A new edition of a classic: the compelling firsthand account of an ancient predator-prey relationship---the Isle Royale wolf and moose dynamic

Mech's landmark study of wolves and moose on Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior. The author lived among them during the three-years of his research. Isle Royale is an isolated wilderness ecosystem which is perfect for scientific study.Dr. L. David Mech is the best-known and most highly regarded wolf researcher in the world. He works with the Biological Services Division, U.S. Geological Survey, and is also the author of several other books on wolves. He has studied wolves and their prey full-time since 1958, except for a four-year period when he studied radio-tracking. During this record-long career as a wolf biologist, he has published numerous books and articles; this book was originally published by the National Park Service in 1966."Mech is the foremost expert on wolves in this country, possibly in the world, hands down." - Smithsonian magazine

In this exhilarating installment of the award-winning Scientists in the Field series, journey to the isolated islands of Isle Royale National Park where the longest predator/prey study in the world is being conducted along with a controversial genetic rescue to save not only the wolves and moose, but the entire island ecosystem. On Isle Royale, a unique national park more than fifty miles from the Michigan shore and about fifteen miles from Minnesota, a thrilling drama is unfolding between wolves and moose, the island’s ultimate predator and prey. For over sixty years, in what has been known as the longest study of predator and prey in the world, scientists have studied the wolves and moose of Isle Royale and the island’s ecology to observe and investigate wildlife populations. But due to illness and underlying factors, the population of wolves on the island has dropped while the number of moose has increased, putting the Isle Royale ecosystem in jeopardy. Now, for the first time ever, scientists are intervening. Join celebrated author Nancy Castaldo in this exciting journey to Isle Royale to document the genetic rescue experiment scientists there are embarking on. If they can successfully relocate twenty to thirty wolves from the mainland to Isle Royale, scientists can potentially restore the balance among wolves, moose, and trees of the island's ecosystem. Now the living laboratory experiment begins.

The world’s leading wolf expert describes the first years of a major study that transformed our understanding of one of nature’s most iconic creatures In the late 1940s, a small pack of wolves crossed the ice of Lake Superior to the island wilderness of Isle Royale, creating a perfect “laboratory” for a long-term study of predators and prey. As the wolves hunted and killed the island’s moose, a young graduate student named Dave Mech began research that would unlock the mystery of one of nature’s most revered (and reviled) animals—and eventually became an internationally renowned and respected wolf expert. This is the story of those early years. Wolf Island recounts three extraordinary summers and winters Mech spent on the isolated outpost of Isle Royale National Park, tracking and observing wolves and moose on foot and by airplane—and upending the common misperception of wolves as destructive killers of insatiable appetite. Mech sets the scene with one of his most thrilling encounters: witnessing an aerial view of a spectacular hunt, then venturing by snowshoe (against the pilot’s warning) to photograph the pack of hungry wolves at their kill. Wolf Island owes as much to the spirit of adventure as to the impetus of scientific curiosity. Written with science and outdoor writer Greg Breining, who recorded hours of interviews with Mech and had access to his journals and field notes from those years, the book captures the immediacy of scientific fieldwork in all its triumphs and frustrations. It takes us back to the beginning of a classic environmental study that continues today, spanning nearly sixty years—research and experiences that would transform one of the most despised creatures on Earth into an icon of wilderness and ecological health.

A lively study of the relationship between predator and prey

"A renowned scientist studies wolves on a wilderness island, searching for what it means to better relate to the natural world"--

Soon after Anna Pigeon joins the famed wolf study team of Isle Royale National Park in the middle of Lake Superior, the wolf packs begin to behave in peculiar ways. Giant wolf prints are found, and Anna spies the form of a great wolf from a surveillance plane. When a female member of the team is savaged, Anna is convinced they are being stalked, and what was once a beautiful, idyllic refuge becomes a place of unnatural occurrences and danger beyond the ordinary…