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This week’s weekly:

🌲 Iron County seals 1,100-acre Gile Flowage land deal

🐺 Isle Royale closes campground over backpack-stealing wolf

🐦 Black-necked stilts are booming at Horicon Marsh

🌦️STORY OF THE WEEK: What a ‘super’ El Niño does to Wisconsin

🌲 Iron County seals 1,100-acre Gile Flowage land deal LINK

• Six years in the making, but Iron County got 'er done: a $5.6 million purchase of about 1,100 acres around the Gile Flowage, locking up 18 miles of wild shoreline, forested wetlands, and a couple dozen islands upnort.

• A $4.1 million NOAA grant and $1.5 million from Knowles-Nelson covered the tab. Not bad for a county of 6,100 folks.

• It all rolls into the Iron County Forest, so it stays open for camping, hiking, and paddling, and keeps access for tribal treaty rights. Locals say the place feels like Wisconsin's own Boundary Waters. Hard to argue.

🐺 Isle Royale closes campground over backpack-stealing wolf LINK

• Isle Royale shut down tent and group sites at Three Mile Campground through July 31 after one bold wolf spent a week pawing at tents, dragging backpacks off, and even walking right into a tent.

• Rangers threw the whole toolbox at it (airhorns, shouting, paintball guns), but the wolf has gotten a taste for human food and isn't spooking easy.

• The island's wolf count just hit 37, the highest since the late 1970s, while moose numbers tank. Staff are ramping up hazing and rigging wolf-alert devices around Rock Harbor. Keep your snacks locked up tight out there, folks.

🐦 Black-necked stilts are booming at Horicon Marsh LINK

• Biologists counted 81 black-necked stilt nests at Horicon Marsh this year, pert-neer double the old record from 2022.

• These rose-legged shorebirds are coastal birds by nature, and Horicon now likely holds the biggest inland breeding bunch east of the Mississippi. They first showed up to nest in 1999 and apparently never got the memo to leave.

• What's driving it? Climate pushing them north from the Gulf, plus the stilts' habit of swapping mates each season, which keeps fresh birds flying into the marsh.

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WISCAMPSIN WEEKLY POLL

Last Week's Trivia Check

We asked what causes the dreaded summer curse of Swimmer's Itch, and we officially stumped you! A leading 42% of you logically blamed microscopic water mites, but only 27% correctly identified the true, slightly grosser culprit.

The Correct Answer: Microscopic parasites released by aquatic snails.

The Takeaway: Swimmer's itch is caused by microscopic flatworms that cycle between ducks and aquatic snails. When snails release them into the water, they sometimes accidentally burrow into human skin instead! They die almost instantly since humans aren't their correct host, leaving behind that incredibly itchy allergic reaction. Always towel off aggressively the second you get out of the weedy shallows!

This Week's Trivia

Wisconsin is currently baking under a massive mid-July heatwave! While we can retreat to the A/C, our local wildlife has to get creative. For big gamefish like Walleye and Northern Pike, the surface water of our inland lakes is getting dangerously hot, forcing them to dive deep to find relief. But there's a catch.

A review from the trail… Agreed!