Reflection on the Wolves and Moose of Isle Royale

I couldn’t help but see it all as a powerful metaphor for our own world. Our economy, our society—it’s an ecosystem, too, with its own predators and prey.

I’m sitting here on Isle Royale. At Daisy Farm, to be exact. My partner and I hiked up to Mount Ojibwe earlier and saw the whole island spread out before us, a sprawling green jewel in the vastness of Lake Superior. It’s 99% wilderness, a designation that feels both profound and palpable. It means that for 99% of this place, nature makes the rules, not humans. There are no manicured lawns or paved roads, just rugged trails carved by time and the elements. This near-total lack of intervention makes it the perfect living laboratory, and it’s the site of one of the most fascinating ecological studies of the last century.

It’s all about the wolves, the moose, and the trees—a simple, yet profoundly interconnected system of life.

For a time, the wolf population here was dwindling, nearly erased by the genetic bottleneck of inbreeding. As the wolves disappeared, a silence fell over the island, and something strange happened in their absence: the forests began to shrink. The vibrant green edges started receding as the trees failed to repopulate. It turns out, without the threat of a predator, the moose and other smaller critters grew bold. They weren’t scared. They’d just wander out from the dense woods, their massive forms drifting through the open spaces to graze on the tender saplings and seeds at the forest edge, effectively eating the future of the forest before it could take root.

So, humans stepped in—not with the usual heavy hand of control, but in an attempt to restore the island’s natural, delicate balance. They reintroduced wolves, returning the apex predator to its rightful place in the ecosystem. With the wolves’ return, a primal tension was restored. The moose grew more cautious, sticking to the deeper woods, and they no longer roamed so freely. The impact was almost immediate. The forests, finally given a reprieve, began to breathe and grow again.

Who would think that wolves create tree growth? It’s a wild, counterintuitive connection, but it’s a powerful testament to how nature functions as an intricate, interdependent system. Every single piece, no matter how seemingly small or fierce, plays a crucial role. If one falls away, the entire ecosystem feels the tremor.

Last night, I had the privilege of meeting two of the researchers who have dedicated their lives to this very study. They spend about seven months a year here, living on this remote island, counting moose, tracking wolves, collecting bones—their life’s work is a quiet, devoted act of preserving this place.

The woman, Carolyn, gave a talk and showed us moose bones from that predator-less era. You’d think, “Oh, that must have been a golden age for the moose!” But the reality was the opposite. Their population exploded, creating a food scarcity that led to widespread sickness. She showed us skulls and hip joints riddled with the porous cavities of osteoporosis and arthritis. One skull she held up was a stark illustration of this suffering: one antler was full and wide, a picture of health, while the other was thin, gnarled, and weak, like a deer’s—the direct result of a body starved of essential nutrients from birth.

The wolves, by preying on the sick and the weak, perform a vital, if brutal, service: they keep the moose herd healthy and in balance with what the island can provide. It’s a rough reality for the individual moose, but it’s absolutely essential for the health of the whole island.

Listening to her, I couldn’t help but see it all as a powerful metaphor for our own world. Our economy, our society—it’s an ecosystem, too, with its own predators and prey. And right now, it feels like our wolves, the ones at the very top, are completely out of hand. They’re hoarding the resources, eating up everything, and throwing the whole system into a perilous imbalance. What’s missing, perhaps, are the other wolves—the countervailing forces that are meant to keep the most powerful predators in check, the ones that stop them from hoarding.

A wolf pack isn’t just a machine for hunting; it’s a system for distributing resources. A single wolf could take down a moose, but it can only eat so much. The rest would spoil. The pack structure ensures the kill is shared, sustaining the whole. But in our world, it feels like a few advantageous hunters are taking down all the moose and keeping them for themselves, while the rest of the pack starves.

This is where deception begins. When the truth of this imbalance becomes too uncomfortable to face, we create comfortable untruths to shield ourselves from it. We champion abstract concepts like “family values,” which are often just code for protecting the interests of your family, your group. We invent convenient myths about who is responsible for all our problems. Is it the poorest and most vulnerable among us, or is it the few who have amassed billions and are hoarding the resources? Who is really shifting the scales?

It reminds me of a line from an interpretation I wrote of the Dao De Jing:

When named ways are held up as the nameless, there may be great unity and prosperity and learning.

But because it is not the nameless way, there is great deception.

There is chaos in the family, so patriarchy begins.

The truth becomes uncomfortable, so comfortable untruth begins.

There is chaos in the country, so patriots are born.

When we lose that natural balance, chaos inevitably follows. And in that chaos, people rise up claiming to be “patriots” who can save us from the very problems that imbalance created.

But another line I often think about is,

The world can’t be saved. It can only be ruined.

Are we really “saving” anything with our interventions, or are we just spoiling it and remaking it in our own image?

Being out here in nature, surrounded by a system that is so much older and wiser than our own, I see things differently. I don’t have a grand message or an easy answer. This is just an invitation to look around and notice. Notice the imbalances in our own ecosystem. Notice the comfortable untruths we tell ourselves to make it through the day. And ask yourself, who really has the power, and can a system so profoundly out of balance truly be saved?

If you’re interested, I highly recommend looking up the work of the wolf and moose study of Isle Royale. The naturalists and scientists doing this work are incredible, and their dedication is a lesson in itself.