THE LARGER NORTH AMERICAN MAMMALS 



427 



WOLVERINE (Gulo luscus) 



The wolverine, or carcajou of the Canadian 

 voyageurs, is a circumpolar species belonging 

 to the northern forested areas of both conti- 

 nents. In North America it formerly ranged 

 from the northern limit of trees south to New 

 England and New York, and down the Rocky 

 Mountains to Colorado, and down the Sierra 

 Nevada to near Mount Whitney, California. 

 It is a low, squat, heavy-bodied animal, with 

 strong legs and feet armed with sharp claAvs, 

 and is the largest and most formidable of the 

 weasel family. 



The wolverine is extraordinarily powerful 

 and possesses what at times appears to be a 

 diabolical cunning and persistence. It fre- 

 quently trails trappers along their trap lines, 

 eating or destroying their catches and at times 

 hiding their traps. It is a tireless wanderer, 

 and the hunter or traveler in the northern 

 wilds always has this marauder in mind and 

 is put to the limit of his wits to provide caches 

 for his provisions or other supplies which it 

 can not despoil. 



What it can not eat it is likely to carry away 

 and hide. A wolverine has often been known 

 to expend a surprising amount of labor in 

 apparently deliberate mischief, even carrying 

 numerous articles away from camps and hiding 

 them in different places. It sometimes trails a 

 traveler for many miles through winter snow, 

 always out of sight, but alert to take advantage 

 of any carelessness in leaving game or other 

 food unguarded. 



Mingled with these mischievous traits the 

 wolverine possesses a savage ferocity com- 

 bined with a muscular power which renders it 

 a dreaded foe of all but the largest animals of 

 its domain. When guarding her young, the 

 female is no mean foe, even for a man. 



As a consequence of its mental and physical 

 character, the wolverine, more than any other 

 animal of the north, has impressed itself on 

 the imagination of both native and white hunt- 

 ers and travelers. A vast amount of folk-lore 

 has grown up about it and both Indians and 

 Eskimos make offerings to propitiate its ma- 

 lignant spirit. The Alaskan Eskimos trim the 

 hoods of their fur garments with a strip of 

 wolverine fur, and Eskimo hunters wear belts 

 and hunting bags made of the skin of the legs 

 and head, that they may acquire some of the 

 power of the animal from which these came. 



The value of the handsome brown fur of the 

 wolverine, as well as the enmity the animal 

 earns among hunters and trappers, has resulted 

 in its being so persistently hunted that it has 

 become extinct over much of its former terri- 

 tory, and wherever still found it is much re- 

 duced in numbers. 



PACIFIC WALRUS (Odobenus obesus) 



The walruses, or "sea horses" of the old 

 navigators, are the strangest and most gro- 

 tesque of all sea mammals. Their large, rugged 

 heads, armed with two long ivory tusks, and 

 their huge swollen bodies, covered with hair- 



less, wrinkled, and warty skin, gives them a 

 formidable appearance unlike that of any other 

 mammal. They are much larger than most 

 seals, the old males weighing from 2,000 to 

 3,000 pounds and the females about two-thirds 

 as much. 



These strange beasts are confined to the 

 Arctic Ocean and the adjacent coasts and 

 islands and are most numerous about the bor- 

 ders of the pack ice. Two species are known, 

 one belonging to the Greenland seas, while the 

 other, the Pacific walrus, is limited to Bering 

 Sea and the Arctic basin beyond Bering Straits. 



The Pacific walruses migrate southward 

 through Bering Straits with the pack ice in 

 fall and spend the winter in Bering Sea and 

 along the adjacent coast of eastern Asia. In 

 spring they return northward through the 

 straits and pass the breeding season about the 

 ice pack, where they congregate in great herds. 

 One night in July, 1881, the U. S. steamer Cor- 

 win cruised for hours along the edge of the ice 

 pack off the Arctic coast of Alaska and we saw 

 an almost unbroken line of walruses hauled 

 out on the ice, forming an extended herd which 

 must have contained tens of thousands. 



Walruses were formerly very abundant in 

 Bering Sea, especially about the Fur Seal 

 Islands and along the coast north of the Pen- 

 insula of Alaska, but few now survive there. 

 Owing to the value of their thick skins, blub- 

 ber, and ivory tusks, they have been subjected 

 to remorseless pursuit since the early Russian 

 occupation of their territory and have, as a re- 

 sult, become extinct in parts of their former 

 range and the species is now in serious danger 

 of extermination. 



Like many of the seals, walruses have a 

 strong social instinct, and although usually seen 

 in herds they are not polygamous. They feed 

 mainly on clams or other shellfish, which they 

 gather on the bottom of the shallow sea. On 

 shore or on the ice they move slowly and with 

 much difficulty, but in the water they are thor- 

 oughly at home and good swimmers. When 

 hauled out on land or ice, they usually lie in 

 groups one against the other. They are stupid 

 beasts and hunters have no difficulty in killing 

 them with rifles at close range. 



Walruses have a strongly developed mater- 

 nal instinct and show great devotion and dis- 

 regard of their own safety in defending the 

 young. The Eskimos at Cape Vancouver, Ber- 

 ing Sea, hunt them in frail skin-covered kyaks, 

 using ivory- or bone- pointed spears and seal- 

 skin floats. Several hunters told me of excit- 

 ing and dangerous encounters they had experi- 

 enced with mother walruses. If the voung are 

 attacked, or even approached, the mother does 

 not hesitate to charge furiously. The hunters 

 confess that on such occasions there is no op- 

 tion but to paddle for their lives. Occasionally 

 an old walrus is unusually vindictive and, after 

 forcing a hunter to take refuge on the ice, will 

 remain patrolling the vicinity for a long time, 

 roaring and menacing the object of her anger. 



When boats approach the edge of the ice 

 where walruses are hauled up. the animals 

 plunge into the sea in a panic and rise all about 



