MooseWatch 2025

This month, I completed my 

10th MooseWatch Expedition 

on Isle Royale. 

During the week, we searched for moose bones and shed antlers, 

while collecting data on other species whose lives are interwoven with moose and wolves (like snowshoe hares and gray jays). 

Wolf print

This  is the longest-running predator/prey wildlife study in the world.
  
It has been ongoing since 1958....so this is its 67th year!

JP on antler seat

The weather this week ranged from the 30s to the 80s! We spent time cooling off in streams...something I never thought we'd do in May.

My team cooling off in a stream

A rainy morning in the field

Stacy finds a shed!

This is the first time my team found 40 sheds!!
We did 48 miles total, 21 off-trail!

Fancy lunch and antler plate

We had some warm days!

Processing a moose skeleton in the field

Karen finds her first shed!

The scientists leading the study are led by Dr. Rolf Peterson who has led the study since 1975. 
I'd love to hear him interviewed on Ologies with Alie Ward!

Dr. Rolf Peterson goes over our finds at the end of expedition

Dinner at our favorite place after expedition

Sometimes a set of shed antlers are found

For the past six years, I've been a team leader. 

My team!

This study is now supported by the Wolf Moose Foundation. 

Consider making a donation to support this amazing work.

Moosewatch 2021 Part 3

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

You don't have to hike far on Isle Royale before you come upon balsam fir trees that look like the photos below:

This tree is the primary food source for moose in the winter. As you can imagine, as the moose population expands, the competition for balsam branches increases.

A prolonged winter can also decrease the chances of a moose making it to spring.

On this year's Moosewatch, my team recovered bones from 8 moose, a few of which were showing signs of starvation.

Scientists have been studying the interaction of moose and wolves on Isle Royale for 63 years now. The most recent annual report can be found here.

And here's a sunset from Isle Royale.

 

Moosewatch 2021 PART 2

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

The primary goal of a Moosewatch Expedition on Isle Royale is to gather data on moose bones in the field and to bring some of the bones back for study. 

Since the study was suspended due to Covid last year and since additional wolves were relocated to the island, we expected to find more moose bones. 

And we were not disappointed.

With each find, we searched the area for all the bones we could find, recorded which ones were present, inspected bones for signs of pathology (e.g. arthritis, healed breaks -- these bones would also be recovered for study), recorded data on location of find and condition of bones. Then, we would pack up the skull, mandibles, and a rear metatarsal. This last bone grows to its full length in the first year of a moose's life, so measuring it gives a wealth of information on how that first year went for the moose (e.g. was food abundant/scarce?).

Our last find was on the hike in to Windigo to meet up with other teams and deliver our bones. This moose was killed a few weeks ago, so we smelled it before we found it.

Every bone was present except for one scapula.

Fox love to run around with the bones, so it was probably carted off by a fox.

Here's my team, 

the second all-women Moosewatch Team:

(L>R: April, Joceline, Zan, and Julie)

 

Moosewatch 2021 PART 1

 

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

I just completed my SIXTH Moosewatch Expedition collecting bones on Isle Royale for the Moose/Wolf Study. This is the longest-running predator/prey study ever done (at over 60 years).

Along the way in our searching for bones, we also gather data on other wildlife and also take measurements and locations of shed moose antlers.

My team came across 22 sheds ranging from massive to tiny:

Julie shows off the range of our finds:

April shows off our tiny find:

Joceline discovered an ancient antler: 

Sometimes...antlers are still attached to a massive, buried skull:

More to follow on this amazing expedition...

Mammals of Isle Royale

 

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

While the moose and wolves on Isle Royale capture  most of the attention of visitors, there are other creatures living there.

If we exclude bats, there are only 11 mammals on the island:

moose, wolves, beaver, muskrat, otter, fox, short-tailed weasel, red squirrel, deer mouse, snowshoe rabbit, marten

Pretty sure this is an otter (above and video below)

Master engineer, the beaver.

The most vocal resident on the island, the red squirrel.

Me and my hiking pals (April, Zan and Julie)

We found this recently killed bunny along the trail. Note the blood on the leaf.

We didn't see any fox this year, though they left scat along many of the trails we hiked.

Wolves & Moose of Isle Royale

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

My recent week hiking on Isle Royale was wonderful. While the famous wildlife study based there had been paused this year, the island opened to hikers arriving by float plane and private boaters in late June.

I joined some friends to hike the island and we saw several live moose, saw some moose bones, and came across many wolf tracks...including those of pups.

Wolf pup track (left) and adult (right)

[dollar for scale]

Female cow moose

Moose!

A grand bull moose in the woods:

And moose bones:

Zan and Julie discuss kill

April, casual in field of bones

This moose had two broken ribs that had healed in the past

Isle Royale 2020

 

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

In this year of quarantine and shut downs, the longest-running wildlife study was also paused. Moosewatch volunteers usually gather in May, June and August to hike Isle Royale under the direction of scientists to find and gather moose bones for study.

I've hiked this expedition five times, and last year was the leader of the first all-women team. My team was already set to hike in May when the pause button was pressed on just about everything.

And, yes, in the scheme of things, this was a small thing to cancel. Lives -- too many lives -- have been lost due to the mismanagement of the response to the pandemic. Jobs have been lost. Lives disrupted. 

When Isle Royale National Park announced they would be opening for seaplanes and private boats in late July, I took the opportunity to schedule some time there with friends from Moosewatch. 

It was an opportunity to be immersed in nature, to unplug from the news, to recenter myself.

Here are a few photos from Isle Royale 2020:

After hiking 50 miles (L>R Me, Julie, Zan, April)

Blueberries on the Greenstone Ridge

View from tower on Mt. Ojibway

On tower (Zan, April, Julie)

Sunrise, Moskey Basin

Adult and pup wolf tracks (dollar bill for scale)

Butterflies

Thimbleberries

ground squirrel

why they're called thimbleberries

Sunset, Lake Richie

Lake Richie, like a mirror

Merganser with chicks