ISLE ROYALE, Mich. (WLUC) – The National Park Service has announced the lethal removal of an animal from Isle Royale National Park.
Starting in June, the park became alerted to two wolves, part of roughly 30 on the island, that frequently began eating human food at campgrounds. According to the park, the two wolves were reliant on the food, even dragging backpacks from campsites. Isle Royale Supervisory Park Ranger Liz Valencia says this was something the park initially picked up on last year.
“There were some wolves that were getting interested in campgrounds and getting interested in human food,” Valencia said. “We also had issues with garbage being stored improperly. We tried to take care of some of that last year, and then we started this summer with fresh, new food storage lockers in the campgrounds, new dumpsters… but as the summer went on, we realized that there were some wolves again interested in visitor’s food.”
Despite taking steps to prevent this from happening, the park says the wolves continued to be bold, approaching staff housing and visitors. After consulting state, federal and tribal agencies, officials killed one of the wolves last week. Valencia says the second wolf may also be put down depending on what happens over the next few days.
“Once wolves get that taste of human food, it’s really hard for them to not keep going after it,” Valencia continued. “When they get that food reward, and then they get it again… they just keep going back.”
Valencia says that, to prevent this from happening again, visitors must be more responsible with both their food and their trash.
“It takes them a couple of seconds to notice it,” Valencia continued. “They can smell that food… don’t leave your food unattended, ever, and make sure you… have the food in a food storage container, and then in the campgrounds, there’s (the) food storage lockers, too.”
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