since the first confirmed sighting in 1979. 3 of these 6 confirmed Utah sightings have been caught on video. A wolverine, a male, was finally captured and tagged in Utah in 2022 before being released back into the wild to better understand the animal's range. In August 2020, the National Park Service reported that wolverines had been sighted at Mount Rainier, Washington, for the first time in more than a century. The sighting was of a reproductive female and her two offspring. In 2004, the first confirmed sighting of a wolverine in Michigan since the early 19th century took place, when a Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist photographed a wolverine in Ubly, Michigan. The specimen was found dead at the Minden City State Game Area in Sanilac County, Michigan in 2010; no further wolverines have been spotted in Michigan. Most New World wolverines live in Canada and Alaska. However, wolverines were once recorded as also being present in Colorado, areas of the southwestern United States (Arizona and New Mexico), the Midwest (Indiana, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin), New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts) and in New York and Pennsylvania. There had been sporadic records of wolverines in Ukraine, but it is rather unclear whether the wolverines would have formed sustainable populations. Unique records of encounters with wolverines have been noted in Latvia as well, the most recent one being in late July 2022 (although it can be disputed because of the unclear footage); the population was widespread around 16th—17th centuries, but nowadays it is not native to the area. Conservation The world's total wolverine population is not known. The animal exhibits a low population density and requires a very large home range. The wolverine is listed by the IUCN as Least Concern because of its "wide distribution, remaining large populations, and the unlikelihood that it is in decline at a rate fast enough to trigger even Near Threatened". The range of a male wolverine can be more than 620 km2 (240 mi2), encompassing the ranges of several females which have smaller home ranges of roughly 130–260 km2 (50–100 mi2). Adult wolverines try for the most part to keep nonoverlapping ranges with adults of the same sex. Radio tracking suggests an animal can range hundreds of miles in a few months. Female wolverines burrow into snow in February to create a den, which