Continuing with our recent lupine theme, The Great Beyond is bringing you a special post on Isle Royale.

For fifty-years the wolves on this island in Lake Superior have been one side in what the Washington Post calls “the world’s longest-running ‘single predator-single prey’ study”.

“I’ve worked as a resource professional for many agencies and very seldom do we have 50 years of sustained study,” says Lyle Laverty, the assistant Secretary of the Interior (WLUCTV6). “So it’s really incredible to have that kind of information and value in understanding what’s happening with ecosystems.”

“It’s a fascinating place,” says Jennifer Donovan, Michigan Tech’s public relations director (The Grand Rapids Press). “The ecosystem is a closed one; moose aren’t going anywhere and neither are the wolves. It makes a perfect living laboratory for studying how they interact.”

Celebrations of this long-running study area are slightly gloomy though. Warmer temperatures are driving down moose numbers, and as the moose are the ‘single-prey’ what’s bad for the moose is bad for the wolf.

The Washington Post says:

No one thinks the moose, which arrived on Isle Royale about 100 years ago by swimming from the mainland, will disappear. But with fewer moose, the wolves could be doomed. Desperate wolves have been seen chomping on old moose bones and even eating green apples from trees.

Check out Scientific American’s Isle Royale slide show.

Images: NPS