Posted on 03/08/2007 2:34:44 PM PST by decimon
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Chased into the Lake Superior shallows, mauled and left for dead by fellow wolves, the young female struggled to shore and collapsed. A lone male came to the rescue, licking her wounds and staying on as she recovered.
Together they formed a successful and prolific pack, with the female bearing at least 19 pups. But their love story has ended tragically: A rival pack killed the female this winter, a year after fatally attacking her mate as he munched on a moose carcass.
"All we found were the skull and a radio collar," Rolf Peterson, a wildlife research professor at Michigan Technological University, said Wednesday.
Because of its isolation, the Isle Royale National Park is an ideal setting for wildlife study - and researchers are noting a troubling development: the island's wolf and moose populations are declining.
The population of moose - the wolves' primary food source - is at its lowest since wildlife biologists began studying the two species' predator-prey relationship in the park 49 years ago.
The annual census turned up 385 moose, down from the previous low of 450 last winter. Wolf numbers fell from 30 to 21 during the same period, largely because of hunger.
"We're definitely in uncharted territory," said John Vucetich, a Michigan Tech assistant professor who teams with Peterson on the project.
Isle Royale had more than 1,000 moose as recently as 2002. But nature has dealt a one-two punch: a run of unusually hot summers and an infestation of blood-sucking ticks.
Instead of fattening themselves for winter, moose are spending too much of the fleeting summers seeking shelter from the sun and trying to remove the nasty parasites by rubbing against trees and biting their hair out.
One moose can host tens of thousands of ticks. Weakened by weight and blood loss, many are unable to fight off ravenous wolf packs.
Despite their dramatic slide, it's highly unlikely all the moose will die, Peterson said.
"The wolves are the ones that would be at risk, through their own actions in a way," he said. "Ten years from now, it will be pretty dismal for the wolves" because they're gobbling up moose calves before they can breed and rebuild the herd.
Yet the wolves have overcome other dangers, including a virus outbreak that nearly wiped them out in the late 1980s.
"It looks terribly precarious," Vucetich said. "But amazingly, these things tend to fix themselves more often than not."
Peterson, who witnessed the earlier attack on the female and her rescue by her future mate from an airplane in 2000, said only one other wolf is known to have borne more pups during the study period.
She and her mate produced seven litters. "It's pretty unusual for a pair to survive and do well for that long," Peterson said.
They were alpha members of what the researchers dubbed the Chippewa Harbor Pack, one of three packs roaming the 45-mile-long archipelago in northwestern Lake Superior. The rival East Pack apparently caught her trespassing in its territory, Vucetich said.
Chippewa Harbor has two new alphas, whose strength and tenacity will determine whether the pack survives.
Although focusing on the wolves and moose, the scientists also monitor how their ups and downs affect other species. Foxes, for example, are hurting because wolves are eating every morsel of their kills, leaving less for other animals to scavenge.
"It's all so connected, and that's half of what makes it so fascinating," Vucetich said.
---
On the Net:
Isle Royale wolf study site: http://www.isleroyalewolf.org/
Another victim of fast food.
"moose are spending too much of the fleeting summers seeking shelter from the sun"
I knew the global warming angle would rear its head...
At least they had a good run.
The real challenge here is to somehow tie cheese into all this.
Bush's fault.
The bad news is they had to.
Aetius is an interesting tag.
Sounds like the law of the jungle in action to me. Pretty common in closely connected predator, prey situations. Snowshoe hares and bobcats in Michigan are in a similar situation.
What are the recorded average temperatures for the island, over the same time period?
True. Maybe a moose has munched someone's sister.
How are the Shriners and the Elk doing?
Someway, somehow this has got to be Bush's fault. Hmmmm. Let me think on this.
The tree huggers are probably unaware that prior to about 60 years ago, there were no wolves on the island at all. Global cooling allowed Lake Superior to freeze and established an ice bridge over which the first pack of wolves crossed over from Canada.
Swimmingly.
"Despite their dramatic slide, it's highly unlikely all the moose will die, Peterson said.
"The wolves are the ones that would be at risk, through their own actions in a way," he said. "Ten years from now, it will be pretty dismal for the wolves" because they're gobbling up moose calves before they can breed and rebuild the herd. "
I know this is supposed to be a "funny" thread, but this is the result of virtually ALL the eco-twit led "movements" in our national forests in the Pacific Northwest.
Overprotecting predators to the detriment of all game species.
"it will be pretty dismal for the wolves" because they're gobbling up moose calves before they can breed and rebuild the herd. "
How WONDERFUL will that be for the MOOSE...???
Yes. As I understand the cycle, the moose population will build to provide more food for the wolves. The wolf population will then grow until the wolves have killed off too many moose. Then the wolves will again die off.
Must have been the same with people until we found ways to break out of the cycle.
You can put great (grated) cheese on your pasties at the resturants in Copper Harbor, however, doing so labels you a total "flatlander-troll"- not to be confused with just the common troll. Flatlander trolls are the worst! And no, the sheriff in Copper Harbor doesn't have a sister who was bitten by a moose!!
Moose cheese?
Let me GUESS...you're not IN any area where there's wolves....ARE you..???
Not the noble, four-legged kind.
"Let me GUESS...you're not IN any area where there's wolves....ARE you..???
Not the noble, four-legged kind."
Wolves are NOT "noble".
They are just wild dogs....that kill for sport. They DESTROY game animal numbers and run farmers/ranchers out of business.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.