A Turn Toward Extinction For Isle Royale Wolves

Other episodes in this series: 
Specials
Date: 
March 30, 2012
Wolves on Isle Royale

Listen

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialise correctly.

By Bob Allen

A new report shows wolves on Isle Royale have taken a sudden turn towards extinction.

For half-a-century, scientists have studied the predator-prey behavior of wolves and moose on the island. It's the longest running wildlife study in the world. 

The National Park Service manages Isle Royale as a wilderness, with a hand-off policy of not intervening. But some researchers say if the wolves die out, the moose will radically change the island's ecology. 

IPR's Bob Allen talks with Biologist Rolf Peterson of Michigan Tech University, who's been studying the animals on Isle Royale for more than forty years. He's co-author of a paper that lays out the positions for and against intervening to replace wolves on Isle Royale should they go extinct.

Community Discussion Rules

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
Type the characters you see in this picture. (verify using audio)
Type the characters you see in the picture above; if you can't read them, submit the form and a new image will be generated. Not case sensitive.