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Iconic Predator-Prey Study In Peril
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have charted the ebb and flow of moose and wolf populations on Isle Royale in Lake Superior for nearly 50 years. Ice bridges to Canada regularly supplied the genetic stocks for much of that time, but have been rare in recent years leading to inbreeding, dwindling populations and developmental deformity for the wolves that inhabit the island. Now, with the first solid freeze in six years, new wolves could join the mix ... or the remaining island dwellers could leave."
If new wolves do not appear, or all of the current wolves leave, the moose would end up destroying the native Fir population. The wildlife service is considering introducing new wolves as part of a genetic rescue, or reintroducing wolves should the population reach zero on its own.
That last statement could be considered non-English...
-SaNo
Wow, have we given up all semblance of trying to be editors and know the English language? Or are we just throwing words at it?
I can only assume that should say If new wolves do not appear, or all of the current wolves leave
.
Pretty sad, guys.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If new wolves to not appear, or all of the current wolves lead, the moose would end up destroying the native Fir population. The wildlife service is considering introducing new wolves as part of a genetic rescue, or reintroducing wolves should the population reach zero on its own.
Quite honestly, my English is awful. But given that it is my third language, I do not feel bad about it. I would neverthless feel very bad about it if I was an Editor on a supposedly reputable site like Slashdot.
They have to reintroduce the wolves because everyone keeps forgetting their names.
Then there's that jackass who introduces himself as "Wile E. Coyote"
So....natural processes occurring pretty much exactly as they have for thousands, if not millions of years. And humans, feeling they know how things "should" be, are going to interfere. Brilliant!
Prediction: we'll cock it up.
-Styopa
This will just be spun into an example of how Global Warming is to blame. Despite the wolf population doesn't predate the 1940s...
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
The island is too small to represent the rest of the habitat.
To be honest I see this as a microcosm vs. a macrocosm.
I think time and money could be better used elsewhere.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Whether the wolves leave or a few arrive, what is going to happen is that in three or so years the excessive moose population will indeed overrun its browse, and die off from starvation.
Again. Exactly as happened the last time the moose population reached this point, and shortly popped up to over 2500 with no apparent wolf effects, from considerably more wolves.
If the moose damage is to be avoided, either NPS-hired sharpshooters or human hunters will have to cull the moose, period.
I work for the island, my heart says let nature take its course but at the same time without the money that comes in due to this wolf study there would be no isle royale. We run on a hair string budget as it is and if the wolves go away the island loses what draws the small amount of people we get in the open season.
For once we did not screw this one up. This is just nature playing the course.
And if we already know what will happen, what good is conducting the study? How is science being done if the outcome is known?
What value does maintaining the local fir population have? To who?
My thoughts are something will find a way to keep the moose population in check, even if it is starvation from a population so dense that all reachable vegetation is consumed.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Sooo, because some thing was not introduced until X moment in time you cannot blame a problem with it later on Y which correlates to the time when the thing is having a problem?
The term you are looking for is post hoc ergo propter hoc.
However it is possible, though unproven, that humans indirectly have caused this particular population imbalance through climate and/or habitat change. It think it will be extremely difficult to prove or to rule out. The only real question is whether we should get involved in supporting the wolf population on Isle Royal or not.
Global warming isn't "to blame" for this situation, but it is a factor: the infrequency of ice bridges between the mainland and the island has grown because of it. The real "blame" is more general human interference.
The summary is misleading in suggesting that new wolves have come to Isle Royale fairly often. They haven't (I think there were only two documented migrations) which is why this ongoing study has been so scientifically useful: the island has been a (mostly) closed system for decades, allowing scientists such as Rolf Peterson to track the system without too many external variables. Before the wolves arrived over the ice, Isle Royale was being deforested by its moose population (which can swim to the island). Prior to that, the apex predators on the island were humans, during the island's period as a mining, logging, and resort area. After the island was made a national park, humans left that role, which created a boom in the moose population, which led to overgrazing, which led to starvation of the moose, etc. The wolves have stabilized that system.
Before humans became a major influence on the island, it had a different predator/prey system, based on coyotes and caribou. But both of those populations have died out, and humans almost certainly played a part in that. Isle Royale is being preserved today as a wilderness, but it isn't an "untainted" one, and hasn't been for a couple hundred years. It is what it is because of human activities. Humans didn't introduce the wolves to Isle Royale, but in a very real sense, we made them necessary. Which is why I support the idea of restocking the island's wolf population, in much the same way that we restocked many of the rivers of the Great Lakes region after destroying their fish populations.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Kind of ironic, that the experts want to get involved.... yet again ...
Why.... because they can, so, they can generate yet another useless study, that the poor tax payer has to fund somewhere along the line.
Mankind hasn't learned yet that mother nature will balance where she sees fit. No need for mankind to intervene
Then again mankind usually does intervene and messes things up and throws all into a tail spin....
This microsystem is an anomaly. Let it collapse as it eventually will. This kind of thing happens all the time in nature. I watched a neat documentary of a small ecosystem along a desert shore line with mainly a plant, a beetle, and chameleons in a food chain thriving off morning dew. The animals blew in/drifted in by chance and found a niche and any fluke weather pattern could collapse it. Just part of the roll of the dice.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yes, nature always finds a balance, which in this case would involve a balance missing animals and plants that people visiting the park value. If you don't care what particular balance nature finds, and want to just minimize the cost to the government, all national parks should just be sold off for commercial development and let nature find a balance that involves a lot of squirrels and not much else.
What about letting nature run its course and study that? I'm pretty sure no one was around to save all the species that went extinct a loooong time ago. In fact, the most dangerous predator has already been introduced to nature, humans...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
$moose = Moose->new()
$wolf = Wolf->new()
($mutant_moose1, $mutant_moose2) = Land::split($wolf);
($mutant_wolf1, $mutant_wolf2) = Land::split($wolf);
Or is Isle Royale far away from Frostbite Falls?
I read this as "Ironic".
Makes more sense that way.
It is a good place to observe things like pack dynamics for one thing, in an easily controlled, relatively closed but still natural environment. The same with the pred/prey dynamics. Just because not everything observed is generalizable doesn't mean none of the data are.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Loosing funding? Loosing funding? Loose the Kraken!
Somehow I don't think wolves are essential to Finite Impulse Response filters.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The climate has been warmer in the past, it would be at some point if we were there or not (and in fact it's back this year). Eventually the wolves/moose are going to have to deal with a long period of no ice bridges, so we are just delaying the inevitable trying to maintain a status quo. Nature hates status quo...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is not a possible headline on a site that boasts of "news for nerds". The subject of that sentence is "study" and the verb cluster (elided in terse journalistic bravado) is "is now in" and the copular completion is "peril".
A failed study is a study that fails to replicate. A failed meme is a meme that fails to replicate. Perhaps we should also protest ALPHA, our seemingly self-inflicted wound.
The wolves could be replaced with Boris Badenovs. They would take care of troublesome moose (and squirrel).
You're missing one of the only-obvious-in-hindsight things we learned from Isle Royale in the first place. Wolves keep the forests alive not principally by controlling how many moose there are, but by controlling where the moose are willing to linger (and browse out young tree seedlings). As the forests grow, exactly where those spaces are change, but that's fine; excellent, even; keeps species and nutrients circulating through the system at a very long period.
It only takes an occasional wolf lurking in a copse to make the moose cautious, and it only takes a few mature trees in any decade to drop a lot of seeds. So a very few wolves can make the forest, and therefore the whole system, resilient to moose boom-bust cycles.
Pretty neat, I think!