Wolverine study training volunteers in Sandpoint

ENDANGERED SPECIES — Volunteers with skills to travel deep into the backcountry on skis or snowshoes are being trained for monitoring bait stations involved in an Idaho-Montana wolverine research project.

Wolverines are a backcountry-loving secretive member of the weasel family protected by the Endangered Species Act.

A “Bait Station Leader” training course will be held Saturday, (Dec. 3) from noon to 5 p.m. at the Sandpoint Ranger District offices at 1602 Ontario. (Another is planned for Jan. 14.) The program:

• Idaho Fish and Game Department biologists Michael Lucid and Lacy Robinson will hold a session on bait station construction and maintenance.
• Kevin Davis of the Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center will give an avalanche training.
• Hang out with mustelid and winter tracking expert Brian Baxter in the classroom and then in the woods and learn more about who you are sharing the forest with. 
• A talk winter travel basics also will be presented.