Slate Island and more

A very good read and also Slate Island was a place I thought would be a neat place to visit years ago.

Sounds like a cool story but it won't let me read it without registering.

BWPaddler: "Sounds like a cool story but it won't let me read it without registering."

Just Google : "Slate Island Caribou"

Slate Island Caribou

Neat. Was a real shame about Michipicoten; glad to see some potential recovery.

KarlBAndersen1: "

BWPaddler: "Sounds like a cool story but it won't let me read it without registering."

Just Google : "Slate Island Caribou"


Slate Island Caribou "

Thanks,Karl
to bad the other writeup by the Duluth paper was a extensive one.

I think Slate island once had the highest concentration of Woodland caribou in North America before the wolves crossed the ice that one year.

Interesting story. It adds to the side of the Isle Royal repopulation story also to know that they took the Wolves there. I was thinking that the herd of 6 was pretty small... but looks like it's just a holding or breeding ground. I can't imagine the logistics that went into trapping them unless they used a tranquilizer.

Thanks for the "link"... Was able to google and read articles. The woodland caribou is more vulnerable than deer or moose due to lower reproductive rate, behavior, and habitat requirements... I have been in the far north (n Manitoba and Nunavut) only 25 days in my life and saw plenty of barren ground caribou, there. I have been in the Wabakimi area for a total of about 85 days of travel and never seen a woodland caribou.

Little animal history:
The islands are home to woodland caribou which have been studied extensively from 1974 to 2007 by Dr. A.T. (Tom) Bergerud. The caribou are a classic example of island biogeography in action; the islands are notable for species that are absent but present on the adjacent mainland (red squirrel, moose, white-tailed deer, and grouse). No ungulates were present on the islands until the caribou arrived in the early 1900s while predators have been present only sporadically. Caribou reached the highest population density in the world on the islands before the 1990s, with the herd estimated at 650 animals.[3] After a food shortage and die-off in 1990, the numbers were reduced to about 100.[3] In 2012 there were about 200 caribou on the Slate Islands.[4] Wolves reached the archipelago in the early 1990s preying heavily on the caribou but for reasons not entirely understood they disappeared a few years later. Wolves are again present on the island since winter 2015/16 (or earlier) as evidenced by aerial observation and scat.

Other mammals found on the islands include beaver, muskrat, snowshoe hare, short-tailed weasel, red-backed vole, and red fox.

The waters surrounding the Slate Islands have been protected from commercial fishing to preserve one of the last native stocks of lake trout in Lake Superior. The Islands have been a source of lake trout brood stock used at the Dorion Fish Hatchery, and fingerlings are planted back to Lake Superior to restore the fisheries.