A Northwoods Almanac for 11/12 – 25, 2021 by John Bates
Moose and Wolves on Isle Royale
You may recall the controversy from 2015 regarding whether wolves should be reintroduced to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. After three years of evaluating various alternatives, wolves were finally reintroduced beginning in 2018. Recently, I was able to tune into a talk given by Dr. Rolf Peterson, who has studied Isle Royale’s wolves for 40 years, that summarized the current status of the reintroduction effort. If you want the official story from the NPS, check:
But here’s a much shorter synopsis. Wolves used to be able to cross the winter ice bridge from mainland Minnesota to populate Isle Royale. But an ice bridge now only occurs one year out of ten compared to eight years out of ten historically. The lack of mainland wolves to continually repopulate, and thus bring genetic variability, to the island led to genetic inbreeding, which led to the nearly complete demise of the wolf population on the island. The long-term average number of wolves was 22, and by 2015 there were just two, both related and unable to successfully breed new young.
The loss of the apex predator, the wolves, on the island led to an astronomical increase in moose. In 2005, moose numbered less than 500, but by 2015, their population had soared to over 2,000, or about 2 per square mile. The moose quickly began to overharvest balsam fir, their favorite browse, and decimated the fir, creating what was termed a “moose savannah” for its lack of fir trees. Ecologists estimate that the island can only support 500 moose before the island’s trees are negatively affected.
Concurrently, beavers, another prey item of wolves, also began a population spurt, and increased fivefold between 2010 and 2020. The moose, meanwhile, proceeded to also decimate populations of watershield, a high protein aquatic plant, which created a host of problems in and around the ponds and lakes on the island by reducing shorelines to muddy pulps. By 2018, the ever-increasing beavers, who love watershield, too, began to run out of food, which resulted in a dramatic decline. Their numbers plummeted, causing the dams they usually maintain on ponds and lakes to fail, which led to water levels falling. The resultant mud pits left behind led to four moose getting stuck in the mud and dying.
All of this shows the need for an apex predator on the landscape to maintain population balances among prey species. Prey species need predators, just as predators need prey.
So, what about the wolves? Nineteen wolves were eventually introduced: four from the Grand Portage Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota, three from mainland Ontario, four from the U.P. of Michigan, and eight from Michipicoten Island in Lake Superior which had an overabundance of wolves (another fascinating story altogether). All the wolves were ear-tagged and radio-collared, and then released.
The first female from Michipicoten had two pups in 2019, and in 2020, two other packs produced an unknown number of pups, because now Covid entered the picture, and research on the island ground to a halt. Likewise, Covid prevented adequate research to take place in 2021, but it’s believed another two or three litters were produced.
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NPS photo
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And what of the 19 adults that were introduced to the island? Half have died – the average lifespan of an adult wolf is after all only four years.
Fast forward to the present now that the wolves have arrived, and moose numbers are declining, and balsam fir is regrowing. How quickly the beaver population will rebound, however, is still unfolding.
The primary lesson in all this, said Peterson, was that animal populations are self-regulating. The density of a population is regulated by its food supply, both for prey and predator species. It all comes down to an ever-fluctuating balance.
Peterson also was asked about the wolf harvest in Wisconsin. He noted that wolf depredation on farm animals is real, but that the broad harvest of wolves doesn’t address the actual problems.
Camp Mercer CCC Interpretive Trail
On 11/5, an event was held to celebrate the opening of the Camp Mercer CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) Interpretive Trail, a collaborative project of the Northern Highlands American Legion (NHAL) State Forest, the Wisconsin Historical Society and state archaeologists, the Manitowish Waters Historical Society, and ICORE (Iron County Outdoor Recreation Enthusiasts). The new trail includes 23 interpretive signs along a 2.5 mile trail loop, which can be accessed from the Mercer Bike Trail near the Highway 51 wayside or from the west side of Manitowish River Access Road.
Camp Mercer was established in 1933 along the banks of the Manitowish River as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 660th Company. At its peak, the camp housed over 200 men, and over its nine years represented individuals from 190 different Wisconsin communities. The camp served as one of 14 Wisconsin forestry camps that fought forest fires, planted trees, worked on soil erosion and conservation, improved lake and stream habitats, built bridges and roads, and much more.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) launched the CCC in the New Deal’s famous “First 100 Days” where he proposed to recruit thousands of unemployed young men into a peacetime army and send them into battle against the destruction of our natural resources. At its peak in 1935, the CCC enrolled 500,000 men at 2,600 camps across the country.
By the time the CCC program ended at the start of World War II, Roosevelt’s “Tree Army” had planted more than 3.5 billion trees on land made barren from fires, natural erosion, intensive agriculture or lumbering. In fact, the CCC was responsible for over half the reforestation, public and private, done in the nation’s history. They also constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide, helping to shape the modern national and state park systems we enjoy today. In total, there were 194 CCC work camps in 94 national parks and 697 camps in 881 state and local parks across the US.
They also fought fires. The total number of hours logged by CCC firefighters from 1933 to 1942 was the equivalent of 6.5 million days. During the nine years that the CCC was operational, the annual acreage of U.S. forest lost to fire sunk to its lowest point ever, because tens of thousands of young CCC enrollees were employed as either full-time or emergency firefighters. Plus, CCC workers constructed more than 3,000 fire towers, many of which are still in use today.
Their work not only improved the land and water, it helped the men become more employable once they finished their service. Many corpsmen received supplemental basic and vocational education, and it’s estimated that some 57,000 illiterate men learned to read and write in CCC camps.
As for the Mercer Camp, only one intact structure remains on the site – a dynamite shack – but visitors to the trail will see remnants of Camp Mercer’s roads and foundations as well as evidence of earlier logging camps and other activity. The superb interpretive signage helps visitors learn about the history of the site with photos and narratives describing life at Camp Mercer and the people who lived and worked there.
ICORE has entered into a land use agreement with the NHAL, and with help of the Mercer Cross Country Ski Association (MECCA), will maintain the new Camp Mercer trail.
The closest CCC camp to Camp Mercer was the Lac Du Flambeau CCC Indian Division Camp on Pokegama Lake. Wisconsin had six Ojibwa and one Ho Chunk Indian Division CCC camps during the New Deal.
Black Bear Dens
Most black bears are denned-up by mid-November with only a few males still occasionally wandering around. Black bears’ favorite denning sites are in standing hollow trees, but few trees are allowed to reach the mature stage at which the center rots and becomes hollow. Such trees can be found in portions of the Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota, especially where they were fire-scarred a half century or more ago.
Rock crevices and caves are also used as dens, and can remain useable for centuries. Interestingly, they’re usually not used again by the same bear and usually not in successive years by any bears. The den that researchers in one study found being used the most during four decades of research was used three times, each time by a different bear, and each time after an interval of six years.
Dens are also dug into hillsides or under the root system of a tree. The problem with dug dens is that they often collapse after use and therefore are seldom reused.
Bears also may den under the crown of downed trees or in brushy slash piles, while some bears just rake up a bed on the ground near a windbreak. And a few males occasionally just lay on top of the snow and get covered by new snows.
Lynn Rogers, well-known bear researcher, says that bears often make insulating beds by raking leaves, grass, moss, and other ground vegetation into the dens and arranging it to their liking. When those materials are unavailable, they may bite small branches off trees, strip the bark off cedar trees, or chew rotten wood into chips.
Celestial Events
The peak Leonid Meteor Shower occurs during the predawn of 11/17 – expect around 15 meteors per hour.
The full moon – the “Ice is Forming” moon – occurs on 11/19. That same morning, a nearly total lunar eclipse – 97% covered by the earth’s shadow – takes place, with only a sliver of the moon outside the Earth’s shadow. Most of the moon is expected to turn a ruddy color. The partial eclipse begins at 1:18 a.m., and achieves its greatest eclipse just after 3 a.m. The show will end at 4:47, and will be the longest of this century at 3 hours and 28 minutes.
Thought for the Week
Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent. To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men. – Rachel Carson in a letter to her closest friend Dorothy Freeman ninety days before the release of her 1962 book Silent Spring.
Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail me at manitowish@centurytel.net, call 715-476-2828, snail-mail at 4245N State Highway 47, Mercer, WI, or see my blog at www.manitowishriver.blogspot.com.
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