"About The Project: Overview." Isle Royale Wolf. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
The author focuses on the whole wolf and moose study on Isle Royale in the article. The author shows this by giving the reader knowledge into the history about the island and the study happening on the island conducted by a group of interns. The author starts by giving the reader an idea about the island, where it is at and what it is like. The author goes into the roots of the study, from the very beginning starting in 1958. From there the author goes in depth about the population of wolves and moose in the past years and eventually to what they are doing today. Once the moose population declined, the wolf population rose in the 1990s, but soon to take a giant downward fall. Towards the end, the author states in this line, “The lessons we learn seem to come more from explaining the past rather than predicting the future”. This is a great statement of how the interns are trying to uncover and solve the problem that is happening on the island. This source is credible because it is on the main website for the Isle Royale Wolf and Moose Study. The purpose of this article is to give a brief overview of the project on Isle Royale. The author does not take a position in this article. This article is not similar to any of the other sources. This source is very helpful for people trying to understand the Isle Royale Wolf and Moose Study. It gives them everything they need to know from beginning to present day. I would recommend this article to anybody trying to learn about the study and even trying to get involved.
"All About Moose." Isle Royale Wolf. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
The author focuses on how moose survive throughout the year and a moose’s life cycle. The author shows this by giving detailed facts about the moose in various stages of life. The article starts by describing when a calf is typically born, which is in late May, when the boreal forests are still cold. Once a calf is born, it weighs about 30 pounds and in the next couple of months it will be around 300 pounds. But for their first year, moose heavily depend on their mothers for protection. Next, the author starts describing what winter is like for the moose. Winter is hell for the moose, it is not the cold that bothers them, but it is getting food. They eat twigs and shrubs like the balsam fir and cedar trees. The problem for the moose is getting to the trees without wasting a lot of energy, which in winter causes a lot of moose to die. The article also goes into detail about moose in summer, fall and spring seasons. This source is credible because it is on the main website for the Isle Royale Wolf and Moose Study. The purpose of this article is to inform people about moose and what their life is like during a one year period. The author does not take a position in this article. In comparison to the All About Wolves article, both talk about the beginning stages of the wolf and moose. This source is helpful because it describes when moose start their life and also the transitions they face from spring to summer and fall to winter.
"All About Wolves." Isle Royale Wolf. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
The author focuses on how wolves start their life and what they have to do to survive. The author shows this by giving many statistics and traits the wolves carry. They start by describing what the Grey Wolf looks like, what they eat, and about their pups and pack. All wolves are born into a pack and will eventually disperse from that pack, but they always remember the wolves in their first pack. The packs are meant to defend territory from other wolves, so food is critical in these packs. If the wolves give up territory they are giving up food for their families and other wolf families. In packs, reproduction is key to all wolves; this is the deciding factor when wolves disperse from their packs. It involves great risk, but to a wolf it is worth it. This source is credible because it is on the main website for the Isle Royale Wolf and Moose Study. The purpose of this article is to inform people about wolves and their life. The author does not take a position in this article. This article has a similar concept to the All About Moose article, as they both talk about the beginning stages of the wolf and moose. This article is useful because it gives a background on how the wolves kill, eat, reproduce and mate. I would recommend this article to anyone just wanting to know more about traits wolfs carry.
Brandner, Thomas A. "Balsam Fir on Isle Royale: Effects of Moose Herbivory and Population Density." JSTOR. N.p., Feb. 1990. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
The author in this article focuses on the effects of the increasing moose population on Isle Royale and how it is also affecting the balsam fir tree. The author proves this through setting up nine experiment locations on the island where the density of moose and balsam fir were high. In the nine locations, many balsam fir trees were found. After studying the trees in all locations, they found that most of the moose were repeatedly browsing on the same trees and saplings in high balsam fir densities, thus damaging or killing the trees to a point where they could not grow back. This resulted in a decrease in the balsam fir trees on the island. This source is credible because it is from an ecology book used at the college level. The purpose of this article is to explain with the wolf population decreasing and moose population rising, the vegetating in winter is suffering for the moose, causing the balsam fir (main source of food for moose in winter) population to decrease. This article is similar to the All About Moose article in that both talk about the balsam fir in the winter and how important it is to the moose. The article is helpful because moose are also being impacted on Isle Royale, and this article talks about one of the main reasons why. I would highly recommend this to people who really want to know about the balsam fir trees on Isle Royale.
Donovan, Jennifer. "Inbred Wolves Struggle, Moose Proliferate at Isle Royale National Park." Michigan Tech. N.p., 30 Apr. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
In this article, the author focuses on the inbreeding wolf population and the increasing moose population on Isle Royale. The author proves this statement by looking back in past studies on the island and interviewing the head of the study John Vucetich. Through an interview with John, he tells the author about how he can connect a family tree through one wolf. John named that wolf Old Gray Guy. John continues to say that Old Gray Guy came to the island on an ice bridge back in 1997. This wolf brought with him a set of genes that would eventually dominate the wolf population on the island. By 2008, most of the wolves on the island were descendants of Old Gray Guy. Old Gray Guy is not on the island anymore. The wolves with Old Gray Guy’s genes were deformed as a result of inbreeding. Inbreeding is the leading cause of death among the wolves on the island. This is one example of how the wolf population is suffering from inbreeding. Next, the author talks about the moose population on the island. Since the decline in the wolf population, the moose population has almost double in just one year from 2012-2013. With this growth certain types of vegetation for the moose are suffering in the winter, especially the balsam fir trees. This source seems very credible because the author works at Michigan Tech as a writer and it also is where John Vuceitch teaches. The purpose of this article is to inform people about this problem on Isle Royale. The author does not take a position in this article. In comparison to the article, Only 3 Wolves Are Left at Isle Royale National Park, by Megan Gannon, they both spent a majority of the paper talking about the wolves on the island. This source is helpful because it talks about both the moose and wolf and how each has been affected. It is very unlikely that the wolf population will ever make a comeback and eventually they could be gone from the island.
"The Population Biology of Isle Royale Wolves and Moose: An Overview." Isle Royale Wolf. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
The author focuses on many different types of graphs about the wolf and moose on the island. They prove this by using a lot of different graphs with data that John Vuceitch and his helpers have collected in the winter studies on Isle Royale. The five decades of wolf-moose dynamics graph is the most important graph out of all of the graphs because it shows fifty years of the wolf and moose populations on the island and how each has changed. It shows when wolf populations are high and moose populations are lower and when moose populations are high and wolf populations are low. Some other important graphs are: How much food does each wolf get? How does predation affect the moose population? Is the moose population unstable, and what does that mean? and, Age structure: what is it and why does it matter? All of these graphs show very important information about wolves and moose and how both are affected from one another. This source is credible because it is on the main website for the Isle Royale Wolf and Moose Study. The purpose of this article is to show people data collected from the island that is shown in a variety of graphs. The author has no position is this article. This article is not similar to any of the other sources. This source is helpful because it gives a visualization of what is actually happening on the island using graphs. I would recommend this to anyone who is too lazy to read a ton of information about the study and just wants to look at graphs about the study.