Sources: Now, Isle Royale research can shift to all that’s being lost with the wolves by Ron Medor April 21, 2016
The 2016 annual report on the Isle Royale wolf/moose study, published Monday, won’t be the last from this legendary research project, Rolf Peterson was saying.
Three years of funding remains on the project’s major grant, and the focus can shift to impacts of wolf extinction: unchecked moose and beaver populations, reversal of the balsam fir’s recovery, and so on
Of course, these are matters of which science already knows a lot. But look out if whitetail deer gain a hoofhold.
Peterson, a researcher and former director of the wolf/moose project going back to 1971, believes two wolves remain alive on the island, although neither was actually sighted during this year’s winter survey, which concluded prematurely on Feb. 25 because of “administrative constraints” applied by the National Park Service.
One survivor is male and one female, and they are thought to have produced a pup as recently as 2014, but the animals are 6 and 8 years old and unlikely to produce more new wolves, which in their circumstances is probably just as well. Click HERE to read more.
Isle Royal Photographs