If I had been able to radio collar the pack, or some of them, we would have learned more. Why didn’t the pack get bigger? Why didn’t I find dead wolves? We know wolves have a litter every year. On Isle Royale, it remained a mystery why the pack I followed stayed at that number for three years.
Q Fifteen wolves constitutes a larger pack than typically is seen in northern Minnesota.Ī Correct, but we do see some packs in Minnesota that large. Q You note in the book the frequent presence of ravens on wolf-killed moose.Ī Some studies indicate as much as 25% of a wolf kill is consumed by ravens. Once they leave a kill, they are hunting again. Eventually, by the fourth day, it’s time to go. After that they’re down to the bones and chewing on the hide. The first three days, they eat the intestines, muscles and organs. Q How long will a pack of 15 stay on a moose carcass?Ī About three days, though a smaller pack would stay longer. However, radio tracking started in 1968, and that offered new research opportunities. But when you were there the island was much more open, which helped you see wolf interactions with moose by airplane that likely aren’t possible today, due to tree cover.Ī The vision I had from the air watching wolves hunting moose couldn’t be replicated by researchers who came after me on the island. Q Visitors to Isle Royale today see a heavily forested island. If a moose runs, wolves have a better chance, even though the moose is kicking with his rear legs and swatting with his front hooves. In that case, there’s not a lot of kicking by the moose. If a moose is healthy and just stands there and defies the wolves, the wolves will often give up.
Q How do moose fend off an attack by 15 wolves?Ī Usually, by just standing their ground. Even after all these years, we’re not sure of the success rate of summer hunts. Q Killing a moose every few days or so seems to indicate a high degree of predator efficiency.Ī In fact, only about 7% of hunts by wolves were successful. Sometimes they bury food a mile from a kill and dig it up when they need it.
Wolves also will cache parts of a kill to eat later. If they can’t find a prey animal near them, they will continue to search far and wide. The density of moose on Isle Royale is probably the highest in the world, and in different settings wolves may have to hunt longer than that. How frequently would that pack kill a moose?Ī They were able to kill every few days. Q You followed a pack of 15 wolves throughout your three years of study. I was able to confirm this by aging the moose that were killed by wolves.
Most often, they end up with calves, older animals and moose that are debilitated due to parasites, broken bones or for other reasons. Q What types of moose do wolves typically kill on Isle Royale?Ī Wolves generally don’t take just any moose, a fact that has been demonstrated elsewhere as well. Since then the herd has varied between 1,000 and 2,000. But there are no deer, bears or caribou, for example, to complicate the study of wolf predation.Ī During the three years I was there, between 500 and 600. In summer on Isle Royale, the beaver comes into play as prey animal for wolves. Q What is unique about Isle Royale’s predator-prey relationship between wolves and moose?Ī It’s the only place where there is one large prey animal and once predator. Now in a compelling new book to be launched Tuesday titled “Wolf Island: Discovering the Secrets of a Mythic Animal,’’ Mech, along with Twin Cities co-writer Greg Breining, chronicles Mech’s life and times on Isle Royale - camping, hiking and observing from a single-engine airplane how wolves and moose interact in their constant struggle for survival. Mech’s three-year groundbreaking project detailed for the first time the killing efficiency of wolves and the vulnerability of moose on the 210-square-mile Lake Superior island. Renowned Minnesota wolf researcher Dave Mech was in his early 20s and a graduate student at Purdue University when he arrived on Isle Royale in 1958 to study the predator-prey relationship between wolves and moose.
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