Wolverines are the ‘embodiment of wilderness’. Can they make a US comeback?

The animal had largely disappeared from the country, but the years-long debate over its recovery is coming to a head

The most famous wolverine is arguably a surly, lonely superhero human with deadly, retractable claws. One of the most famous actual wolverines, at least in the world of wolverine researchers, was named M56.

The wandering male with stubby legs embodied all the elusive mustelid's personality traits when it trekked hundreds of miles from north-west Wyoming through desert and sagebrush sea to Rocky Mountain national park in central Colorado. There he spent a few years looking, presumably, for a mate, before turning back north, walking hundreds of more miles and getting shot by a ranch hand in North Dakota.