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USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

2017

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An Unparalleled Opportunity For An Important Ecological Study, L. David Mech, Shannon M. Barber-Meyer, Juan Carlos Blanco, Luigi Boitani, Ludwig Carbyn, Glenn Delgiudice, Steven H. Fritts, Djuro Huber, Olof Liberg, Brent Patterson, Richard R. Thiel Oct 2017

An Unparalleled Opportunity For An Important Ecological Study, L. David Mech, Shannon M. Barber-Meyer, Juan Carlos Blanco, Luigi Boitani, Ludwig Carbyn, Glenn Delgiudice, Steven H. Fritts, Djuro Huber, Olof Liberg, Brent Patterson, Richard R. Thiel

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Wolves (Canis lupus) and moose (Alces americanus) have been studied since 1958 on 540-squarekilometer Isle Royale National Park, in Lake Superior. Wolves arrived there across the ice around 1949, and the population once increased to about 50, averaging about 25 annually (Mech 1966, Jordan et al. 1967, Vucetich and Peterson 2009). However, for various reasons, wolf numbers there have now dwindled to 2 nonbreeders, and the US National Park Service has proposed reintroducing 20–30 wolves over 3 years (National Park Service 2016). This situation offers an unparalleled opportunity to promote science-based management of this unique national park. …