zoo in Kristiansand, Per Johan.
The haze didn't bother me at all and I loved every min. of the clip.
Lucky you to capture this beautiful animal on tape.
Unfortunately they hunt this animal ( just a few each year) because the sheep farmers claim that dei eat their sheep. Lucky for the wolverine, they are hard to catch, because they are so shy and live high in the mountains.
Thank you for sharing :)

[William Boehm]

i watched the video and noticed the wolverine is loping with a definite limp, favoring what i think is the right leg. my observations of wolverine in the wild are that they have a more rhythmic lope, not short and unrhytjmic as if favoring an old injury. i think he might have been trapped? and possibly escaped...with a rear leg that was permanently damaged. bill

[Per Johan Naesje]

William,
yes I agree with you about the limping. This is my first view ever of a wolverine so I was not sure when I reviewed the footage.
All predators are preserved, but it's occasionally in short timeperiods allowed to shoot them in specific areas, like near sheep farms as Geir Inge mentioned. Use of any traps is prohibited in our country!
But of course, you got people who don't respect this and it might be possible that this specific animal has been caught in a trap some time ago!

Thanks for your observation William!

[William Boehm]

Peter...hope to encourage you, as the footage you have is very awesome, especially the first part where he is hanging around the snow. very, very few have seen wolverine, let alone videod them. your work is really excellent and artistic. my first book was on Glacier Bay, Old Ice new Land, and i have published stills of subjects from Congo lowland gorillas to South American Rainforests to Alaska. my favorite place in the world is the arctic north...thankyou for inspiring me in my new venture in video, now that the kids have almost grown and i am returning to photography. bill

[Kevin Railsback]

I know I sound like a broken record but once again, great footage Per!

[Leon Lorenz]

Hi Per
Thanks for sharing, I'm only able to see the still on dial-up internet. It looks quite good considering the long range. Very few people ever get the chance to see a wolverine let alone film one. I've had only limited success filming this very elusive member of the weasel family, 3 long range shots over the years and a very close trapped wolverine fighing to escape a illegal leg-hold trap. This rare 3 minutes of footage was seen by millions and paid for the Canon XL1 I used back in 1998.

All the best in your filming,

Leon Lorenz
www.wildlifevideos.ca

[J. Stephen McDonald]

That's the kind of encounter you have only a few times in your life. It's a great sight to be so near to a rare animal that almost never allows anyone to catch it by surprise. Maybe you should have a little pocket HD camcorder, always ready to catch a quick shot, when your main gear is packed up.

In the old days, the French-Canadians called it, "Le Carcajou", which means something like "Devil Bear", because of its viciousness and incredible strength. They say if a Carcajou ever became your enemy, it would follow you secretly and tear up your camp and rob your traps. The legend was that if you didn't kill this enemy before you died, it would follow you into your afterlife and haunt you there forever. Better to stay on their good side.

[Brendan Marnell]

And now it's my turn to be amazed; catching up on all your contributions, one was bound to be special and this is the rarity of them all.