logo
Unexpected medical issue grounds Isle Royale wolf-moose survey

Unexpected medical issue grounds Isle Royale wolf-moose survey

Yahoo15-07-2025
A last-minute medical issue grounded researchers' annual wolf-moose survey on Isle Royale this past winter, marking yet another year that scientists have run into problems trying to count the animals on the remote island park.
Isle Royale is a 134,000-acre (54,200-hectare) island in far western Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. The island, which doubles as a national park, offers scientists a rare chance to observe wolves and moose in their natural habitat, free from human influence. Researchers have conducted an annual survey of the island's wolf and moose population since 1958.
Scientists from Michigan Tech University had planned to return to the island in January to conduct seven weeks of aerial surveys by ski-planes. Snow and bare branches make tracking easier from the air in winter, but the island lacks a land-based runway, forcing the scientists to use ski-planes that can land in the island's ice-covered harbors.
The scientists released their annual report on Tuesday, but it does not include any new population estimates. The report notes that the researchers were not able to get into the air at all this winter because 'our usual aviation resources became unexpectedly unavailable due to extenuating circumstances and there was insufficient time to find a suitable alternative.'
Michigan Tech spokesperson Hailey Hart explained in a telephone interview that the ski-plane pilot developed a last-minute medical issue and couldn't fly. The scientists were unable to find a replacement pilot.
'It was very sudden,' Hart said. 'It was a big bummer for them.'
Researchers have experienced disruptions in three of the last five years they've attempted the survey. The COVID-19 pandemic forced them to cancel the survey in 2021, marking the first time since 1958 that population counts weren't conducted.
They had to cut the survey short in February 2024 after weeks of unusually warm weather left the ice surrounding the island unsafe for ski-plane landings. The National Park Service suspended the researchers' work and ordered them to evacuate.
Data the scientists gathered before they left showed the wolf population stood at 30 animals, down from 31 the previous year. The moose population stood at 840, down 14% from 2023.
Most of Tuesday's report discusses observations a group of college students made on the island in the summer of 2024. They noted regular wolf sightings, observed a wolf chasing a moose and found the bones of a wolf that died a decade ago, well before the park service began relocating wolves to the island in 2018. The students also found the remains of 115 moose, including 22 believed to have died in 2024. Researchers believe wolves killed all but three of those moose.
Hart said the scientists are planning another aerial survey next winter.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Covid has made our brains age faster, says a new study – even if you were never ill with the virus
Covid has made our brains age faster, says a new study – even if you were never ill with the virus

Cosmopolitan

time4 hours ago

  • Cosmopolitan

Covid has made our brains age faster, says a new study – even if you were never ill with the virus

A new study from the University of Nottingham suggests the Covid pandemic may have left a very real impact on our brains, even if we were never sick with the virus. After analysing the data of over 15,000 adults via the UK Biobank – a biomedical treasure trove of health data and samples from half a million participants – scientists, with the help of artificial intelligence, compared brain ages found in two distinct two groups. One group had multiple brain scans taken before the pandemic over a set period of time, the second looked at those with scans taken both before and during the pandemic. Via this method, researchers found on average the human brain aged five and a half months faster during the pandemic than it did pre-2020. "This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment," explains Dorothee Auer, Professor of Neuroimaging and senior author on the study. "The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought." The University study reports that "the changes were most noticeable in older individuals, in men, and in people from more disadvantaged backgrounds". It's a staunch reminder of just how big an impact stress and worry can have on our minds and bodies. "What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had COVID showed significant increases in brain aging rates," added neurologist Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, who also worked on the study. "It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health." Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC's Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women's Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.

Blue whales are going eerily silent—and scientists say it's a warning sign
Blue whales are going eerily silent—and scientists say it's a warning sign

National Geographic

time4 hours ago

  • National Geographic

Blue whales are going eerily silent—and scientists say it's a warning sign

'We were interested in understanding blue whale ecology,' says Dawn Barlow, an ecologist at the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, and lead author of the study. 'And without trying, we ended up studying the effects of marine heatwaves —which, in this day and age, is hard to avoid when working in the ocean.'Using underwater recorders in the South Taranaki Bight, Barlow and her team tracked two distinct vocalizations: low-frequency D calls, linked to feeding, and patterned songs, associated with mating. During years of abnormally warm water, they found fewer D calls in spring and summer—signaling a drop in foraging effort. In the following fall, blue whale song intensity also declined, suggesting reduced reproductive activity.'When there are fewer feeding opportunities, they put less effort into reproduction,' Barlow absence of calls has become a warning, say scientists.'Blue whales are sentinels,' says Barlow. 'They integrate many ocean processes. Where they are, and what they're doing can tell you a lot about the health of the ecosystem.'And the effects of a single heat wave can last long after temperatures have cooled.'The Blob really highlighted how long-term these consequences can be,' she adds. 'This isn't just about what happens during the heatwave—it's the lasting impacts, especially for long-lived animals like whales.'That longevity makes them powerful sentinels. If a species capable of roaming an entire coastline begins to falter—struggling to find food, delaying reproduction—researchers say the signal is unmistakable: something deep within the ecosystem is shifting. And in places where heat waves scorch areas again and again, the transformation may be irreversible, leaving behind a sea that is profoundly—and perhaps permanently—changed. 'There's a chance that one of these events becomes a tipping point, and that may not return to the state we had before,' says Benoit-Bird. 'And that matters. For how the ocean absorbs carbon, for the fish we eat, and for the future of marine ecosystems.' Could listening to whales help protect the ocean? Even shallow waters, where snapping shrimp crackle like underwater firecrackers, are beginning to sound different. A study published in 2022 found that shrimp, one of the ocean's most active noisemakers, snapped more frequently and with more force as water temperatures increased. Possibly, the scientists speculate, because they're agitated. One challenge for using sound to measure ocean-wide changes is establishing a baseline for what a pristine ocean sounds like. The COVID-19 pandemic offered a rare experiment. When global shipping activity came to a halt, a brief hush settled over much of the planet, including the seas, before it was catapulted to even faster production. 'Certainly the animals responded—they changed their distribution and used the habitat differently when there weren't humans in those spaces anymore,' says Monterey Bay's Benoit-Bird. She recalls the way that many witnessed wildlife in empty city streets. In the ocean, the reaction was just as profound, only harder to witness. 'We don't tend to think of humans as being in the ocean in that same way,' she adds, 'but we are. We're there—we're everywhere.' While scientists have recently detected certain patterns, more data is needed to connect specific sounds to specific environmental changes. 'It's so hard to get observations in the ocean,' says NOAA's Santora. 'A network like this opens the door to so many possibilities—for conservation, for management, for mitigation.'

Fault line on Canadian border thought dormant for years could cause major earthquake, new study shows
Fault line on Canadian border thought dormant for years could cause major earthquake, new study shows

Yahoo

time15 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Fault line on Canadian border thought dormant for years could cause major earthquake, new study shows

A fault line on the Canadian border, thought to be dormant for tens of millions of years, could cause a major earthquake, a new study has revealed. The Tintina fault stretches about 600 miles from northeastern British Columbia into Alaska. It was previously thought to have last been active around 40 million years ago. But a study published in Geophysical Research Letters earlier this month found signs of more recent activity. New topographic data collected from satellites, airplanes and drones showed about an 80-mile-long segment of the fault where 2.6 million-year-old and 132,000-year-old geological formations are laterally shifted across the fault. 'We further show that the fault has not ruptured in a major earthquake for at least 12 thousand years, and could generate an earthquake of at least magnitude 7.5 in the future,' the study read. 'The Tintina fault therefore represents an important, previously unrecognized, seismic hazard to the region.' An earthquake with a 7 to 7.9 magnitude is considered major and can create serious damage, according to Michigan Tech. These types of earthquakes are fairly rare, with only 10 to 15 estimated to occur each year. Michigan Tech warns earthquakes with a magnitude of 8 or greater, which typically occur only once every year or two, can destroy communities near the epicenter. 'Based on the data, we think that the fault may be at a relatively late stage of a seismic cycle, having accrued a slip deficit, or build-up of strain, of six meters in the last 12,000 years,' Theron Finley, a recent University of Victoria phD graduate and lead author of the new study, explained in SciTechDaily. 'If this were to be released, it would cause a significant earthquake.' The Daily Mail reported, citing seismologists, there are fears the fault line could send tremors into British Columbia, Alberta and Montana. Dr. Michael West, state seismologist at the Alaska Earthquake Center, told the Mail, 'It is one of the least studied fault systems in North America, and that needs to change.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store