Animal had crossed frozen Superior into Minnesota
Written by Louise Knott Ahern
A wolf from Isle Royale National Park who was found dead after crossing a frozen Lake Superior to Minnesota last month was likely killed unintentionally, a park official said Friday.
The female wolf was found dead Feb. 8 inside the reservation boundaries of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.
A examination of her body led to the discovery she had been shot by a pellet gun. The pellet apparently entered her body between two ribs and became lodged in her chest, according to a statement issued by the National Park Service Friday.
Isle Royale Superintendent Phyllis Green said officials from the Grand Portage Band alerted the National Park Service when one of its members discovered the wolf’s remains and identified her by the radio collar she wore.
The park service worked with local police to investigate and determined whomever shot the wolf probably only meant to scare her away from a residential area.
That means even if they didn’t intend to kill her, the shooter was within his or her legal rights to do so, Green said.
“They didn’t use the caliber of gun you would use to kill a wolf,” Green said. “If that air pellet had hit half an inch to the right or left, the outcome would have been less significant. It probably wouldn’t even have killed her. But whether she was shot with an air pellet gun or a rifle with intent to kill, it was still under the legal authority of the band member to take those actions.”
Only 9 wolves remain
Legal or not, the death of the wolf nicknamed Isabelle has further complicated a conversation about how the National Park Service should deal with the threatened population of wolves who live on the rugged island park.
Only nine wolves remain on Isle Royale, down from a high of 50 in the early 1980s. Several factors have played a role in the wolves’ demise, including a bout with canine parvovirus that wiped out nearly half of them in the early 80s.
But researchers who have studied the wolves and moose of Isle Royale for decades say the animals ultimately are suffering because of climate change.
Warming water temperatures have led to a 70 percent reduction in Great Lakes ice since the 1970s, making the ice bridge between the island and the mainland all but nonexistent except during unusually cold winters like this one.
Without the ice bridge, the wolves have become trapped in a cycle of inbreeding that has led to deformities and other problems, said Rolf Peterson, the biologist who has led the world-renown Michigan Technological University Wolf-Moose Project since the early 1970s.
Peterson and his research partner, Michigan Tech Professor John Vucetich, have called on the National Park Service to bring new wolves to the island to inject fresh genetics into the declining bloodline.
It’s a controversial proposal, because park service policy only allows such intervention when animals are dying because of direct human activity. If the National Park Service agrees to the so-called genetic rescue plan, it would signal a recognition that climate change requires a new way of managing wildlife and wilderness.
The massive ice cover this year proved how important the ice bridge has been historically for allowing animals to come and go from the island, Peterson said. But it also proves that winters like this are too unpredictable to be counted on as the only means for saving the wolves, he said.
“What the story of Isabelle means to me is that wolves will readily cross ice, and as we look into history we see several instances that suggest they did, and that’s probably how they’ve kept going until the 90s,” Peterson said Friday. “The fact that she took advantage of the first day in her life ever to leave the island tells us something. This isn’t working for them. This is not a good situation.”
The National Park Service doesn’t know when it will make a decision. Officials held a series of public hearings last year on the subject and are gathering information about climate change scenarios that could shed some light on what the future looks like for Isle Royale if extreme weather changes continue.
It could take as long as a year to determine if any new wolves crossed over to the island on this year’s ice bridge, Green said.
“The only fortunate part of this is that because she died and the band informed us, we’re going to learn a lot from her once Rolf has a chance to look at her and study the genetic issues and the whole disease side of things,” Green said. “And she also proved that ice bridges work.”