An 11-year-old Grand Portage girl discovered a famous Isle Royale radio-collared wolf dead on the shore of Lake Superior near her home on Grand Portage Bay on February 8, 2014 and her discovery caused a national stir because of the wolf ’s significance.
Alyssa Spry was outside playing on a cold Saturday when she found the wolf on the frozen beach. At first she thought the collar meant this was a dog and that it was someone’s pet. But her father, Chad Spry, explained to her that the collar was a tracking device used by researchers to learn more about wolves as they journeyed about in their day-to-day lives.
Nicknamed “Isabelle” by researchers, the 5-year-old female’s body will be sent to Fort Collins, Colorado for a necropsy by National Park Service veterinarians to determine what killed it.
“They will also study the carcass to get genetic information,” said Tim Cochrane, superintendent of the Grand Portage National Monument.
Spry’s find set off a mystery that took more than two weeks to solve. From where did this radio collared wolf come?
“The family turned the wolf over to Dr. Seth Moore [Grand Portage wildlife biologist who studies wolves and moose] to see if it was from Portage,” said Cochrane.
“Once it was determined not to be from Grand Portage, Seth contacted wildlife officials in Ontario. They said it wasn’t their wolf so the search continued. It turned out to be registered to Michigan Technological University,” said Cochrane, adding that the wolf ’s identity was eventually found through a series of serial numbers on the wolf ’s collar.
The wolf dubbed Isabelle was a lone wolf. She left her pack two years ago, which is normal behavior for a wolf that is ready to breed and goes in search of a mate. She was badly hurt in a fight last winter when her former pack assaulted her.
The story of Isabelle’s struggles was widely followed on the Internet after noted Isle Royale moose/wolf researchers Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich documented her struggles. The two are employed by Michigan Tech as professors and spend seven weeks each winter on the island conducting predator/ prey research.
According to the Isle Royale Facebook page, Peterson and Vucetich last saw Isabelle on January 21 from an airplane they use for observation. Peterson said Isabelle was heading toward the pack that hurt her last year, and that she might have left the island that night.
Isabelle’s journey across the 14 miles of frozen water to Grand Portage is unique. Ice bridges have been rare since the winters of the 1960s and early 1970s. Wildlife researchers had hoped this winter’s freeze would bring more wolves to the island, but bridges work both ways and so far it appears that only Isabelle has used the path to get to the mainland. No one has documented wolves going to the island.
The loss of Isabelle and another wolf drops the number of Isle Royale wolves to nine. Earlier this year it was announced that three wolf pups had been born and were doing well, giving scientists hope that the fragile wolf population would rebound. Those births pushed the number to 11 wolves.
Peterson and Vucetich are advocating for bringing more wolves to the island to diversify the genetic strains and halt the inbreeding that has led to a myriad of physical problems for some wolves. However, other scientists advocate for nature to work its natural course. Either the wolves rebound or they perish.
“All across the world scientists have long found that on islands species ‘wink in and wink out,’” said Cochrane, neither advocating for or against bringing wolves to the island to replenish the breeding stock.
Isle Royale Superintendent Phyllis Green said it’s still too early to import wolves to the island. As long as the ice bridge is intact, wolves have a chance to venture from the mainland to the big island, she said, adding that nature may correct the current problem, and that the current wolves have another five years (or so) before human intervention is something to even consider.
For now Isabelle is being held at the Grand Portage Monument until she can be transported to Fort Collins and the mystery of what caused her death can be answered.
When asked if she was scared when she found the wolf, Alyssa said, “Yeah, I was scared. I was alone, going for a walk along the beach. I feel bad that it (wolf) died. But I really don’t because a wolf attacked my dog a month and half ago. Lucky my dad was home to save her.”
Chad Spry added, “When I went down and saw the wolf dead it looked like there had been a struggle about 30 feet from it, fur and blood. I’m not sure how they (early investigators) came up with the conclusion that it had been shot.”
As for Alyssa and Isabelle, the lone wolf and the curious girl will be forever linked.
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