Nearly a hundred years ago a small animal that most people have never heard of was wiped out of the northern forest. In the mid-1980’s, wildlife biologists reintroduced the pine marten in two locations in the Lower Peninsula. They thought the population would take off and spread but it hasn’t. And now researchers are trying to find out why.
The pine marten is the smallest predator in the northern forest. It’s a member of the weasel family… related to otters and ferrets. It weighs roughly two to two-and-a half pounds, has big furry ears, a pointed nose, a bright orange patch on its chest and a bit of a temper.
“I don’t know how big of an animal they would take on but they do have a reputation for being quite fierce.”
Jill Witt is a wildlife biologist with the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. She has a marten caught in a wire cage tucked next to a fallen log, half buried in twigs and leaf litter.
Rolf Peterson holds up the song sheet for the evening. Candy Peterson loves to get people singing. She says "people shouldn't say, 'I can't sing,' they should say 'I don't sing very often.'"
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Rolf Peterson outside of the Bangsund Cabin on Isle Royale. Peterson has been studying wolves and moose on Isle Royale for 42 years. With the wolf population down to nine, the longest running predator-prey study in the world hangs in the balance.
The ups and downs of the wolf and moose populations on Isle Royale. The 54 year study holds an incredible amount of data. The wolves are at their lowest point yet.
Credit John Vucetich/Rolf Peterson / Michigan Tech
The "West-End Duo." Possibly the only breeding pair left on the island.
Credit John Vucetich/Rolf Peterson / Michigan Tech
The Chippewa Harbor Pack howling in winter. An unusual time of year for this kind of behavior. The wolves could be looking for new mates.
The probability of a new ice bridge forming is lessening as the planet warms. Circles on top show when an ice bridge formed. Circles on bottom show when there was no ice bridge.
Credit John Vucetich/Rolf Peterson / Michigan Tech
Wolves on Isle Royale.
Credit John Vucetich/Rolf Peterson / Michigan Tech
The alpha male of the Middle Pack. The pack was wiped out in the last year.
Credit John Vucetich/Rolf Peterson / Michigan Tech
The Chippewa Harbor pack on Isle Royale.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Candy Peterson, Rolf Peterson's wife and research partner, gives a talk to the Moosewatch volunteers at the Daisy Farm campground. Her subject this evening, "reverence."
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Candy Peterson talking about "reverence" at Daisy Farm campground on Isle Royale. She's talking to a group of Moosewatch volunteers.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Candy Peterson uses part of the Isle Royale wolf-moose study bone collection in her talk.
Researchers like Durwood Allen, and Michigan Tech's John Vucetich and Rolf Peterson have been keeping a close eye on the animals on the island for more than five decades.
Peterson has been doing it the longest. He's been watching and documenting things on Isle Royale for 42 years.
Moosewatch volunteer Dave Beck holds up a marked antler. Team leader Jeff Holden looks on. They mark the antlers and hang them in a tree so others know the antler has been found and documented.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Moosewatch volunteers hike along the trail on Isle Royale National Park.
Credit Mark Brush
The trail on Isle Royale traverses a lot of rocky terrain.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
L to R - Moosewatch volunteers Pete Prawdzick, Dave Beck, and Jeff Morrison.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The map guides their way when they head off trail.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Getting ready to go off trail.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Moosewatch group leader Jeff Holden stops for a snack.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
A found bone. The volunteers stopped, dropped packs, and searched for more bones. This moose bone was likely left here by an animal. No other bones were found.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Flags are put up to mark the search area after a bone is found.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The site of the found bone.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Susie Morrison takes a break.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Dave Beck finds a shed moose antler in the dense understory.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The antler is marked and hung in a tree so other volunteers who might find it know it's been documented.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Hanging a found antler in a tree.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Dave Beck marking an antler.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Dave Beck marking an antler.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Measuring the size of the base of the antler.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Making a note of the find.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Dave Beck and Dave Conrad get ready for rain.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The Moosewatch volunteers. L to R - Dave Beck, Pete Prawdzick, Jeff Holden (group leader), Dave Conrad, and Jeff Morrison, Susie Morrison.
Wolves and moose are at the heart of the world’s longest running study of a predator and its prey. The drama unfolds on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior.
But it’s a big island, almost entirely wilderness.
The researchers from Michigan Tech say they can’t cover all that ground alone.
So they have a program called Moosewatch. It’s a backcountry expedition where you pay to help out with the wolf-moose study. But be warned: it’s no easy little walk in the woods.
"We’re going to trash through the understory here for a third to half of a mile and see if we can find some dead moose."
That’s Jeff Holden. He’s a Moosewatch group leader, in charge of a group of six (himself plus five volunteers). We’re going to push our way into the thick forest.
Wolf biologist Rolf Peterson taking us to the site of a moose carcass on Caribou Island. He and other researchers collect bones from dead moose as part of their research.
The wolf-moose research project on Michigan's Isle Royale National Park is in its 54th year.
A big chunk of their research goes into tracking down dead moose - bones and carcasses - around the island.
From these remains the researchers can pick apart the status and overall health of the moose population. And understanding moose is important to wolf research, since the wolves eat the moose.
It's like understanding the overall quality and quantity of food available at the grocery store. If there's good, abundant food available, you'd expect things to be good. If not, well - you get the picture.
When Rebecca Williams and I arrived at the Daisy Farm campground on Isle Royale, we were met by Rolf Peterson in his boat.
He said he'd just heard of a dead moose on Caribou Island and asked whether we would like to go see it with him.
A stroke of luck. We'd traveled by plane, car, and boat to get here, and here was our chance to see Peterson in action.
Here's a video of our trip with him. Is ripping the skull off a dead moose gross? I didn't think so, but you can be the judge.
So, what did you think? Vote by typing "gross" or "not gross" in the comment section below.
The Isle Royale Queen IV docked at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Rock Harbor on Isle Royale.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The Isle Royale Queen IV at Rock Harbor. Isle Royale is the least visited National Park, but the most re-visited.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The Isle Royale Queen IV at Rock Harbor.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Relaxing on the deck of the Isle Royale Queen IV.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Retired Captain Don Kilpela at the helm of the Isle Royale Queen IV. Kilpela first came to the island in 1945. He started the ferry service from Copper Harbor in 1971.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Don Kilpela, Jr. handling the lines on the Isle Royale Queen IV.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Isle Royale from the bow of the Isle Royale Queen IV.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Much of the main island is surrounded by smaller outer islands.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Aboard the Isle Royale Queen IV.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
The stern of the Isle Royale Queen IV.
Credit Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Inside the Isle Royale Queen IV. The boat was put in service as the ferry from Copper Harbor, MI in 2005.
For some, the magic of Isle Royale doesn't necessarily reside in the boat trip to the island.
Two days before Rebecca Williams and I left on our reporting trip, a friend and I were having lunch together.
"You're not riding on the 'Barf Barge' are you?!"
"The boat from Copper Harbor?"
"Yeah, I took that trip. We were on Isle Royale for a week. The first half of the week, all we could talk about was the boat trip over. And the second half of the week, all we could talk about was the boat trip back!"
On her trip, as the ship pulled out of Copper Harbor, the captain came on the loudspeaker.
"O.k., folks," the captain started. "We have the forecast for our crossing. And I just want to say... we're all in this together. We can get through this."
The snack bar was not open on that crossing.
But the snack bar was open for our trip.
The seas got a little rough (I saw a few eight footers roll by). And a trip to the restroom wasn't a straight walk to the door. You had to ping-pong yourself from table, to wall, to other passenger (excuse me), to the door.
Emergency cups and plastic grocery bags were deployed by some, but their "green-around-the-gills" condition didn't spread throughout the cabin.
The owners of the Isle Royale Line from Copper Harbor tell me the round-bottomed "Barf Barge" was retired in 2004. Their new boat, the Isle Royale Queen IV, rolls a lot less in heavy seas, and the new boat cut an hour off the trip.
What once took around four hours, now takes around three.
To get a sense of the crossing, I mounted a time lapse camera near the bridge. So here's the 54 mile crossing in less than two minutes.
Cell phones don't work on the island. Senses that can be overwhelmed by a connected, electric lifestyle are freed to look up, and take in the wind, waves, rock, and soil.
What makes the Isle Royale so special? We asked the Isle Royale Line's retired Captain Donald Kilpela that question:
Kilpela first made the trip to Isle Royale in 1945. And he and his family have been running the ferry service in Copper Harbor since 1971. His sons Ben and Don Jr. now run the boat. The family has been crossing Lake Superior to Isle Royale every summer since they started the business.
Two other people who know the island well have spent a good part of their lives here.
Rolf Peterson has been studying the interactions of wolves and moose on Isle Royale for more than 40 years. He and his wife Candy spend around eight months of each year on the island, and they raised their two kids on Isle Royale while living in the tiny Bangsund Cabin.
Isle Royale became a National Park in 1940, and was designated as a wilderness area in 1976. Humans are not in control here. It's an ideal laboratory for Peterson and the other researchers studying wolves and moose here.
Much of what scientists around the globe know about wolves and their behavior comes from Michigan's Isle Royale. The research project here is the longest running continuous study of any predator-prey system in the world.
All this week, we'll bring you stories about this research and about the people who make it happen - online and on-air.
Isle Royale is the least visited National Park, but as Captain Kilpela pointed out, it's the most re-visited one.
Many of you have had your own personal experiences with the island. We invite you to share your experiences about Isle Royale in the comment section below. In six words or less - tell us - what's so special about Isle Royale?
There's been a spate of black bear sightings in West Michigan over the past few days with at least one birdfeeder as a casualty.
Residents in Greenville, about 25 miles northeast of Grand Rapids, saw a bear wandering around a residential neighborhood and sightings have also been reported in nearby Lowell and Vergennes Township this week.
Wildlife authorities with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources don't know if it's the same bear being spotted, or more than one.
Bear sightings in general in many parts of the Lower Peninsula have become more common over the past few years.
[Bump] said a lot of the time, the bears are young males that get pushed out during the breeding season. They’ll head down looking for new territory.
“It’s not that we’re completely full up in the north – it can’t take one more bear – it’s just that we’re getting more taking the chance and moving south.”
He said bears like to travel along rivers and forested corridors and they appear to be finding good routes to travel...
Bump said some female bears appear to be moving south too. And some might be setting up camp... and having babies.
“We think we have an established population now as far down as Grand Rapids, possibly into Ionia County. We're getting more and more reports of bears in southern Michigan, even bears that are too young to have moved, so they had to have been produced in southern Michigan.”
This past February, Williams and producer Mark Brush got the chance to tag along with MDNR biologists in Oceana County as they tranquilized a black bear to replace a radio tracking collar.
Now that the warm weather is here, the collared bear is likely loping around in search of food.
You can see the bear in a deep sleep in the video below.
In terms of hotspots for giant, bipedal ape-men, Michigan might not come to mind, especially compared to states in the Pacific Northwest. But the mitten state is not without its share of alleged Bigfoot sightings.
According to the Detroit News, some high-profile Bigfoot hunters are paying visit to Michigan with camera crew in tow, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive cryptid.
From the News:
Producers from the Animal Planet TV program "Finding Bigfoot" have been filming in the Houghton Lake area this week, looking for signs of Sasquatch.
Phil Shaw, a member of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, said there have been more than 130 Bigfoot sightings in almost every county in Michigan.
The episode including the Michigan investigation is set to air sometime this summer, the Detroit News reports.
The antipathy toward wolves might change now that the species is no longer federally protected, but it also might change as more research is done on other predators in the UP.
So far, the research is showing a somewhat surprising result: that coyotes are a top predator of fawns in parts of the western UP.
From the Grand Rapids Press:
...what researchers found this past winter, the third year of a western U.P. deer mortality study, is that coyotes were the No. 1 predator followed by bobcats. Wolves came in fourth after a three-way tie among hunters, unknown predators and undetermined causes.
“I was somewhat surprised to see coyotes play as large a role in fawn predation as they did...,” said Jerry Belant, an associate professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at Mississippi State University.
It may feel like it's already summer outside but that didn't stop a little piece of the arctic from visiting central Michigan.
After several days of sightings in and around the town of Portland, just northwest of Lansing, local authorities captured a loose arctic fox as he woke from a nap on a baseball diamond.
The fox's origin is unclear but aside from being about 1,000 miles south of its natural habitat, local law enforcement believes it must have been a domesticated pet based on its friendly demeanor, the Lansing State Journal writes.
From the LSJ's Tom Thelen:
“We were receiving calls about it for about a week,” said Portland police chief Bob Bauer. “People were seeing at in various parts of the city...We believe that it either escaped or was turned loose,” said Bauer. “It was not afraid of anyone. In fact, it would coming running out to people and some of them were scared by the way it ran up to them.”
Thelen reports that authorities found an owner of another arctic fox in nearby Lake Odessa who agreed to care for the captured animal.
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