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.
How about a hunting season.
Naw, that would make sense.
L
I've no problem with bringing wolves to the island, though it may be a bit late. The alternative, cycles of moose starvation. I won't suggest the equally logical issuance of limited numbers of moose tags to hunters.
Alternately, they could just allow hunting....
They could make good money off of that.
Won’t happen, can’t let visitors see that. Place is deserted in the winter which would provide a great opportunity.
If it’s a national treasure then just leave it alone.
Yep.
They left out an important detail: Are the wolves two males, two females, or one of each. Or does that distinction no longer matter to today’s more enlightened and open-minded scientists?
Where did the 50 wolves go? Lake Superior was frozen solid the two winters past, did they just walk away?
The first wolves arrived during one of the lake freezes. Whether or not more wolves arrived during later freezes remains a question. If the island is down to two wolves, there could be a future inbreeding problem.
Note post 13. The population problem dates to the 80s when it dropped from 50 to 14 due to parvo. I believe there were hopes some might cross over last winter, but apparently no luck. Given the fact that the wolf population is relatively recent, I’d support introducing a few new packs. Or figure out how to deal with the moose problem, there are no other predators, the coyotes being driven out decades ago by the wolves, and they can’t deal with moose even if they do turn up on their own.
Wolves on the island: heads up!
The population also was not very strong because it was very inbred.
There were three wolves left, and one did exit on the ice bridge last winter, but was shot on the Minnesota mainland. People don’t really love having adult wolves in their neighborhoods.
Agreed. They’ll end up like the St. Matthews caribou.
Maybe the moose can teach the wolves to be open minded.
Sounds to me like the wolves they’ve got aren’t doing their job. They need to import some Mexican wolves. And pay them $15 an hour!
Why don’t these people just mind their own f’n business?
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