1

The wolves of fate: Media coverage of the 2018 Isle Royale 'genetic rescue'

Eric Freedman Michigan State University

freedma5@msu.edu

Mark Neuzil University of St. Thomas mrneuzil@stthomas.edu

Alexander Killion

Boise State University alexanderkillion@u.boisestate.edu

International Environmental Communication Association Conference on Communication &

Environment June 2019

Vancouver, British Columbia

Abstract

Isle Royale is one of the most remote U.S. national parks, and its main draws are wilderness and wildlife, including beaver, otters, moose, martens and – for the moment – few wolves. In a controversial move in 2018, the National Park Service released four wolves from the mainland on the island, the first time the agency has intervened in a designated wilderness area to manipulate a predator-prey relationship (wolves feed on the burgeoning moose population). Wolves and moose are charismatic megafauna whose fate on Isle Royale has attracted widespread public interest and media attention. Supporters call the NPS plan a “genetic rescue”; skeptics say nature should be allowed to take its course. From the time the NPS released its Record of Decision announcing its controversial new wolf management plan, it has provided detailed information to the media while prohibiting, for espoused scientific and logistical reasons, a physical media presence on the mainland during captures and on Isle Royale during the releases. This paper uses content analysis and interviews to study how the U.S. and Canadian press covered the translocation decision and early animal releases from June through November 2018 and to examine NPS media strategy and tactics.

Introduction

Isle Royale is one of the most remote U.S. national parks, and its main draws are wilderness and wildlife, including beaver, otters, moose, fish, martens, and – for the moment – a few wolves. In a controversial move in fall 2018, the National Park Service (NPS) released four wolves from the mainland on the island, the first of several planned releases as a way of balancing the wolf-moose populations.

The September release was the first time that the NPS has intervened in a designated wilderness area to manipulate a predator-prey relationship. The agency plans to move 25 to 30 wolves to Isle Royale in the next three to five years and spend about $2 million over 20 years to maintain the wolf population. Supporters call this plan a “genetic rescue,” but skeptics say nature should be allowed to take its course.

2

From the time the NPS released its Record of Decision on June 7, 2018, announcing its new wolf management plan the agency has provided detailed information to the media about the project while prohibiting (for apparently logistical and sound scientific reasons) a physical media presence on the remote park property during the actual releases.

More people visit Yellowstone National Park on a single summer day than visit Isle Royale in an entire season, which runs from May into October. Despite its isolation, or perhaps because of it, wolves and moose are the charismatic megafauna whose fate on Isle Royale has attracted widespread public interest and media attention for many decades. Both species have cultural meanings that extend beyond their predator-prey relationship. Their populations have fluctuated between peaks and crashes: Gray wolves in the Great Lakes region have been moved on and off of the U.S. Endangered Species List a few times in the past 20 years. It is noteworthy that wolves are less controversial in the Lake Superior region than in the Western United States – perhaps because fewer farmers and ranchers are affected by their presence, or because they never disappeared although their numbers dipped to a few hundred in the mid-1960s.

Arguably, a combination of media attention and the cultural/research history of the wolf-moose relationship on Isle Royale have outweighed most scientific qualms about putting a finger on the ecological scale by stocking new animals.

What, if anything, can be learned from media coverage? How are stories presented and sourced? A key variable in the equation was the lack of media access to the island – all coverage had to be done by phone, email, through mainland press conferences and press releases, and through social media sites, including that of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, whose mainland reservation supplied some of the translocated wolves. There were no reporter boots on the ground during the study period. To get at these questions and others, this case study quantitatively analyzes U.S. and Canadian news coverage from June 2018 through November 2018. The study period begins in the month when the NPS announced its wolf management plan after a three-year environmental review of the restocking issue. It ends in the month when the agency announced the death of the first wolf to die after translocation. Releases after the study period had brought the population to 15 as of May 2019, reflecting the one death in 2018 and the return of another wolf to the mainland over an ice bridge in February 2019.

The study qualitatively examines NPS press releases and other public relations materials distributed to the media during the same period, supplemented by semi-structured in-depth interviews with NPS and Michigan Department of Natural Resources personnel involved in the communications effort and with a journalist who heavily covered the issue.

Historical background1

Isle Royale, which sits in Lake Superior and belongs to the United States through the state of Michigan, hosts the most-studied predator-prey animal relationship in the history of the Great Lakes watershed and perhaps on the North American continent. On the 205-square-mile island, the largest in a group of more than 400 that make up Isle Royale National Park (IRNP), scientists have examined moose continuously since at least the late 1920s. The moose’s lab partners, wolves, have not been on Isle Royale as long but have been under the microscope since they arrived.

The reasons are straightforward due to the island, its size and location. Isle Royale is a more-or-less contained ecosystem; and the animals have existed in relatively small – that is to say, nearly countable – numbers, waxing and waning over the years. Although the island is in the middle of the largest freshwater lake on the continent, it is easily accessible by boat, ski plane, or seaplane unless the weather is terrible. The archipelago is about 18 miles from the Minnesota shore and 58 miles from Michigan. Scientists also have the advantage of not having

3

to navigate around too many tourists. (Although those who do come stay a while. The NPS reports that the average national park visitor stays four hours; on the island it is closer to four days.) There are no roads and no motors. No one stays for any length of time over the winter except park employees and scientists.

A less straightforward, but equally important reason for island research from a communications perspective is that moose and wolves represent charismatic megafauna. That is, they are large, easily recognized, photogenic, popular, furry mammals that end up on the covers of magazines, in wildlife films, newspaper websites, plush toys, and the occasional Disney movie. As such, wolves and moose have cultural meanings that go beyond their predator-prey relationship; they are objects of public interest, folklore, and media attention. The wolf, in particular, gets extra media points for being on and off the U.S. Endangered Species List (Killion et al., 2019). The wolf loses points for those who remember what happened to Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother and the Three Little Pigs as objects of the Big Bad one’s attention. On the other hand, moose as prey and as plant-eaters engender empathy, or at least the cultural favoritism reserved for the underdog. The fact that the animal’s continental population has been in a steep downward curve since the 1990s adds concern.

The researchers who first took extended looks at the moose on Isle Royale included Adolph Murie (1899-1974), who has been called the first scientist to study wolves in their natural habitat (Grooms, 2002). Murie teamed with his brother Olaus (1889-1963), to become the most famous sibling biologists in U.S. science history. Their accomplishments are long and varied, and include pioneering scientific studies, contributing to national park expansions, creating and leading conservation groups, and lobbying and testifying in Congress.

Adolph’s early career for the NPS took him to Isle Royale, where in 1934 he produced a report on the moose. The Michigan Legislature funded the study in 1929 to determine “potential future uses of the island.” Little extended scientific work had been done in the islands since a 1905 visit by Charles C. Adams, who notably did not list moose in his indexed report of mammals.

Murie was assigned to look at the mammals again and devoted an entire report to the moose. (He covered all other mammals in a separate document.) He landed on the island on July 14, 1929, with his assistant, Paul F. Hickie, at Belle Isle, and they set up camp at Pickerel Cove, starting a legacy of biological research that continues today. The men worked until mid-October, and Murie returned the following May with another biologist, Norman A. Wood, who was assigned to study birds. The Michigan Game Division hired Hickie and he returned to the area in the winters of 1934-37 with a plan – aided by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps – to trap starving moose and restock the nearby Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Hickie and his team trapped 71 moose, but the scheme failed (Hickie, 1943).

Murie’s report, which attracted little attention at the time included interviews with old-timers who had been watching and/or hunting moose since the 1880s on the island and the mainland. A migration of the animals may have come in 1912-13 during an usually cold winter that solidified an ice bridge to Canada; others probably swam across, perhaps earlier in the century.2 As wolves had not yet arrived, the moose had “little check on their increase,” and had the run of the place (Murie, 1934). Murie guessed at more than 1,000 moose on Isle Royale in 1929 and “I think that a count would give a figure far greater than the estimated minimum” (Ibid: p. 10). It would not surprise him, Murie reported, to find 2,000 or 3,000. By 1929, the plant life that the moose favored was suffering from over-browsing. He and his assistant shot several moose (including a pregnant female), measured and weighed them, including the 22-pound unborn calf. They also examined 24 carcasses and skeletons.

The 1930s proved an important decade for the Isle Royale moose. The media found the animals and thrust them into charismatic megafauna status through a photographer named Walter Hastings, a Michigan Department of Conservation employee, Hastings’ films on the moose made in the 1920s and 1930s were shown all over the world.

4

Concerned with overpopulation, Murie became the first of many scientists to suggest introducing a predator to the island ecosystem, after considering and rejecting hunting either recreationally or by the state. Shipping live moose – at 800 pounds or more – did not seem practical to Murie either, which proved accurate based on Hickie’s failed attempts a few years later. Instead, Murie suggested bears, cougars, or wolves, as “such an introduction of a native species would add materially to the animal interests of the island” (Ibid: p. 42). He rejected the island’s coyotes – he was also an expert on coyotes – as ineffective predators for moose populations.

Wolves would prove effective. However, the carnivores were not planted – perhaps the Great Depression and World War Two had something to do with that – but instead found Isle Royale on their own. By some accounts, the first pair walked to the island over the ice in 1949 from Ontario, and the four quiet decades spent by the moose population without a natural predator ended (Line, 1996). NPS biologist James E. Cole was sent to Isle Royale from his regular assignment at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado to do a count in 1952. He and park ranger Roger Hakala located four wolves during the winter. Another census four years found “at least” 22 wolves; by 1957, Cole may have seen the final coyote track on the island – wolves had crowded them out (Cole, 1957).

In 1958, other researchers began a close study of the predator-prey relationship between wolves and moose that continues into the 21st century. The man credited with instigating the project was Durwood Allen, a professor at Purdue University. Isle Royale had been set aside as a national park in 1940, ending moose hunting. As an undergraduate zoology student at Michigan in 1930, Allen had seen Hastings’ film on the moose of Isle Royale and had been excited when two large male wolf carcasses, taken as bounty, showed up at the university’s museum. Twenty-one years later, working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Allen returned to considering wolves, moose, and Isle Royale when a photograph of a wolf track landed on his desk. “[T]his event introduced the greatest of all experiments in predator-prey relations … I was especially interested in islands as research areas, where the animals you are counting and studying do not wander away,” he wrote (Allen, 1979: p. xvii).

There were no federal funds for an Isle Royale study in the early 1950s, so Allen’s work did not get underway until after his arrival at Purdue in 1954. He ended up leading the study from its inception in 1957 until 1976. His roster of graduate students would come to include some of the world’s leading wolf researchers, including Rolf O. Peterson, who is still frequently interviewed by journalists, and L. David Mech. The Isle Royale wolves became the most famous in America through television specials and newspaper and magazine articles. In fact, Peterson came to the project after seeing Allen on TV (Steinhart, 1995).

How did the wolf or wolves arrive? Allen and his team concluded that the population they were observing came from Minnesota or Ontario on an ice bridge between 1948 and 1950. A confounding variable was the introduction of four trapped wolves in 1952, brought from the Detroit Zoo by writer and wolf advocate Lee Smits. After DNA testing of Isle Royale animals began in 1990, the presence of the stocked wolves – even though two were shot and killed shortly thereafter and one was soon trapped and returned to the mainland – would prove controversial.

Mech, whose Ph.D. research on the wolves and moose was published in 1966, determined that woodland caribou had occupied an ecological niche now partially filled by the moose, and Canadian lynx had lived on the island prior to the early 1930s (Mech, 1966). In three years of observations, including extensive aerial surveys, he concluded that the island’s largest wolf pack– 15 or 16 animals – killed an average of one moose every three days.

The mid-1960s in the United States were an ebb, in terms of population, for the wolves. State bounties were ending, but almost too late to assist the carnivore population. Minnesota

5

was down to about 350 wolves by 1965, while northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula had another 50, plus the 20 to 25 on Isle Royale.

Perhaps because of their small numbers, changing environmental attitudes, or other factors entirely, wolves began to fall back into favor. With so few animals left in the continental United States, they could hardly be blamed by hunters or farmers for taking game or livestock in large numbers.

Scientists on Isle Royale and elsewhere spoke favorably of the wolf in public presentations, books, articles, and interviews in the popular press. Michigan gave the wolf protection under the state’s endangered species law in 1965; in 1973, the wolf was included in the first federal Endangered Species Act. Animals listed in the ESA needed a recovery plan, and the wolf was no exception – except that the wolves on Isle Royale were written out of the plan because of their isolation (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2011). Nevertheless, shooting an ESA-listed gray wolf in the Lower 48 could result in a $50,000 fine, a year in jail, or both.

Perhaps nothing represents charismatic megafauna in the eyes of the public more strongly than their featured role in a children’s book, and by 1968 the wolves and moose of Isle Royale were main characters in a book called The Big Island. Author Julian May told the story of a hungry, large moose who sees the island across the water in the distance and swims for it. Others follow, and still more come across later on an ice bridge. Drama ensues when overpopulation buffets the animals, and even humans cannot save them. Along comes the heroes, a wolf pack that is trapped on an ice floe and conveniently drifts to the island. And, perhaps because it was a children’s book (or especially biologically accurate), the wolf pack feeds only on old, weak, and sick moose, balancing the population, so the “wolves and the moose and other animals all live together. They all have plenty to eat” (May 1968: p. 31). Those that are not eaten, the reader presumes, live happily ever after.

Rehabilitation for the wolf’s reputation proceeded apace. In the 1970s, scientists formed working groups to study and protect the animal, including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (which became the World Conservation Union). Environmental groups such as the Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and the World Wildlife Fund also picked up the wolf’s banner (Mech and Boitani, 2010). By the 1990s, public opinion surveys showed that citizens’ attitudes supported its protection (Ibid: p. 295). In Ely, Minnesota, the creation of a zoo-museum-learning space called the International Wolf Center became a popular tourist destination.

Perhaps it was inevitable, after being observed for so many seasons in relatively close quarters, that some of the predators would receive names. The two most famous were Big Jim and Old Gray Guy. Big Jim was the lone survivor of the Detroit Zoo stocking, a 90-pound male raised in captivity – from one day old – and released at 15 months. As a budding charismatic megafauna, Big Jim sat for television cameras in Detroit and a New York magazine photographer before his release. Cole thought that a lone wolf he spotted over the years, including as late as 1957, was Big Jim, and his legend grew (Allen: p. 21). But as a lone wolf, his genetic contributions as a stud were likely limited.

There were hopes, soon realized, for gene-mixing when a wolf soon named Old Gray Guy after his unusual light coloring wandered to the island in 1997. He started a pack that grew to 10 animals, and his progeny made up of more than half the animals on the island by 2006 (Bakalar, 2011). But, possibly because all the animals on the island except Old Gray Guy were descended from the same female – and possibly because genetic rescue simply does not work – inbreeding issues did not disappear.

Perhaps inevitably, the wolves became noted for a skeletal deformity. In addition, canine parvovirus – perhaps carried by dogs brought by park visitors – has been a problem. Moose have escaped the inbreeding problem but often fell victim to starvation after over-browsing, or to a brain parasite that is aided by a warming climate.

6

Thus Murie’s sought-for ecological balance on Isle Royale, as reflected in the children’s book, did not last long if it ever existed. Instead, over the years wolves and moose continued to survive in a peak-and-crash world that became critical for the island survival of both species by the second decade of the 21st century.

The moose population appeared to peak in 1995 at about 2,450 animals. The highest wolf count was 50 in 1980. By 2016, 500 moose remained on Isle Royale and the wolf population was down to two. Genetic rescue for the wolves was considered and rejected in 2014. In 2014, the stocking proposal became controversial because opponents believed that some wolves may have descended from the Detroit Zoo's Big Jim rather than from the wild wolves that wandered over from the mainland in the 1940s.

It has not been lost on policy makers that while the wolf population on Isle Royale has suffered, its recovery on the Lower 48 states’ mainland has been a success (Wydeven, van Deelen, and Heske, 2009). As wolves have long been a cultural touchstone, both favorably and as the bad guy in fairy tales, moose have not endured such reputational ups and downs. But both animals on Isle Royale are now under stress from a more recent challenge, climate change.

Literature review

The charismatic wolves and moose dominate news coverage of Isle Royale and its archipelago and account for much, but not all, of the recent wildlife-related natural science and social science research done there. Some such research looked at genomic variation of inbreeding among Isle Royale wolves (Hedrick, Kardos, Peterson, and Vucetich, 2017) and the temporary beneficial genetic effects from a male wolf migrating to the island on his own (Hedrick, Robinson, Peterson, and Vucetich, 2019).

Moose have been the subjects of more research. Recent studies have examined the relationship of climate warming to their smaller body size and shorter lifespans (Hoy, Peterson, and Vucetich, 2017); their role in fertilizing riparian forests with nitrogen as they move from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems (Bump, 2018); the influence of diets and winter severity on their nutritional condition (Parikh, Forbey, Robb, Peterson, Vucetich, and Vucetich, 2017); and models of how their population might interact with the island’s forest ecosystem (De Jager, Rohweder, Miranda, Sturtevant, Fox, and Romanski, 2017).

The 17 other mammal species now living on the island draw less scientific – and media – attention. Some other species have disappeared, such as the Canada lynx and woodland caribou. Another species that was apparently extirpated around 1917 – the American marten – has returned, however. Its return reflects “an unexpected and dynamic pattern of extinction and recolonization and illustrates that even federally protected or historically pristine ecosystems have experienced more community turnover than previously appreciated” (Manlick, Romanski, and Paili, 2018: p. 5), but the marten remains rare after its estimated 76-year absence.

Another study modeled the feasibility of reintroducing Canada lynx, which disappeared from Isle Royale in the 1930s; it concluded that there is a high potential for success if the lynx are properly monitored and managed. It also said restoration means “Isle Royale could continue its long and storied tradition as a site that leads to a better understanding of wildlife ecology and conservation (Licht, Moen, and Romanski, 2017: p. 175). Bergman and Bump (2018) studied factors associated with how beavers on Isle Royale select their long-term lake habitat, including the role played by the availability of aquatic plants they feed on.

Other research on Isle Royale – unreported or underreported by the news media – has explored a range of environmental issues, such as climate change, non-mammalian wildlife and flora, resource management, archaeology, and environmental learning.

7

For example, scientists examined the effects of climate change on the thermal structure and biotic response of northern wilderness lakes (Edlund, Almendinger, Fang, Hobbs, VanderMeulen, Key, and Engstrom, 2017). NPS scientists studied the apparent localized extirpation of cisco (a fish species) from two inland lakes on Isle Royale; they noted that if that extinction is confirmed, it could be among the first documented cases of extirpation directly resulting from anthropogenic climate change (Lee and Gagnon, 2015). Other studies have looked at genetic diversity of pearl dace in the inland lakes (Elder, Martin, Schlosser, and Kallemeyn, 2016); copper mining by Indigenous people from an estimated 5,400 to 6,500 years ago (Pompeani, Abbott, Bain, DePasqual, and Finkenbinder, 2014); and archaeological discoveries at Mid-Late Archaic relict beach shores (Olson, 2018).

Some research connects natural science with the humanities. One such study looked at how college students learn and write about experiential environmental philosophy on Isle Royale. Using a qualitative analysis of student writing data from a summer course taught on the island, the authors explored how and whether wilderness experience and environmental ethics could help students develop moral awareness and empathy for the natural world (Goralnik and Nelson, 2017). In another humanities study, a composer-researcher explored acoustic ecology and “sonic environmentalism” in the context of wolf howls (DeLuca, 2016). Images and perceptions

Moose and wolves are both charismatic species, and the wolf in particular has been ranked among the world’s 10 most charismatic animals (Courchamp, Jaric, Albert, Meinard, Ripple, and Chapron, 2018). The wolf is the only one among the 10 classified as of “least concern” on the International Union of Conservation of Nature Red List; the other nine are categorized as critically endangered (gorilla), endangered (tiger, some elephants), or vulnerable (lion, some elephants, leopard, panda, giraffe, cheetah, polar bear).

Charismatic species convey stereotypes for public and media attention. Media depictions, history, and cultural norms contribute to those stereotypes. For example, Born described how polar bears became “icons of climate change” in National Geographic (2018: p. 1). White looked at the role of the endangered snow leopard in Kazakhstan’s cultural landscape, including its status as an unofficial symbol of the state, its appearance on stamps and currency, and its popularity as sports teams’ mascots. He wrote:

As metaphors, symbols, and images are powerful forces shaping human perceptions and attitudes, the cultural landscape expressions of the snow leopard in Kazakhstan can engender awareness, knowledge, appreciation, emotional attachment, and perhaps a conservation ethos. Unlike the creature’s presence on the natural landscape, the survival of the snow leopard in the cultural landscape is not in doubt (White, 2018: p. 3). There is substantial debate over whether conservation efforts disproportionately.

advantage charismatic species at the expense of lesser-known and unglamorous species, especially in light of limited financial, conservation management, and scientific resources to protect and rescue flora and fauna at risk of extinction (e.g., Courchamp et al., 2018).

For North Americans, the moose generally conveys positive images reflected in its status as Maine’s state animal and as one of Canada’s two national animals (with the beaver). It has been depicted as a large but gentle herbivore standing placidly by a remote wilderness lake or sauntering along the main street of a small Alaskan town, as in the opening of the 1990-1995 “Northern Exposure” TV series. Perhaps parts of the public think of the moose as nice but not too bright, like Bullwinkle J. Moose, a dimwitted character in the 1959-1964 “Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends” cartoon series and the 2000 movie “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

As Stolarz observed, “Wolves and humans have competed for resources and for the position of top predator at least since humans became efficient enough hunters to stop being

8

mistaken for easy prey themselves” (2019: p. 3). That conflict has led to laws and policies encouraging the hunting—even the extermination—of wolves, as well as illegal poisoning, shooting, and trapping, often by farmers and ranchers who claim wolves are attacking their livestock.

However, public and media perceptions of wolves are more nuanced than simple human-vs-beast conflicts, and they are more nuanced than public perceptions of moose. On one end of the perception spectrum, the wolf is the slobbering evil creature that ate Grandma in “Little Red Riding Hood” and hungrily tried to huff, puff, and blow down the houses of the three little pigs in fairy tales. On the opposite end of the perception spectrum, humans revere the wolf as a noble beast of the woods and a fiercely independent guardian of wilderness. Examining children’s literature, Mitts-Smith (2010) traced the wolf’s cultural makeover and conceptualizations, including wolf as predator, wolf as social being, and wolf as canine. That image shift has won the wolf allies and protectors committed to saving the species from extinction.

In the United States, the gray wolf was in the first group of species included on the initial Endangered Species List in 1974. On March 15, 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally proposed delisting the gray wolf. Its proposed rule, published in the Federal Register, said in part:

We … have evaluated the classification status of gray wolves (Canis lupus) currently listed in the contiguous United States and Mexico under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 … Based on our evaluation, we propose to remove the gray wolf from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. We propose this action because the best available scientific and commercial information indicates that the currently listed entities do not meet the definitions of a threatened species or endangered species under the Act due to recovery (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2019).

From both public perception and science vantage points, the delisting proposal sparked immediate opposition from environmental groups. For example, the Endangered Species Coalition said in a statement:

While wolves have rebounded from near-total extinction in parts of the Northern Rockies and Western Great Lakes regions, much of the suitable habitat remains unoccupied by wolves. The recovery in areas where they do currently exist was only possible because of the protections provided by the Endangered Species Act. It is these protections that (interior) Secretary (Sally) Jewell’s plan would prematurely strip from gray wolves (Endangered Species Coalition, 2019).

Research questions This study looks at two research questions:

RQ1: How did U.S. and Canadian news outlets cover the Isle Royale wolf translocations during the six-month study period, June through November 2018?

RQ2: What media strategies and techniques did the National Park Service and its partners use to keep the press informed about the project?

Methodology Quantitative method

The quantitative part of the study involved a content analysis of news stories printed, broadcast, and posted during the study period. News stories were defined as non-advertising matter in a news product and produced by staff, freelancers, columnists and correspondents, including wire services and syndicated content. News stories included features and in-depth pieces. The definition excluded editorials, letters to the editor, and reprinted press releases.

To find news articles on the gray wolf translocation in Isle Royale we searched five news databases (Newspaper Source Plus, Academic Search Premier, LexisNexis, Proquest Central,

9

and Google News) using keywords 'Isle Royale' and 'wolf' for articles published June-November 2018. One author read each article and removed duplicates and those that did not have the Isle Royale wolf translocation as the primary topic or did not meet our news story definition (e.g., editorials).

To ensure intercoder reliability, the three authors each coded the same 10% sample of the articles and discussed coding differences until a common understanding was reached. Each of the final articles was then coded twice by different authors and coding inconsistencies were revisited for accuracy. We classified seven main article attributes including news organization, country, medium they appeared in, author origin, topic prevalence, contentious opinions, expert, advocacy, and ordinary sources, and the use of visual elements. Sources are people, organizations, public agencies, and businesses that provide information to journalists. An advocacy source is one whose assertions advocating a policy-related position about the wolf relocation constitute information provided to reporters. An issue expert source is any person cited in stories because of his or her institutional or background credentials to evaluate or interpret an issue. An “ordinary person” source is a non-expert and non-advocacy source who comments on the topic—for example, a tourist from Wisconsin; they or their family, business or community may be affected by or are interested in the topic. We examined stories to see whether they contained any of four topics as either major elements or by at least being mentioned: the NPS translocation decision; logistics, implementation, and cost of the project; the scientific and ecological impact of wolf relocations on Isle Royale’s flora and fauna; and the economic, business, or tourism impact of the project. We coded six types of visual elements: photos with wolves; photos with moose; photos of Isle Royale landscapes; photos of NPS staff or other project personnel; maps; and other visual elements. Length of article, news organization, and publication date were also recorded. Qualitative method

The authors conducted in-depth telephone interviews in April 2019 with three NPS officials, including the IRNP superintendent, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) communications professional, and one of the journalist who most closely covered the translocations (see Table 1).3 We analyzed the interviews by grouping their answers into categories based on common content to solicit information about the agencies’ media strategies and tactics. Table 1: Interviewees

Name Interview date Affiliation Position

Tanda Gmiter April 15. 2019 MLive Editor

Phyllis Green April 3, 2019 Isle Royale National Park

Superintendent

John Pepin April 24, 2019 Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources

Deputy communications director

Alexandra Picavet April 30, 2019 National Park Service Chief of Communications & Legislative Affairs, Midwest Region

Liz Valencia April 3, 2019 Isle Royale National Park

Manager, Interpretation & Cultural Resources Division

10

Quantitative findings

Research Question 1 asked how news outlets covered the wolf translocation project. The database search resulted in 366 articles; after removing those that did not meet the inclusion criteria or were duplicates, the authors coded 68 articles. Of the final articles, 93% were from U.S. media and 7% from Canadian media. The vast majority (79%) came from newspapers, magazines, and wire services (in print and/or online) rather than television (3%) or radio (18%). Stories averaged 25 sentences, ranging from as few as seven to a maximum of 153. The high number is from an outlier, a feature article in Sierra, the national magazine of the Sierra Club.

Among them, 19% included a topic of contention, most often concerning whether the NPS made the correct decision to relocate wolves from the mainland to Isle Royale. Issue experts from the U.S. government were the most common, with 76% of articles having at least one and 25% having at least two from the government. Academics were included in 25% of articles and environmental interest groups in 15%. However, rarely (6%) were all three of these sources combined in a single article. Similarly, only 3% of articles included issue experts from both the U.S. and Canadian governments. There was sparse representation from tribal (7%), Canadian government (4%), and ordinary (4%) sources. The prevalence of different topics discussed was more evenly distributed than the types of issue experts (Figure 1). Information on the logistics and implementation of the translocation was the most common majorly discussed topic (79%), followed by the translocation decision (35%) and Isle Royale ecology (35%). However, the economic impacts of the translocation were rarely discussed. Figure 1: Prevalence of topics in articles.

The majority of articles (91%) included at least one visual element, primarily photos but occasionally a map, graph, or embedded video (Figure 2). Photos with wolves (78%) far outnumbered photos with moose (13%). An occasional photo showed both (12%), for example, a wolf feeding on a moose carcass.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

TranslocationDecision

TranslocationLogistics

Isle RoyaleEcology

EconomicImpacts

Other

Perc

en

t o

f A

rtic

les

Prevalence of Article Topics

Major Mentioned

11

Figure 2: Percent of articles with visual elements

Qualitative findings

This section addressing Research Question 2 draws on interviews with IRNP Superintendent Phyllis Green; Liz Valencia, the manager of IRNP’s Interpretation and Cultural Resources Division; Andrea Picavet, the NPS Midwest regional chief of communications and legislative affairs; Michigan Department of Natural Resources deputy communications director John Pepin; and Tanda Gmiter, the statewide lifestyle and trending news editor of MLive, a chain of eight Michigan newspapers based in Grand Rapids. It also draws on the content of press releases and media advisories from IRNP and others. Planning media coverage

Public relations planning started in the spring of 2018 and ramped up in June 2018 when the NPS prepared to announce its management plan to relocate wolves—“when we realized it was a go,” Valencia said. The agencies were well aware that “the public is really interested in this. They just love it.”

The NPS established an Isle Royale National Park Joint Information Center that included representatives of the Michigan and Minnesota DNRs, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Grand Portage Band headquartered in Minnesota. Some translocated wolves were to come from reservation land, and tribal members historically fished and hunted on the island, conceding it only “under duress” to the U.S. government in 1844 (Deschampe, 2017).1 Green said, “That meant you had a dialogue with the different agencies involved in the project and put key communication personnel in the system.” Pepin said the Joint Information Center was part of a centralized “incident command structure” with an “incident command team in place.” He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses that type of “regimented structure” for

1 The Grand Portage Band opposed the relocation during the public comment period, urging NPS

to wait “at least a decade post-extinction of wolves” to decide whether to restock them. It argued

that a decade-long delay would provide time to assess other metrics of ecosystem change and to

see whether wolves from the mainland naturally recolonized the island (Deschampe, 2017).

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Wolf Moose IsleRoyale

Landscape

Staff Maps Other None

Perc

en

t o

f A

rtic

les

Featured Image

Percent of Articles With Various Visual Elements

12

disasters and the Michigan DNR uses it for wildfires. Before the translocation decision was made, a Michigan DNR wildlife biologist handled most of that department’s interaction with the NPS. Once the NPS made its decision, the Michigan DNR “looked at it as Park Service project we were partnering in,” Pepin said.

In the media realm, having all those people there representing different agencies helps your coordination and reduces and misinformation and maximizes resources by co-locating PIOs [public information officers] and the like. We were all, when it could arranged, in the same place working on stuff. I was privy to drafts of press releases, proofed some drafts, edited some drafts, made some suggestions and was doing photos as well. NPS personnel took the lead of the Joint Information Center because other agencies “all

knew they wouldn’t have convened without us, so they gave us deference,” Green said. “Once we were in the actual mode of operation and put in a release to the press, we got review by the (other) agencies. Not all agencies weighed in equally. Those intimately involved did have their communication staff weigh in.”

As part of the planning process, the IRNP team discussed media strategy with personnel from Yellowstone National Park, which had relocated 31 gray wolves from Jasper National Park in Alberta in 1995-1996. “We talked to them but they had a very different situation than we did,” Picavet said. For example, Yellowstone’s releases took place on the mainland, not on a remote island, so there were differences in “access and the possibility of being able to invite media into where the wolves were being released or other areas where things were happening.” In addition, the media had changed significantly in the intervening two-plus decades. However, two Yellowstone National Park staff members came to Isle Royale to photograph and video the project. Access for journalists

NPS and its partners discussed whether to allow journalists at the capture and release sites. Their primary concern, however, was the safety of the wolves and of personnel, such as the veterinarians and capture teams, not what journalists wanted. Picavet said, “We tried to figure out every which-way we could make it work, or at least provide the images and direct access to the people (NPS personnel and other project participants, including Fish & Wildlife Service photographer) who were there without compromising the project.” Pepin cited timing and transportation issues. Allowing journalists on site “was going to be unwieldy, especially if there were a lot of reporters,” he said. In addition, Picavet said, government photographers could help if problems arose. “If we said, ‘Put your camera down and work with us,’ they would” while photojournalists couldn’t be ordered around that way. And Green pointed to safety issues during the fall, when most concessions on the island are closed, and in the winter. “How do I get people off if there’s a problem? In the winter there’s literally no room for error. The odds for survival are slim for people because of response times.”

Thus rather than allowing the press on Isle Royale, the agencies decided to provide photos and videos. As Green said, “Once (journalists) find out how tough it is, they say just send them the stuff. We’re sending them enough so they’re reasonably informed.” Valencia said NPS had to be fair and didn’t want to decide where to cut off media access, “This was fairly well-received by the press, as long as we posted photos and videos.”

Green noted that NPS did give permission for the National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation to provide photographers and other people to produce documentary photos and videos “to end up in an educational program relative to the whole program.” The foundation, together with the International Wolf Center, raised money to help fund a 2019 relocation from Ontario (after the study period) when there was insufficient federal finding available. “They have had a few embedded photographers and they have gained the trust of the people who work with the animals,” she said.

13

What did journalists lose by not being on the scene? “I would have loved to talk to the teams that were responsible for the capture,” Gmiter said. “That element was missing – how the net trapping went, how difficult it was to spot (wolves) from the air. I really think their angle got missed because I’m sure they have some fascinating stories.” Press releases

Press releases provided the major source of information for journalists. During the study period, IRNP issued nine of them, plus two media advisories announcing upcoming press conferences. Green was listed, with her phone number, as one of the media contacts on 10 of the 11 press releases and advisories; Valencia was listed on nine and Picavet on seven. Some news organizations used the press releases virtually verbatim. For example, the October 13 Iron Mountain (Michigan) Daily News article headlined “Four Minnesota wolves moved to Isle Royale” consisted of 13 sentences, all drawn directly from the IRNP press release of the previous day; the newspaper changed only one word, replacing “today” with “Friday” and did not disclose that it was a press release.

The Michigan DNR disseminated a lengthy first-person feature story written by Pepin to the press. The Marquette (Michigan) Mining Journal published it, identifying him as the writer and crediting the department for his headshot. The Big Rapids (Michigan) Pioneer published the same feature story/press release without identifying his Michigan DNR affiliation.

Not surprisingly, many of the same photos and videos appeared in news reports. The fact that capture sites off the island and wolf release sites on the island were off-limits to journalists gave the NPS and its partners a monopoly on photo and video access. Thus news organizations had the choice of using government-supplied photos and videos or using stock images and footage from prior reporting.

There also were press releases from outside the Joint Information Center. In addition to the MDNR release of Pepin’s feature, the National Parks Conservation Association issued press releases lauding the NPS decision to translocate wolves and the agency’s implementation of that decision. The International Wolf Center issued a press release as well.

There were some disagreements within the communications team. One concerned whether to treat all journalists the same. “One thing we tend not to do in the federal government is give exclusives,” Picavet explained. “The state entities, the Michigan DNR and (the) Minnesota [DNR] had different constraints but understood not giving exclusives but having equal access.” However, the representative of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa who works with the media “had a very different view” and would have provided exclusives if the band “had its druthers.” She said, “It could be described as different tactics.”

Pepin pointed to another disagreement with a biologist who represented the Grand Portage Band. “When one of the wolves we were going to translocate died (on September 27, 2018, after being trapped and sedated), we put that out to the media. We did the news release. We wanted everything to be transparent and be available for the media.” The tribal representative “was not happy” with that decision, however, and “felt it kind of made the biologist team look bad. He felt the fatality was something that’s not necessarily expected but can happen when trapping wolves. He was upset the Park Service decided to go ahead and release that information.” The wolf’s death was disclosed in the third through fifth paragraphs in a release titled “Isle Royale Wolf Relocation Update”; the first two paragraphs of that release announced the capture of four wolves on the Grand Portage Reservation. A necropsy later determined that anesthesia-related stress was the likely cause of death.

In retrospect, would the communications team have done anything differently? “It was the very first operation so we had no idea what to expect. There were too many unknowns,” Picavet said. One proved to be the 35-day U.S. government shutdown from December 22, 2018, until January 25, 2019 (after the study period), that threw “a great big monkey wrench” in the process. It meant that the plans became “really muddied.”

14

The NPS media strategy, coupled with lack of physical access for journalists to Isle Royale, enabled the agencies to largely control and shape press coverage. That is reflected by, among other things, the close similarity of stories by a variety of print, online, and broadcast news outlets, the commonality of much of the data appearing in the stories, and the dominance of a limited number of NPS officials—most often Superintendent Green and Mark Romanski, the IRNP chief of natural resources, – as named sources, with their quotes taken from press releases and interviews. Assessments

Officials sound satisfied with the press coverage, expressing only minor complaints. Green described coverage as “mostly accurate” and said, “The stories were more accurate when we had total control over them.” She added, “The toughest thing for our press people to deal with was one fatality in the fall. We were (just) going to summarize the operations but we knew there was a possibility it (a death) would happen.”

Pepin said, “We did not post images of the wolf that died, so the media was using images of ones that survived” – a practice he said “was not too cool.” Picavet said she saw a “couple of stories…that were ‘what are they talking about here?’” Overall, however, Picavet said:

With the information we had, money constraints, time constraints, the overwhelming concern was making sure it was a successful project, I believe through what I’ve seen of the coverage there’s been really full coverage, with a lot of photography with direct access to the superintendent and other key players. Valencia noted that there had been “a few OMGs,” such as “confusion about where or

when one of the trapped wolves died – which was before it was sent to the island. Some said it died on the island. Sometimes the number of wolves being moved got mixed up.”

Journalist Gmiter’s assessment? “I’d give an overall grade of A-minus to B-plus” and praising the NPS for candor, although saying that “some of the information has been a little slow to come out.” In her opinion, “The National Park Service has done a good job getting out information that isn’t fun to tell” – such as wolf deaths and the fact one wolf used an ice bridge to leave the island. “They didn’t sit on it,” detailing problems and solutions in its press releases, she said. Discussion

Newsmakers, news shapers, and journalists recognize the importance of press releases as sources of information. Press releases are not neutral: Issuers want to present information, opinion, and analysis in ways that support their actions, decisions, products, and points of view. Meanwhile, continually shrinking newsrooms – the dwindling numbers of reporters, editors, photographers, designers, and other news professionals – leave the remaining staffers increasingly dependent on press releases for story ideas and content – too often without additional independent reporting to verify assertions and seek contrary perspectives and data. As Rodman notes, “Today, much of the news we receive from any medium consists of information supplied by press releases. Newspapers especially rely on them…” (2012: p. 349).

Yet, as Gmiter said, “Stories not from press releases resonate more and stay longer than ones that other news outlets are writing” based on press releases.

Our analysis shows that was the case for coverage of the Isle Royale wolf relocations. Journalists used large portions of the information in releases, had no alternative sources for up-to-date photos and video, and heavily relied on the same news sources proffered by NPS and the Joint Information Center for additional quotes or data. Without physical access to locations where news was being made –capture and release sites – and without the ability to interview project personnel on the ground, the NPS largely drove what was reported and what was not.

15

Another indicator of journalistic dependency on press releases is the virtual lack of “ordinary” people such as park users and tourism and business representatives on the nearby Minnesota and Michigan mainland as news sources. That is despite the high level of public interest in Isle Royale among past and prospective visitors and among mainland businesses that serve those visitors. Similarly, the tribal voice of the Grand Portage Band was rarely heard in the news stories although its participation in the project was mentioned in many of the IRNP press releases.

For the NPS and its partners, the Joint Information Center’s media strategy and tactics proved successful in telling their stories and appearing transparent on a topic of great public and press interest. At the same time, they put the conservation management goals of the project and the safety of its participants as paramount.

We expect press coverage of wolf translocations, survivals, and deaths, and wolf-moose predator-prey interactions to continue, although perhaps without the same intensity as the onset of the project and the initial relocations. MLive’s coverage continues to draw clicks, according to Gmiter. “Our audience seems engaged with what’s happening with the wolves… It’s fascinating to me to see the readers respond.”

Green said NPS will continue to work with journalists. “We’re way more amenable in the summer because they can get there. If they’re doing a news story, we can accommodate them. If they’re doing filming for money, it’s prohibited to do commercial filming in a (federally designated) wilderness.” She also cautioned that there is no assurance journalists will spot any of the wolves because they generally stay away from people. “You don’t see wolves on Isle Royale. It’s so rare.”

Conclusion

There is no guarantee that the reintroduction plan, even if fully implemented, will lead to a viable and self-sustaining wolf population. Aside from uncertainties concerning disease, changing climate, and other calamitous or unfavorable events and factors, genetics are an important variable. As White, Moseby, Thomson, Donnellan, and Austin (2018) observed in their study of the reintroduction of four threatened mammal species in an Australian reserve:

Reintroduction programs aim to establish self-sustaining populations that do not require significant long-term management. Successful reintroductions generally increase a species’ population size and geographic range, and restore ecological function to the area from which it was extirpated … However, the ability of a population to persist in the long-term will also be strongly influenced by levels of genetic diversity … Reintroduced populations are susceptible to loss of genetic diversity due to founder effects, the isolated nature of reintroduction sites, and small population size … Additionally, loss of genetic diversity will diminish the adaptive capacity of a population and limit its ability to cope with environmental change (2018: p. 1).

Two of this study’s authors are environmental journalists and journalism educators who take a special interest in how the Great Lakes’ ecological problems are defined and communicated (see our book Biodiversity, Conservation and Environmental Management in the Great Lakes Basin). In our analysis, the weight of the politics, including media attention, and cultural history of the wolf-moose relationship on the island has buried most scientific qualms about putting a finger on the ecological scale. The public relations value is often immense in “rescuing” a charismatic megafauna, perhaps shown with dramatic images (although, notably, no media, will be allowed at any of the Isle Royale releases; all of the visual images are controlled by the Park Service). In addition, it helps that Isle Royale is a relatively small, isolated, and non-peopled community, without the wolf-human interactions that bedevil areas like the Rocky Mountain region. As journalists who spend our time on environmental problems around the world, we think about how messages are communicated and what kind of message an action like this sends – is it the more media-friendly the animal, the more likely the rescue?

16

References

The other author is a conservation biologist who studies large carnivores in the context of social-ecological systems. He is interested in the feedbacks between stakeholder risk perceptions, values, and beliefs with wildlife populations. Media plays an important role in shaping attitudes and beliefs and can influence the management of wildlife and ultimately shape ecosystems. Allen, Durwood L. (1979). The Wolves of Minong, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Bakalar, Nicholas (April 5, 2011). “Wolf Crosses the Lake Superior Ice to Become Leader of the Pack,” The New York Times, p. D3. Bergman, B. G., and Bump, J. K. (2018). Revisiting the role of aquatic plants in beaver habitat selection. American Midland Naturalist, 179: 222-246. Bump, J. K. (2018). Fertilizing riparian forests: Nutrient repletion across ecotones with trophic rewilding. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 373(1761). doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0439 Cole, James E. (1957). Isle Royale Wolf Investigations, winter of 1956-57. Isle Royale National Park files, Special Report, 42 pp. (unpublished manuscript). Courchamp, F., Jaric, I., Albert, C., Meinard, Y., Ripple, W. J., and Chapron, G. (2018). The paradoxical extinction of the most charismatic animals. PLOS Biology. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003997 Deschampe, N. W. (March 16, 2017). Letter from the Grand Portage Reservation Tribal Council to the superintendent of Isle Royale National Park. De Jager, N. R., Rohweder, J. J., Miranda, B. R., Sturtevant, B. R., Fox, T. J., and Romanski, M.C. (2017). Modelling moose-forest interactions under different predation scenarios at Isle Royale National Park, USA. Ecological Applications, 27(4): 1317-1337. DeLuca, E. (2016). Wolf listeners: An introduction to the acoustemological politics and poetics of Isle Royale National Park. Leonardo Music Journal, 26: 87-90. Edlund, M. B., Almendinger, J. E., Fang, X., Hobbs, J. M. R, VanderMeulen, D. C., Key, R. L., and Engstrom, D. R. (2017). Effects of climate change on lake thermal structure and biotic response in northern wilderness lakes. Water, 9(9). doi.org/10.3390/w9090678 Elder, J. F., Martin, J. R., Schlosser, I. J., and Kallemeyn, L. (2016). Population genetic divergence of Isle Royale pearl dace, Margarita margariscus (CYPRINIDAE). Georgia Journal of Science, 74(2). Endangered Species Coalition (2019). “Stand for Wolves.” Available at http://www.endangered.org/wolf-delisting/ Freedman, Eric, and Mark Neuzil, eds. (2018). Biodiversity, Conservation and Environmental Management in the Great Lakes Basin. London: Routledge. Goralnik, L., and Nelson, M. P. (2017). Field philosophy: Environmental learning and moral

17

development in Isle Royale National Park. Environmental Education Research, 23(5): 687-707. Grooms, Steve (Summer 2002). "A Brief History of Wolf Research". International Wolf. 21(2): 9. Hedrick, P. W., Kardos, M., Peterson, R. O., and Vucetich, J. A. (2017). Genomic variation of inbreeding and ancestry in the remaining two Isle Royale wolves. Journal of Heredity, 2017: 120-126. Hedrick, P. W., Robinson, J. A., Peterson, R. O., and Vucetich, J. A. (2019). Genetics and extinction and the example of Isle Royale wolves. Animal Conservation: 1-8. Hickie, Paul F. (1943). Michigan Moose. Michigan Department of Conservation, Game Division. Hoy, S. R., Peterson, R. O., and Vucetich, J. A. (2017). Climate warming is associated with smaller body size and shorter lifespans in moose near their southern range limit. Global Change Biology, 24:6: 2488-2497. Killion, A. K., Melvin, T., Lindquist, E., and Carter, N. H. (2019), Tracking a half century of media reporting on gray wolves. Conservation Biology, 33: 645-654. Lee, J., and Gagnon, G. (2015) Detecting presence of Coregonus artedi in Lakes Richie and Sargent of Isle Royale National Park, Michigan. Licht, D. S., Moen, R. A., and Romanski, M. (2017). Modeling viability of a potential Canada lynx reintroduction to Isle Royale National Park. Natural Areas Journal, 37(2): 1-177. Line, Les. "In Long-Running Wolf-Moose Drama, Wolves Recover from Disaster." The New York Times March 19, 1996. Manlick, P. J., Romanski, M. C., and Pauli, J. N. (2018). Dynamic colonization history in a rediscovered Isle Royale carnivore. Scientific Reports, 8. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-31130-0. May, Julian (1968). The Big Island. Chicago: Follett Publishing. Mech, L. David and Luigi Boitani, eds. (2010). Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mech, L. David (1966). The Wolves of Isle Royale, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. Mitts-Smith, D. (2010). Picturing the Wolf in Children’s Literature. New York: Routledge. Murie, Adolph (1934). The Moose of Isle Royale, Ann Arbor, Mich. The University of Michigan. Olson, S. J. (2018). MCC Nipissing East 2 (20.IR.253) and MCC Nipissang East 3 (20.IR.254): A cross site comparison of archaic sites on Isle Royale National Park. Master’s thesis, St. Cloud State University.

18

Parikh, G. L., Forbey, S., Robb, B., Peterson, R. O., Vucetich, L. M., and Vucetich, J. A. (2016). The influence of plant defensive chemicals, diet composition, and winter severity on the nutritional condition of a free-ranging generalist herbivore. Oikos, 126: 196-203. Pompeani, D. P., Abbott, M. B., Bain, D. J., DePasqual, S., and Finkenbinder, M. S. (2015). Copper mining on Isle Royale 6500-5400 years ago identified using sediment geochemistry from McCargoe Cove, Lake Superior. The Holocene. 253-262. Rodman, G. (2012). Mass Media in a Changing World (4th edition). New York: McGraw Hill. Steinhart, Peter (1995). The Company of Wolves, New York: Vintage. Stolarz, R. P. (2019). Wolves, humans, and the democratization of Poland: anti-wolf policies and social change in Poland, 1918-1960. The Polish Review, 64(1): 3-30. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2019, March 15). “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removing the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus).” Federal Register. Available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/03/15/2019-04420/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-removing-the-gray-wolf-canis-lupus U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2011). “Gray Wolf Recovery in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.” (PDF). White, K. D. (2018). The snow leopard and cultural landscape in contemporary Kazakhstan. Society and Animals, 26: 1-23. White, L. C., Moseby, K. E., Thomson, V. A., Donnellan, S. C., and Austin, J. J. (2018). Long- term genetic consequences of mammal reintroductions into an Australian conservation reserve. Biological Conservation, 219: 1-11. Wydeven, Adrian P., Timothy R. Van Deelen and Edward Heske, eds. (2009). Recovery of the Gray Wolves in the Great Lakes Region of the United States. New York: Springer.

1 Much of the historical background is from Chapter 16, "Through the Crystal Ball," in Eric Freedman and Mark Neuzil, eds. (2018). Biodiversity, Conservation and Environmental Management in the Great Lakes Basin. London: Routledge: 274-281. 2 Later, DNA evidence indicated that perhaps a Minnesota sportsmen’s club had stocked moose for hunting in the early 1900s. Locals report moose swimming to the islands as well. 3 Another journalist who heavily covered the translocation declined an interview because of a policy of that reporter’s news organization.