Isle Royale National Park staff on Tuesday closed another campground on the treasured Lake Superior island park after wolves ripped through a shelter to reach a cooler kept inside.
The Duncan Narrows Campground is the second campground in less than a week that park officials have closed because of wolf activity. The park closed Three Mile Campground on July 9 after a “bold” wolf was seen sniffing and pawing at tents, dragging backpacks away from tents and entering a tent.
In both cases, the wolves were after improperly stored food, according to press releases sent by Isle Royale Acting Administrative Officer Liz Valencia.
A wolf or wolves tore, scratched and pushed through the screen of a shelter at Duncan Narrows Campground last weekend, Valencia said. The animals pulled clothing and other items out and chewed at a cooler stored inside. No one was inside or was harmed by the animals. Park staffers are investigating the incident.
The park has closed Duncan Narrows through July 31. They closed the campground for a shorter time in early July to try to haze the wolves in a bid to deter them from the campground.
Duncan Narrows Campground is accessible only by water to visitors with boats, kayaks, and/or canoes.
Three Mile Campground also is closed through July 31 after a wolf there has shown “signs of habituation and a growing reliance on human food,” park staff said. They hope to reopen both campgrounds on Aug. 1.
In the meantime, staffers are monitoring the closed campgrounds and conducting “hazing” to discourage wolf activity. Hazing techniques include using paintball guns, air horns, and motion-sensing, noise-producing devices to discourage wolves from entering the campgrounds.
Park Superintendent Denice Swanke emphasized the importance of properly storing food on the island to avoid drawing wolves to campgrounds.
“Visitor safety and the protection of wildlife are our highest priorities,” Swanke said July 9. “We ask for your support in securing food, trash and scented items consistent with 2026 food storage guidelines.”
How to store food at Isle Royale
The onus is on humans to store food correctly and avoid drawing wolves into campsites, said biologist Rolf Peterson, a Michigan Technological University professor who leads the annual Isle Royale wolf-moose survey.
Isle Royale has three wolf packs, Peterson said. The one on the northeast side of the island is facing human activity everywhere it turns. The cubs grow up with the scent of burgers on the grill.
“They were born into an environment with a lot of human-provided food available, and a couple of wolves have gotten used to that,” he said. “There’s no risk to them. They just walk through campgrounds and see what is available. The solution is to make sure nothing is available.”
Isle Royale staff say food, trash, scented items, cooking supplies and utensils, fish and fish guts, grills and coolers all must be properly stored in order to avoid getting attention from wolves and other animals. People should not leave their food or packs unattended.
Campers, backpackers and paddlers must store food, trash and those items in food storage lockers or in hard-sided animal-proof containers. They shouldn’t hang the items in campgrounds, store them in tents or leave their food or backpacks unattended.
People backpacking and sleeping off-trail should store their food in animal-resistant, hard-sided containers kept 200 feet away from their campsites. They could hang food, trash and scented items.
Boaters should use food storage lockers, hard-sided animal-proof containers or a locked boat cabin or compartment.
People visiting the island for the day should keep their food with them or in storage areas.
Isle Royale wolf numbers skyrocket
The Isle Royale wolf pack is something of a success story for the scientists and park workers who brought 19 wolves from the mainland to the park in 2018 and 2019 in an effort to boost their population from a low of two wolves in 2016.
The latest survey conducted by Michigan Technological University showed there were 37 wolves on Isle Royale this year. In contrast, the surveyors found the number of island moose has sharply declined, dropping 74% since 2019.
The Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, just west of Isle Royale, did not support the plan to move wolves to Isle Royale, primarily because moose are harvested by tribal members, but chose to collaborate in order to build a relationship with the National Park Service.
Seth Moore, the tribe’s director of natural resources, told The Detroit News in April that Isle Royale’s wolves “are running out of food” since moose and beaver populations are in steep decline.
He warned of increasing conflicts between wolves and people.
“You have a population of wolves that are not hunted or trapped. … They have no fear of humans whatsoever, and natural prey abundance is becoming less and less,” Moore said in April. “To me, it sounds a little bit like a recipe for human-wolf conflict.”
Peterson said wolves will starve — he’s seen two starved wolves this summer — as their prey decline. The starving wolves aren’t the ones visiting campgrounds, he said.
“As they starve, they get weaker and weaker and weaker,” he said. “Finally they can’t get up anymore. It seems unlikely they would suddenly become more brazen.”
Something will interrupt the wolves’ upward trajectory and moose’s decline, Peterson said. A virus once killed a lot of wolves on the island and then a lack of genetic diversity made it hard for their numbers to rebound.
“At some point, the dynamics will switch and wolves will come up short somehow,” he said. “We don’t know how… We expect to be surprised by what happens.”
ckthompson@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Isle Royale closes another campground after wolf tears through shelter
Reporting by Carol Thompson, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Carol Thompson, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
