[hinckley buzzard]

Isle Royale has been a sort of naturally occurring experiment on the boom-bust cycles of predator-prey populations. Wolves originally appeared there after crossing the ice during a long past winter. They and moose have fluctuated back and forth in characteristic fashion, but now appear to have reached a tipping point. The park service should introduce more wolves to restore some balance and control the potentially destructive moose population.

[SJackson]

Yes. Unmentioned in the article, a drop back in 1980-82 from 50 to 14 caused by canine parvovirus though to have been brought over by a visitor. The population never recovered from that, thought to be caused by a lack of genetic variability. For anyone interested.

FIVE DECADES OF FLUCTUATING WOLF AND MOOSE POPULATIONS

[stormer]

Agreed. They’ll end up like the St. Matthews caribou.

[TYVets]

Isle Royale has been a sort of naturally occurring experiment on the boom-bust cycles of predator-prey populations.

Mother nature at work.

[CurlyDave]

...The park service should introduce more wolves to restore some balance and control the potentially destructive moose population.

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.