Isle Royale Forums

I suspect, as evident in the quotes in this article, the bureaucrats at the Department of Interior and NPS do not intend to pay much heed, if any, to the public input. My opinion is based also on their visible interaction in the past with the actual experts. If the expert opinions had been given more weight, this two year period would be over by now. Given their track record, it seems they are only paying lip service to outside opinions.

Shouldn’t the federal bureaucrats be open to telling their superiors (that would be us.) their actual intent by now? Of course they aren’t the only one’s responsible for this situation. Congress does have oversight but would need to pass legislation to ensure a result.

Maybe we should have started a campaign to put The Island’s name back to the original Chippewa one of Minong. That might have gotten the attention of the White house (see link) and all that comes with that.

Let me get this straight. The NPS didn't put the moose or the wolves on I.R. but has done just about everything possible to protect them. Maybe they're just not meant to survive. Too little genetic diversity.

DonNewcomb wrote:Let me get this straight. The NPS didn't put the moose or the wolves on I.R. but has done just about everything possible to protect them. Maybe they're just not meant to survive. Too little genetic diversity.

Caribou Island (smaller than IR) had caribou (surprise!) on it when Alexander Henry visited it in the mid 1700's. No wolves though - as he reported finding caribou strewn about dying from old age, not predation.

Interestingly Angelique Mott didn't speak of any Moose or Wolves in 1843 after being stranded on the island for the winter. (her husband Charlie succumbed to hunger). Hard to know if They had previously been hunted off the island.

ryan.levier wrote:

DonNewcomb wrote:Caribou Island (smaller than IR) had caribou (surprise!) on it when Alexander Henry visited it in the mid 1700's. No wolves though - as he reported finding caribou strewn about dying from old age, not predation.

My suggestion has been to introduce caribou to I.R. Presumably they would occupy a different habitat than the moose and provide a second large prey animal to support the wolves. They should treat the Island more like a test tube and less like a monument. But what do I know?

From "un-trammelled" to "test tube"; man has nearly "test tubed" the planet to the point of extinction now!

The wolf problem is not "sustenance", it's genetics. What is adding caribou to the equation supposed to resolve?

Most things man tries to "fix" in nature, he only makes more complicated/worse off. I stand by my original thoughts on the matter, let it be.

Well, there's little about Isle Royale that is "untrammeled". Man has made significant modifications to the island's environment over the centuries: logging, farming attempts, tourism. It's been a petri dish that biologists have been observing for at least 50 years. It seems that if a healthy ecosystem is to survive there (not overrun by sick, geriatric moose) someone will have to do something.