Senators call for action to save Isle Royale wolves

WASHINGTON – Michigan's U.S. senators today urged the National Park Service to shorten its timetable for addressing a sharp decline in the wolf population at Isle Royale and to consider importing more of the species onto the remote Lake Superior island to bolster its numbers.

The letter to National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis comes after reports, including that in the Free Press, that only three wolves remain on Isle Royale, down from nine last year, according to the winter survey conducted by scientists at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.

As the Free Press reported last month, with the population dropping so sharply, Michigan Tech scientists said they would not be surprised if no wolves remain on the 206-square-mile island, which is also a national park, by next winter.

"An extinction of wolves at Isle Royale could lead to significant, harmful changes to the ecosystem in this remote park," the senators said in the letter to Jarvis. "The three remaining wolves may struggle to reproduce, and if they do produce offspring, the tiny genetic pool will lead to inbreeding and further complications."

An NPS spokesman said Jarvis "will respond, directly and in a timely fashion, to the senators" but offered no other comment on the letter, which was circulated by U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, also D-Mich., as well as Sens. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., signed the letter to Jarvis.

The senators want the National Park Service to shorten what is believed to be a 2- to 3-year process for deciding what to do about the declining wolf population to a year or less and reconsider what Peters and the other said is a decision not to bring new wolves to Isle Royale in the near term.

"Bringing new wolves to Isle Royale ... should be preserved as an option," the letter said. "Replenishing the current Isle Royale wolf pack should be strongly considered, especially as an emergency measure."

"Unless the NPS acts quickly, wolves are almost sure to disappear from Isle Royale," the senators added.

Wolves reached Isle Royale more than 50 years ago, crossing frozen ice on the lake. At its peak, the pack reached 50 wolves and averaged about 25 wolves a year until a population crash in recent years, largely due to inbreeding. As the wolf population has fallen, however, the moose population has taken off, from 500 to 1,200 moose in the last four years.

Such an increase in the moose population is expected to have wide-ranging impacts on vegetation and the ecology of the island unless controlled. That, in turn, could lead to a collapse of the moose population as the available plants are consumed.

The senators asked Jarvis to complete a review no later than June 1 of next year and asked for a response to their letter no later than July 1 of this year.

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.