Posted on 03/16/2012 4:00:40 PM PDT by SJackson
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Isle Royale National Park’s gray wolves, one of the world’s most closely monitored predator populations, are at their lowest ebb in more than a half-century and could die out within a few years, scientists said Friday.
Only nine wolves still wander the wilderness island chain in western Lake Superior and just one is known to be a female, raising doubts they’ll bounce back from a recent free-fall unless people lend a hand, Michigan Tech University wildlife biologists Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich said in a report obtained by The Associated Press. There were 24 wolves — roughly their long-term average number — as recently as 2009.
“The wolves are at grave risk of extinction,” Vucetich said in an interview.
Their crash apparently results from a run of bad luck rather than a single catastrophe. A shortage of females has cut the birth rate, while breakdown of several packs boosted inbreeding and weakened the gene pool. Other troubles include disease and starvation from a drop-off of moose, the wolves’ primary food source.
Their population is the smallest since biologists began observing their interactions with moose in 1958, beginning what became the world’s longest-running study of predators and prey in a single ecosystem, Vucetich said. Previously, the closest they came to extinction was during a parvovirus outbreak in the 1980s when their numbers plummeted from 50 to 12.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If that's the case, then is there anything to be concerned about if they are facing extinction? Do they really belong there anyway?
I suspect that wolves have come and gone from the island many times over the last 12,000 years.
My Isle Royal map is fly pecked and yellowed but I still have hopes of a backpack trip there. Since my hiking buddies are in their mid 70’s it is looking less than likely
Yes, it's been designated an International Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations. And it's a tourist attraction. Because of the wolves. And just because there were no wolves there when I and lots of other freepers were born doesn't mean we can't freak out about the demise of the Canadian wolves.
Sarcasm aside, I think they should boost the wold population. Horrors, maybe issue some moose permits which will never happen. It's an artificial population as we maintain it, but still valuable.
It’s a wonderful place. The ridge trail down the center of the island has minimal elevation gain and is well maintained. I don’t recall just where they are, but if you get a current map, the ferry that circles the island allows for shorter hikes. Besides, they have a hotel, and some campgrounds only a couple miles from the hotel with screened in shelters so you don’t need to bring a tent.
I know of no animal which produces pelts of that quality.
My goodness, I didn't know that.
Let's halt the presses and pull out all the stops, folks. The U.N. says it's an important place to protect!
Yes, I have been on Isle Royale a couple of times over forty years ago and a couple of my cousins used to work on the island. I haven’t been to Lake Siskiwit but met people who went to Ryan Island. Not much there. Sure it’s beautiful, but so is the rest of the island and you don’t have to portage a canoe over Isle Royale trails to see most of it.
I figured since it is on your graphic...
A couple of facts.
First, wolves were never part of Isle Royale. You can check the historical record of the Isle Royale Mining Co. back in the 19th century, and there’s no mention of wolves.
The wolves wandered across Lake Superior from Canada in the 1930s when the lake froze.
Second, that idiot Rolf Peterson has been milking this situation for grants for 30 years. The idiot can’t tell a wolf cast print from a dog print. How do I know that? Because I asked.
Peterson’s gears are slipping and have been for years.
Isle Royale is a vacation lodge for liberal idiots like Peterson and other leftist researchers who want to keep ordinary people off their Island paradise.
We fought these simpleton c&ck s###kers back in the 1990’s when these national park Nazis tried to ban boats from Isle Royale. We won, but it cost us $600,000 in attorney’s fees. And the fat-ass liberal judge refused to make the federal pigs pay our expenses.
I and other good people have spent time on Isle Royale and know the political background. What the federal fascist pigs did to original property owners on the island is criminal.
I can tell that story, too.
Have you hiked it? I haven't been there in decades so I can't speak on how well maintained it is, but some boy scouts we met said the hike to Mt Franklin was the toughest they had ever hiked, including the Cumberland Gap. It's not the absolute elevation gain but the elevation gain and loss and gain and loss... That island is like a washboard.
Here’s a link for those who wish to explore more about boaters and the Nazi pigs in the NPS:
http://isleroyale.org/newsletters/Sep%201999.pdf
We are dealing with thieving federal pigs.
Lock and load, people.
Isle Royale is actually very close to Grand Marais, Minnesota. The island is part of Michigan because it belonged to the USA and Michigan became a state many many years before Minnesota (1858).
Just a bit of geography.
You sure can see where the ice scoured that island.
I remember learning about the moose and wolves crossing the ice to Isle Royale when I was in school...it was in a science lesson about the life cycle of the tapeworm...don’t eat the moose, don’t eat the wolves, and don’t drink the water on Isle Royale...
A big ten-four! Follow the money; the NPS “naturalists” have long proclaimed the natural environment of this unnatural wolf population as an ideal predator/prey relationship, which of course it isn’t. I say let nature take its course and let these wolves die out until some time in the future when they migrate back. After all, a new global cooling period is now expected, eh?
JC
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