Biden Administration Proposes Threatened Species Protections for Wolverines Amid Climate Change Concerns

The move comes in response to warnings that global warming could push the species towards extinction by melting their snowy mountain habitats.

The Biden administration has proposed threatened species protections for the North American wolverine, in response to warnings from scientists that climate change is likely to melt their snowy mountain habitats and push them towards extinction.
About 300 surviving wolverines live in fragmented, isolated groups at high elevations in the northern Rocky Mountains, having been wiped out across most of the U.S. by the early 1900s due to unregulated trapping and poisoning campaigns.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has stated that protections under the Endangered Species Act are needed due to the ongoing and increasing impacts of climate change and associated habitat degradation and fragmentation.
Republican lawmakers in Montana, led by Rep. Matt Rosendale, have warned that protections could lead to future restrictions on activities allowed in wolverine habitats, including snowmobiling and skiing.
Environmentalists argue that wolverines face localized extinction from climate change, habitat fragmentation and low genetic diversity, and that the proposal to protect them gives the species a fighting chance for survival.