Isle Royale Forums

From the NPS:
Two more wolves have arrived on the island! On Tuesday, October 2nd, NPS boat BEAVER transported this five year old female from Minnesota, who waited in the crate for less than an hour.

On Thursday, October 4th, a two year old female arrived via seaplane from Minnesota. She quietly exited her crate this morning between monitoring checks by NPS personnel.

This brings the total number of wolves relocated since September 24th to four.

Midwest Ed wrote: ↑Fri Oct 05, 2018 3:37 pm Looks like Siskiwit Bay campground.

Definitely Siskiwit Bay. Good eye.

Latest press release with a bit more detail:
https://www.nps.gov/isro/learn/news/two ... royale.htm

Midwest Ed wrote: ↑Fri Oct 05, 2018 3:37 pm

Ingo wrote: ↑Fri Oct 05, 2018 2:33 pm Fourth wolf released yesterday. No press release, but they posted photos.

Looks like Siskiwit Bay campground.

Posts for the earlier releases mentioned they left a moose carcass nearby in order to insure an easy first meal. It made me wonder where they obtained the moose.

The facebook page for the isle royale & keweenaw parks association posted a pic of the wolf on the moose carcass and said it had been placed for the trailcam observations. When I asked, they said a "sharpshooter" had been hired to take the moose. As a hunter, I kind of chuckled at the idea of a sharpshooter. That would be the easiest moose hunting in the history of moose hunting.

I have watched from a perfect vantage point where most of the wolves left the mainland to be brought to the newest US zoo. It has been interesting to say the least. I wonder how many more moose have been or will need to be shot and left as food or will beaver and apples be the staple for now. I believe the news of these shootings was leaked since the whole sharpshooter operation appeared to be quite covert in nature and once the word got out it made it into the press releases. It will be interesting to see how many of the animals survive the winter on the island or if we get a winter how many will come home. A biologist close to the operation commented that they will most likely die over there but time will tell. Hopefully that will not be the case as a lot of people have put a lot of work into this and the taxpayers a lot of money. The proposed Michigan wolves did not get there due to weather causing problems getting aircraft/vessels to the island I suspect since on mainland the weather would be much less of a concern. The logistics of the trapping in MN was easy since they all came off the reservation in close proximity to the landing area. MI trapping would be slightly more difficult to deal with when you take private/public property borders into consideration and the lake was much further away. It was mentioned that political pressure was a major influence in the decision of where to obtain the new wolves for the park/zoo. I too laughed at the mention of the sharpshooters, one from MN and one from MI, again politics playing a part in the home of the shooters. I did hear that one of the shooters was rather surprised to find that a rifle with a 200 yd zero was going to be an issue when it became apparent that the shots were likely 200 inches at best. The future is going to give lots to study and learn as a result of this. I am very guarded in my optimism however and hope the lessons learned are not those of what not to meddle in. Since all the new wolves are from different packs what will happen? Will they find each other and automatically join forces much like various ethnic groups immigrating to the USA did in the late 1800's early 1900's? Will they fight and kill each other or run away from each other? I find it interesting that MI wolves are thought to not yet have moose killing certification, (not sure where the training centers for this skill are located) when it seems the sole purpose of this experiment was to reduce the supposed population explosion of moose. Will we see other species vanish in the mean time? I am happy to see wolves leave this area since we have an overabundance of them. If the lab experiment doesn't work out as quickly as hoped perhaps a trade could be negotiated, bring 20-30 ISRO moose to MN for every 1/2 dozen MN wolves to ISRO.

I too share some of Capt. Don's concerns, particularly about the politics of all the various entities getting involved.

From a technical perspective, there is the 1995 Yellowstone reintroduction efforts to help guide some things. In Yellowstone, there were concerns that the homing instincts would cause the wolves to return to their original home in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. In an effort to counteract this instinct, large holding pens were initially used for several weeks, stocked with Elk carcasses that they called "acclimation" pens. Even so, some seemed to take off for home, traveling north into Montana. Let's hope that several months or years of acclimation exist on the Island before an ice bridge possibly triggers (or permits) a homing instinct.

With the moose population of Minnesota roughly 10 times that of Michigan it would seem reasonable that Michigan wolves are much more used to a diet of deer. I wonder if the carcass usage is to give them a taste of the menu as much as for an easy meal.