Wolverine leads a migratory life, inspecting the territory that has an area of 1000 square kilometers. Its crossings are very long – about 16-28 miles in a day.
Observations for the wolverine from the plane showed that the long of its passages can reach 47 miles and more. Deep snow is not stand in the way of this predator: its feet are very large in comparison with height and weight of the animals; it is easy for it to jump, leaning on its wide “skis”. The largest traces of the wolverine can be 6 inches long and 5 inches wide. Wolverine’s peculiarity distinguishes it from all other predators of taiga and tundra.
“While ermine and sable systematically inspect secluded nooks of the forest, wolverine passes long distance without stopping. Wolverine can go by ski-track about 6-9 miles, sable never does things like that. As a matter of fact this aimless, as it may seem to be crossing is searching of some big prey – carrion, wounded games and so on.” (V.V. Raevsky)
In summer wolverine catches small gnawers and ravages nests. In autumn wolverine eats berries and pine nuts. In winter it hunts big prey – hoofed mammals, but usually they are wounded, hungry or weakened. In some cases it follows the professional hunters and examines traps and snares. Wolverine deftly steals bait from the traps and often kills hunter’s valuable bag –Arctic fox, for example – but it is not always pay for this theft with its own skin. There are some cases when wolverine gets into hunters’ huts in their absence and ravages their food stock.
Wolverine can even cope with reindeer and large moose when the snow is deep and when it’s difficult for prey to move. Wolverine uses deftly hunting success of the other predators, living in taiga. Evenks assert that very often wolverine follows tracks of trot. This is what they tell about its habits:
“If trot kills its prey, wolverine picks it out. Trot is afraid of wolverine: when it sees wolverine, it runs away and throws its prey. Wolverine takes meat away bit by bit and hides it under the block, under snow, hangs it on the tree. In summer it buries prey under the moss. It lives at this place, while it has a stock. It goes around this place, then returns and eats. When there is a thin crust of ice over snow, wolverine hunts more – it kills roes. Next morning it kills ten roes more. In fact it eats not so much as it kills. The main time of hunt for wolverine is when there is a thin crust of ice over snow, and in winter it uses lynx for hunting…
In summer wolverine kills young animals: hares, ducklings, young deer, but it doesn’t hunt much. It doesn’t kill big deer, it attacks young deer in winter when there is deep snow. In spring after calving it tries to destroy newborn deer”.
Pads of wolverine are five-toed, wide and sharp-clawed, however, the smallest finger is not imprinted enough, so traces can be considered as four-toed by mistake.
Jumps of wolverine are rather short.
There are very many unknown things in the life of this animal.