Are ravens responsible for wolf packs?
by Ned Rozell June 12, 2004 Saturday People who study animal behavior think they may have found out why wolves hunt in packs-because ravens are such good scavengers. Scientists who have watched wolves on Isle Royale in Lake Superior came up with the raven-wolf pack theory after puzzling over a question-why do wolves hunt in large groups when a single wolf is able take down a moose on its own? Ketchikan, Alaska ravens… By Ketchikan photographer Carl Thompson To find a possible answer, John Vucetich and Rolf Peterson of Michigan Tech and Thomas Waite of Ohio State University examined 27 years of wolf observations on Isle Royale in northern Michigan. Isle Royale, 45 miles long and up to nine miles wide, sits in the northwest lobe of Lake Superior. Designated a national park, the island supports a population of a few dozen wolves and hundreds of moose. Peterson has studied the wolves for more than 30 years, and the group of researchers used his observations and those of his coworkers in
