The Wolves and Moose of Isle Royale
Isle Royale is a small, 210-square-mile island near the northwest shore of Lake Superior.
Since the 1940s, the island has been home to wolves and moose. The moose forage on young trees, grass, and water plants, while the wolves feed almost exclusively on moose.
This isolated ecosystem has provided a natural laboratory for studying the kinds of predator-prey relationships that are modeled in the Food Chain Gizmo. Scientists have been continuously monitoring moose and wolf populations on the island for over 50 years.
Much to the surprise of scientists, the wolf and moose populations have fluctuated wildly over the years. A high moose population in the early 1970s led to a rapid increase in the wolf population. Predation by wolves caused the moose population to decline, and this was followed by a crash in the wolf population in the early 1980s. A decade of low wolf numbers led to an all-time peak of the moose population in 1995.
The harsh winter of 1996 caused the moose to crash, and the cycle continued.
1) So…Watch this video about Isle Royale. What is it about Isle Royale that makes it a great follow-up to what we learned from the food web gizmo?
2) Take a real good look at the graph that grows on this page. Read through the text below and explain what this graph tells us about the relationship that exists between wolves and moose.
3) From the same page…what is one of the most significant lessons learned from studying the wolf/moose relationship?
4) Listen to…or read through this interview between Tom Crann from MPR and Rolf
Peterson. What is the current concern on Isle Royale and how should the National
Park Service respond?
5) Finally…what do we get from all this research? Go to this page and select one of the discoveries that researchers have made. Read through it. Summarize how the research was conducted and what findings have been realized