Isle Royale Wolf Dies

Michigan Tech biologist Rolf Peterson says one of the few remaining gray wolves of Isle Royale National Park has been found dead after escaping to the mainland across a Lake Superior ice bridge. Peterson announced yesterday that the 5-year-old female’s body was discovered earlier this month along the shoreline on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation in northeastern Minnesota. Her loss was a blow to an already struggling wolf population at Isle Royale, which has fallen sharply in recent years. Only eight remained in 2013, down from 24 just five years earlier. The population last year was the smallest since scientists began observing the island’s wolves in the 1950s.