Wolves on Isle of Royal could go extinct!

[shoots-straight]

Looks like a good case can be made for wolf management here. If the population of wolves would have been kept to levels that wouldn't have threatened their prey base, they themselves wouldn't be threatened.

"You have to kill them to save them'.
"You can love something to death".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_re_us/us_isle_royale_wolves

 

[lamdilligaf]

Rolf Peterson is a very interesting individual, and his office at Michigan Technological University used to be full of pictures from the two weeks each winter that he spent on the island documenting the wolf-moose interactions. The pictures of the aftermath of wolf interpack wars resulting from prey depletion are particularly impressive; dead, torn up wolves all over the winter landscape. He spent his entire career studying this unique example of a large predator-prey relationship. He had come to the conclusion that it was approximately a 35 year population cycle for that particular case. It was the first time that a wolf-prey relationship was studied long enough to determine the population cycling time. That 35 year result occured without intervention by man (no hunting, etc.), so how it actually pertains to our problem is anyones guess. I'm not sure if he still holds to the 35 year cycle theory in light of the article that SS showed. Peterson has a real informative book published on the Isle Royale wolf-moose story, if anyone is interested.