Just what killed Isabelle, the Isle Royale wolf found dead on the shore in Grand Portage on February 8 is still a mystery.
Isle Royale National Park Superintendent Phyllis Green said that while it will take months to complete a full necropsy by National Park veterinarians located in Fort Collins, Colorado where Isabelle’s remains were sent, “They will come forth with a preliminary cause of death in the very near future.”
Isabelle is the name wildlife researchers gave a 5-year-old wolf that grew up on Isle Royale and traveled across an ice bridge to Grand Portage. With only six or seven adult wolves and three pups remaining on the island, losing Isabelle was a blow to researchers hoping to see the wolves rebound without bringing in wolves from the outside, something the National Park Service has considered to boost numbers and keep the gene pool refreshed.
However, said Green, it is still too early to consider that option as long as there are enough wolves to breed and build back the population. During the late 1970s there were as many as 50 wolves on Isle Royale and the moose population was stable. Currently there are almost 1,000 moose on Isle Royale and their numbers grow every year. Without wolves to keep moose numbers in check, the fear is that the island will become defoliated and moose will succumb— eventually—to starvation.
Isabelle’s lonely plight was made famous by Michigan Tech wildlife biologists Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich two years ago when she was driven out of her pack and they chronicled her travels on Facebook. The two researchers spend seven weeks each winter studying wolves and moose, keeping alive one of the longest predation studies ever conducted.
Leave a Reply