What really matters is what they feel like they are, not genetics. Believing that chromosomes decide anything is anti-science.
Posted on 04/13/2016 5:04:45 AM PDT by SJackson
Nature's balance has become unbalanced on Michigan's breathtaking Isle Royale.
Two wolves remain on the desolate national park, Kim Kozlowski of The Detroit News reports. Meanwhile, the island’s growing moose population is estimated at 1,300.
Professor Rolf Peterson of Michigan Technological University tells that paper that as a result of the shrinking wolf population, the island’s moose population is likely to keep growing unchecked. The island had about 500 moose in 2009 and 1,250 a year ago, while the wolf population peaked at 50 in 1980, Kozlowski writes.
“As we have been stating for several years, wolf predation has been virtually absent for several years, now five years,” Peterson says. “In the absence of limitation by wolves, the moose population is rapidly increasing, and there is concern that moose browsing may do long-term damage to the forests of Isle Royale.”
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National Park Service considers bringing more wolves to Isle Royale , 3-30-16
The National Park Service is taking a closer look at whether or not to bring more grey wolves to Isle Royale National Park. Only two wolves remain on the island now.
To help make its decision, the park service wants to hear from you. It’s accepting public comments on the question right now.
At one point, there were as many as 50 wolves on Isle Royale. But Phyllis Green, Superintendent of the Isle Royale National Park, says that number was abnormal.
“Fifty was a very unusually high number — probably one of the highest concentrations of wolves ever found per acre,” Green says.
The island kept the animals from dispersing, and that causes problems for wolves.
“Islands are pretty hard on any species,” she says. “You kind of have to adapt and survive or leave.”
She says oftentimes a species will disappear from an island completely. That’s a risk for wolves on Isle Royale.
The proposed courses of action
The National Park Service plans to assess four different courses of action to help the wolf population.
The first option is no action — to let nature take its course. Green says that’s typically what the park service opts for.
But that could be risky.
Green says “very low, intermittent introduction of wolves naturally” caused wolves to inbreed. That’s likely what made it hard for the animals to sustain their population. For that reason, the park service is considering bringing animals in to reestablish the population.
Alternative B does just that. It brings a new group of wolves to the island during a one-time period, which could take a couple years.
“And the question is, could you improve upon the start-up point?” Green says. “Is there a way to introduce a certain number of wolves over a short time period that have enough genetic diversity that they could carry themselves through the next cycle on Isle Royale?”
The third option, Alternative C, would bring wolves onto the island as often as needed throughout the next 20 years at least.
“So under that scenario you’ll do some type of a start-up population, or intermixing with the current population — provided they’re still there — and you would add wolves at a certain interval,” Green says. “But that’s still very problematic, because wolves don’t exactly greet each other with open arms as often as with bared fangs.”
With that in mind, Green says this plan would require “a pretty good backup strategy.”
The final alternative is a bit of a hybrid — the park service would take no action right now. But it could decide to introduce wolves later.
“It’s going to be a little more complicated than the other two alternatives, because it’s going to try to be more adaptive and really evaluating what’s going on in the park and then adjusting the course forward from there,” Green says.
Now the plan is to evaluate the options.
“I think it’s a real positive in our society that we’re taking a look at how we help the natural world stay intact,” Green says. “But the natural world also has its own boundaries and processes and I think we need to be respectful of that as we think about whether we should tinker in those processes.”
The public is invited to read the park service's revised scope of the environmental impact statement and to comment.
These comments will be added to ones the service has already received from people in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and 19 other countries.
You can comment on the park service's proposals here.
What really matters is what they feel like they are, not genetics. Believing that chromosomes decide anything is anti-science.
Shoot the two wolves and open hunting season for the moose!
Mother nature at work.
#WolvesLivesMatter
Thanks for the Ping. :)
Okay ,looks like that armoured Moose suit is now going into production.
Sometimes Humans hunt Moose, Sometimes Moose hunt Humans.
“Why don’t these people just mind their own f’n business?”
Easy….because they are government employees with fat paychecks who need to pretend they are doing something to earn them. Where do you think those tons of pages of government regulations came from? All these taxpayer funded agencies ought to be scrapped. Life in the USA would improve dramatically.
It really is easy to just throw up your hands and let the idiots blow more cash. I'm all for private foundations introducing wolf populations and paying for studies of it (and the documentary of these wolves that is being screened right now is a great opportunity to fund raise for those options.)
But there's no reason for taxpayers to pay a dime for any of this. The most profitable solution is to offer hunting permits - do that and encourage all objectors to help fund wolf re-population and adjacent studies of that population. Everyone wins.
You are incorrect Apostle Island Park officials checked the ice conditions Wednesday to make sure the ice was almost a foot thick to handle the foot traffic.
Winter of 2015 was iffy
Howk says they thought the ice was thick enough for the caves to open two times in the past few months but strong winds broke up the ice cover. He says he’s unsure how long the caves will be accessible, and it could change depending on the weather
Wolves ...because what could be worse than too many mooses?
It does sound like a perfect hunting ground. What does moose steak taste like?
'My sister bit a moose.'
It’s a natural cycle. When a large population of moose get old they become arthritic and easy to catch. Then the wolf population booms. Then later, when the moose population declines, and the ones who are around are young, fast and healthy, the wolf population declines.
Just like the climate, Ma Nature has got this.
Wrong answer. Go to the back of the class.
They should introduce bullets to control the moose population. Hunters will pay top dollar for those tags, and they can specify how many males, females, calves are culled, which will make the remaining population balanced and healthier. The wolves will concentrate on calves which is not the best for maintaining a population.
Using the same stupid logic, why not introduce a disease...
I meant the two winters prior to the one that is just ended.
Introduce panthers
Introduce panthers
“I think it’s a real positive in our society that we’re taking a look at how we help the natural world stay intact,” Green says. “But the natural world also has its own boundaries and processes and I think we need to be respectful of that as we think about whether we should tinker in those processes.”
Two diametrically opposed statements, IMHO. Shoot the meese till there are few enough of them. Or just let nature take its course as it did for thousands of years before we started butting in...and some new wolf will cross the bridge, take out the inbred residents and establish a new pack.
Doesn’t the existing wolf pack try to kill newcomers? But with only two existing, introducing a pack of a dozen or so to start, I guess that would not be a problem.
If parvo was a problem before, what makes them think it won’t be again? Let’s pay all kinds of money for wolves just to put them on an island to suffer...makes sense if you want to reduce wolf numbers!
On the other hand, people need to eat and aren’t affected by parvo. All the complaining of money spent on foodstamps and we can’t let folks hunt? With all the weapons they harvest from folks, they can’t loan some out to folks to hunt to eat?
Sometimes government officials really blow my mind. They aren’t very resourceful.
These 21st century wolves are probably gender neutral-—it’s the IN thing these days.
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