EGLE orders Enbridge to retrieve anchor in Mackinac Straits

LANSING -- The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) has instructed Enbridge Energy to remove an anchor that was left on the Straits of Mackinac lakebed. The agency continues to gather facts and information on the matter.

Enbridge informed the State of Michigan Wednesday night, July 21, that the 15,000-pound anchor was left by an Enbridge contractor after equipment failed when the contractor attempted to retrieve the anchor from the bottom of the Straits where it had been placed. Enbridge reports the anchor was several hundred feet from the twin Line 5 pipelines.

Enbridge has informed EGLE it is developing a retrieval plan and expects to have the anchor removed within days.

Wolf Pups Born on Isle Royale, Moose Poised for Decline

After a hard winter with not much food -- and not much coat because of ticks -- an Isle Royale bull moose is eager to feast on new green spring vegetation in June 2021. (Photo © Sarah Hoy and courtesy Michigan Tech University)

By Kelley Christensen, Michigan Tech Science Writer and Project Strategist

Posted July 12, 2021, on Michigan Tech News
Reprinted in part with permission.

The COVID-19 pandemic halted the in-person wintertime survey of wolves and moose on Isle Royale for the first time in 63 years. Consequently, there are no estimates of wolf or moose abundance for 2021, and the next estimates are scheduled in February 2022. But though the Isle Royale Winter Study didn’t happen quite as planned, researchers were still able to visit the remote national park in the spring.

Now, fieldwork has resumed and Michigan Technological University researchers have already uncovered new information about these two iconic wildlife populations. In particular, wolves produced at least two litters of pups, and moose appear poised for decline.

In the Isle Royale Winter Study, Michigan Tech researchers share other significant developments about curating the world’s largest moose bone collection, advances in understanding of wolf foraging behavior and the nutritional health of the moose population.

Cover of the 2020-2021 Isle Royale Winter Study report, by John A. Vucetich, Rolf O. Peterson, and Sarah R. Hoy of Michigan Tech's College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. (Image courtesy Michigan Tech University)

The 2021 Winter Study details a growing wolf population, while the moose population shrinks. Moose bones, collected over decades, are catalogued, and warming winters play a role in moose nutrition.

"We recovered footage of a group of four wolf pups taken in January 2021 by remote cameras at the east end of Isle Royale," said Sarah Hoy, research assistant professor in Michigan Tech’s College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science (CFRES). "Additionally, observations of tracks and scats left by wolf pups last fall at two different locations suggest that there were probably two different litters of pups living at the east end of the island in September 2020."

There may also have been another litter born at the west end of the island last year. With reproduction figures like that, Hoy and colleagues expect the wolf population to have grown slightly or moderately since the last survey count, so long as there hasn’t been an unusually high death rate.

Michigan Tech researchers are currently working with the U.S. National Park Service and other research collaborators to discern death rates and the number of litters produced....

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this article -- including wolves as specialized foragers; nutritional stress, climate and ticks impacting moose population; and the world's largest catalog of moose bones.