umber 10 wolves apiece. "We believe the West pack produced three offspring, but none of them survived," he says. "We don't know why for sure, but it may well have to do with the scarcity of moose at that end of the island." He says the park's moose population numbers 750 this year, as compared to 700 a year ago, with most of the animals concentrated in the east and middle portions of the island.

Peterson is encouraged by the fact that dead wolves found by the survey crew during the past few years have been disease-free and showed no direct signs of any genetic problem that biologists thought might have caused poor reproduction in past years. In the past year only one wolf has died on Isle Royale, and biologists determined that it had been killed in a territorial dispute by other wolves.

National Park officials are hoping for continued positive growth in the wolf population that would keep the total number of wolves on Isle Royale in the high 20s during the next several years.

Wolf research on Isle Royale is funded by the National Park Service, National Science Foundation, and Earthwatch.

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Contact: Dr. Rolf O. Peterson
ropeters@mtu.edu
906-487-2179
Michigan Technological University
11-Mar-1999

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