Hunting and scavenging will occupy most of its adult days, but for its first summer a male kit takes time to play with lichen. The young leave the mother in early winter at about a year of age to claim their own territory. Wolverine young experience a surprisingly high mortality rate of up to 30 percent, according to recent research conducted in northern Scandinavia by Dr. Arild Landa of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and colleagues at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science. Unrelated adult wolverines appear to be killing the kits, reported Dr. Landa, “perhaps to increase their own mating success.”