The “West-End Trio,” one of two wolf packs remaining on Isle Royale.
The gray wolves of Michigan’s Isle Royale may soon go extinct. But before they do, they’re offering an important lesson for scientists: Have a little humility.
For more than 60 years, after their intrepid ancestors scrambled 14 miles across an ice bridge, packs of heavily inbred wolves have stalked the snow and evergreens of Isle Royale, a remote 850-square-mile archipelago in northwestern Lake Superior. For all that time, the wolves, normally known for their catholic prey selection, have feasted and famished off a single species, the yin to their predatory yang. They have hunted moose.
We know this because for as long as the wolves have stalked the moose, they have been tracked by a pack of Michigan scientists, in what has become a classic…
