TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Isle Royale National Park’s gray wolves, one of the world’s most closely monitored predator populations, are at their lowest ebb in more than a half-century and could die out within a few years, scientists said today.

Only nine wolves still wander the wilderness island chain in western Lake Superior and just one is known to be a female, raising doubts they’ll bounce back from a recent free-fall unless people lend a hand, Michigan Tech University wildlife biologists Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich said in a report obtained by The Associated Press. There were 24 wolves — roughly their long- term average number — as recently as 2009.

“The wolves are at grave risk of extinction,” Vucetich said in an interview.

Their crash apparently results from a run of bad luck rather than a single catastrophe. A shortage of females has cut the birth rate, while breakdown of several packs boosted inbreeding and weakened the gene pool. Other troubles include disease and starvation from a drop-off of moose, the wolves’ primary food source.

Their population is the smallest since biologists began observing their interactions with moose in 1958, beginning what became the world’s longest-running study of predators and prey in a single ecosystem, Vucetich said.

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