Isle Royale wolf opinions

Wolf Reintroduction on Isle Royale

/ mariezhuikov / 6 Comments
ISRO wolves MI tech

The last two resident wolves on Isle Royale National Park. Image courtesy of Michigan Technological University.

People keep asking me what I think about the latest efforts to reintroduce wolves on Isle Royale National Park. I suspect their questioning has something to do with the novel I wrote about the topic. (Do ya think?!)

Well, my novel “Eye of the Wolf” was more about the wolves saving themselves than human efforts to save them. But I wrote it because of my interest in the wolves’ real-life plight: the packs on the island were dying out due to long-term inbreeding and disease. This continued until only two wolves, a male and a female father/daughter combo were left.

My past blog posts about the wolves may have also spurred peoples’ questions. So I suppose I should share my thoughts.

I haven’t done so sooner because my interests have moved on to other endangered animals in the region. Nevertheless, I have been following the wolf reintroduction effort just for old time’s sake, and to see how the real story plays out.

Okay, enough caveats. Here we go.

I wish the National Park Service had waited to reintroduce new wolves until the two resident wolves lived out their lives. My fear is that the new, younger wolves will rip apart the old ones. It just seems disrespectful, and it could look bad for the park service. I can see the headlines now: Resident Isle Royale Wolves Slaughtered by New Wolves.

This fall the park service released four wolves on the island that were captured nearby in Minnesota. Their genetic rescue plan is to release at least 15 (and up to 25) more in the next three years. I just don’t think the old wolves stand a chance.

When this concern was voiced at one of the public meetings I attended about the reintroduction, the park biologist dismissed it, saying the resident wolves know the best hiding places because they’ve lived on the island longer than the newcomers. Somehow, that answer wasn’t comforting.

My other concern is that the new wolves, which are from the Grand Portage Ojibwe Reservation, will leave the island this winter if an ice bridge forms, thus wasting all the effort and taxpayer expense of transporting them there. Research has shown that transplanted wolves do try to find their way back home once they’re released.

I understand that the park service wanted to restock the island with wolves that are used to hunting moose, but I question whether having the first ones come from an area so close to the island is a good idea. It might have been better to get wolves from farther away, especially for these initial efforts. I fear another headline that reads something like: Reintroduced Wolves Leave Island for Home on Ice Bridge.

I also feel bad for the transplanted wolves. They are basically kidnapped from their packs and home territories, and dropped someplace strange on an island in the middle of Lake Superior. Is keeping wolves on Isle Royale worth that kind of disruption? I don’t know. It just seems kind of extreme.

Drugging wolves is also dangerous – one wolf slated for the reintroduction died in the process. [Update on November 13: one of the transplanted wolves was reported dead, cause unknown.] Is keeping wolves on Isle Royale worth that risk? The park service and the wolf researchers obviously think so.

Let me just say that although I’m supportive of reintroducing wolves to the island, I’m not optimistic things will work out as planned. Life and Mother Nature seem to find ways to mess up the best-laid human plans.

The story continues….

Isro female wolf 9-26

A female wolf — one of the first reintroduced to the island this fall. National Park Service image.

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Update: In early February 2019, one of the wolves reintroduced to the island (the female pictured above) walked back home to Grand Portage, Minn., on an ice bridge that formed on Lake Superior during cold weather. I hate to say it, but one of the headlines I feared happening has come true!

And Then There Were Two: An Update on the Status of Isle Royale’s Wolves

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments
isrowolvesrolfpeterson

The remaining wolf pair on Isle Royale. Photo by Rolf Peterson.

Last week I attended a public meeting by the National Park Service to hear about their preferred plan to deal with the declining wolf population on Isle Royale, a remote island-sized park in Lake Superior.

If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you may recall the story I wrote about the issue in 2015. At that point, there were three wolves left on the island. Now there are only two.

The deformed wolf mentioned in my last story is nowhere to be found (presumably dead) and the other two wolves, who may or may not be its parents, are still alive.

Researchers have discovered that they are a male and female wolf who are related to each other in several incestuous ways. (Hard to avoid this when you live on an island.) They are father and daughter, but also half-siblings. And they are old for wild wolves — six and eight years old. As such, it’s not likely they would have any (more?) ultra-incestuous offspring.

During the meeting, the park service staff discussed four alternative plans of action they are considering. Their preferred plan calls for the introduction of 20-30 wolves starting next fall/winter over a span of three to five years. It’s known in the Environmental Impact Statement as Alternative B.

The other alternatives involve taking no action, introducing a smaller number of wolves over a period longer than five years (20 years), and taking no action now but allowing for the option of action in the future.

Under Alternative B, the park service plans to capture packs of wolves, if they can, and to release them ASAP together on the island. They will collect wolves from the Great Lakes area, and ones that are not habituated to humans and are already used to eating moose for food. They want the wolves to spend as little time in holding pens as possible so that they don’t become habituated to them. Initially, the park service will provide moose carcasses (from Isle Royale) for the wolves to eat, but then will leave the wolves to fend for themselves. They will monitor them (with radio collars, etc.) to see how they are doing.

The fact that the park is considering messing with wolf introduction is a big deal. Normally, they are a “hands-off, let-nature-take-its-course” organization. But the wolves are so important to the island’s ecosystem and to controlling the moose population, that public pressure and human-caused global environmental changes have made the park willing to change its philosophy.

When I commented on this issue back in 2015, for nature-purist motives I was against any action. But now since it seems like the wolf population is indeed doomed, and it’s not likely that wolves will wander over to the island from the mainland on an ice bridge during the winter (especially right now as I am writing this and it’s 50-frikin’ degrees in February!), I am okay with the idea of introducing wolves.

What I am not so okay with is introducing the new wolves while the two existing wolves are still living on the island. At the meeting, when someone asked this question, the park biologist dismissed the concern, saying the existing wolves would have a survival advantage over the new wolves because they already know the island’s terrain, etc.

But come on, what chance do two old wolves have against 20-30 young whippersnapper wolves? I fear they will be shredded to pieces by the newcomers. I think it’s kind of inhumane to introduce the new ones while the old ones are alive. But for some reason, the park service is hot to do the introductions ASAP.

Another question that was dismissed at the meeting is whether the park would alter its plans for introducing the wolves if an ice bridge to the mainland was in place. The biologist said that wolf experts have told them the wolves would likely stay on the island.

I question this as well. The park service plans to get the wolves from MN, WI or Michigan. If I was a wolf, and my family and I were taken from our home not that far away (wolves can easily travel 40 miles in a day), dropped somewhere new, and there was a way to escape and go back home, I sure as heck wouldn’t stay there. Studies of wolves introduced in other situations found that they do travel away from the site of introduction toward their site of origin.

One would think the park service would want to ensure that the introduced wolves would stay in place by not introducing wolves if there was an ice bridge, but apparently not. This could be a waste of time and expense to taxpayers.

Another comment that was dismissed, and this time I’m glad it was dismissed, was the idea that people be used to control the moose population on the island instead of wolves. This would involve hunting, of course. Hunting on Isle Royale is currently prohibited by federal law. But also, I’d just rather not have the top predator on the island be humans instead of wolves. There are plenty of other places where people can hunt. And I can only imagine how hard it would be to haul a moose carcass over those island ridges. It was hard enough to haul my own carcass over them when I hiked!

Okay, enough of my ranting. If you’re interested in commenting on the plan, the deadline is March 15. And if you’d like to learn about Isle Royale’s wolves in a fun way, please read my novel, “Eye of the Wolf.”