The Isle Royale wolf-moose study began in 1958.
That year, graduate student L. David Mech began studying wolves on Isle Royale, a remote island in Lake Superior that is now part of Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park. The island’s relative isolation created an unusually clear natural laboratory for observing a predator-prey relationship between wolves and moose.
Researchers initially expected the two populations to settle into a fairly stable balance, but the long-running record showed repeated rises and crashes instead. Moose numbers have ranged from roughly 500 to nearly 2,500, while wolf numbers have varied from about 50 to as few as one or two. Weather, food availability, disease, inbreeding, and the age or condition of moose all influence the cycles.
Mech’s research later became the world’s longest-running predator-prey study. His book The Wolves of Isle Royale, published in 1966, grew out of his doctoral work. The study is often described as beginning with the research project in 1958, not with the earlier arrival of wolves on the island.