Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Extreme inbreeding likely spells doom for Isle Royale wolves


  The last know two members of a wolf family identified as a male and female of a 
Isle Royal, Michigan were examined and tracked by  The National Park Service. Christine Mlot quoted a document reporting that the two wolves are in fact "They are father and daughter as well as half siblings, born 2 years apart to the same mother" (Mlot 2016)

   The wolves are so deeply inbred that researchers do not believe that population can thrive from the two wolves. researchers said that wolves in general try to avoid inbreeding. However with such a small population in a remote location, its as though other options were thrown out the window.  

  solutions for this problem were being thrown around for example bringing in new wolves into the gene pool however that was shortly overturned. now solutions are still in process but nothing is set.

opinion.: its a shame how a family of wolves can be erased this easy. i do agree with the solution to bring in new wolves to expand the gene pool, but also taking eggs from the femal and sperm from the male, then mutating the genes and implanting it back into the female hoping for new progeny. 

2 comments:

  1. I thought your articles did a good job of highlighting how inbreeding can affect other species. Most people know the damage it can cause to humans but it was interesting to look at how other species are also affected.

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  2. Wolves are definitely some of my favorite animals, so of course I went and looked at other articles related to this problem. My biggest question is, if the moose population is skyrocketing, there is no immigration of wolves in recent years, clear inbreeding leading to detrimental deformities, and the overall population is in steep decline, what reason could there possibly be not to attempt genetic rescue of the population, especially when it has been successfully carried out on other animal populations in the past? I know I'm biased, but still.
    And another thing: what's causing the population decline, anyway?
    Okay, I'm done ranting, have a nice day.

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