Isle Royale — One year into its effort to reestablish the wolf population on Isle Royale, the National Park Service and its partners have a problem: The new wolves keep dying and nobody knows why.

Since the park service began its relocation efforts in September 2018, 19 wolves have been transplanted from Minnesota, Ontario, Canada and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Three of the wolves have died, the most recent on Sept. 15. Another wolf left the island for mainland Ontario on an ice bridge in January.

via Park service looks to solve mystery deaths of Isle Royale wolves

Hunters have shot dead Belgium’s first wild wolf in more than a century, conservationist groups monitoring the resurgent species have said.

Naya, a she-wolf, has been missing since May. Scientists and associations watching her since she was first spotted in Belgium in January 2018 fear the worst.

Her male companion August is now exhibiting signs of being a lone wolf once more, experts said. Naya was pregnant when she was last seen in May on one of the 60 wildlife cameras set up in rural Limburg, close to the Dutch border.

“I am 100 percent sure that Naya was shot. It is the only plausible explanation,” said Sil Janssen, of the Natuurhulpcentrum animal shelter in Oudsbergen, which is in the eastern Flemish region that Naya made her territory.

via Hunters ‘shoot dead’ Belgium’s first wild wolf in more than 100 years

In 2019, the U.S. The National Park Service began to restore wolf population to Isle Royale National Park. Some think the decision is relevant far beyond the remote island park and its denizens and has implications for what could be a new development in our relationship with nature.

The decision is noteworthy because it could seem in opposition to a century-old philosophy for letting nature take its course in protected areas like Isle Royale. Because Isle Royale is small and isolated, the wolf population has always, and quite naturally, been small and isolated. Nature’s course drives such populations to extinction.

Reasoning of that ilk benefits from a better account of the circumstances.

Here’s the best scientific understanding in a nutshell:

For decades wolves slipped past the adverse effects of inbreeding by occasionally receiving an infusion of fresh genes when, perhaps once a decade or so, a wolf would come to Isle Royale by crossing an ice bridge. With each passing decade, ice bridges have become less frequent, and the flow of new genes diminished. The wolves became inbred, and the population failed. The root cause had been human-caused climate warming which led to the loss of ice bridges.
via Opinion: Wolves play key role on Isle Royale

By Barry R. Noon

Gray wolves, a key component of Colorado’s natural heritage, are noticeably absent from the state’s landscape. Their absence reflects a long history of human persecution and intolerance. For example, many hunter advocacy groups view the re-establishment of a viable wolf population in Colorado as a threat to hunter success and to the abundance of deer, elk and moose (collectively called ungulates).

Unfortunately, the myth that wolves would compromise the health and vitality of ungulate populations in Colorado is as misguided and inaccurate as it is deep-seated.

Hunters have legitimate reasons to be concerned about the future of ungulate populations, but predation by wolves, or other predators, should not be part of their worries. Currently, the greatest threats faced by deer and elk result from the loss and fragmentation of winter range (a consequence of exurban encroachment and oil and gas development), declines in habitat quality arising from climate change (increasing temperatures and drought stress affecting food plants), increased poaching rates (particularly high near areas of oil and gas development), and an increasing prevalence of chronic wasting disease.
via Opinion: Barry R. Noon: Wolves could benefit deer and elk populations in Colorado – Boulder Daily Camera