Author: TODD RICHMOND

RACINE, Wis. (AP) — Michigan Tech University biologists have been monitoring the fragile wolf population on a remote Lake Superior island every winter since 1958, but had to cut short a planned seven-week survey this season after just two weeks.The ski plane where they are studying the wolves uses a frozen lake as a landing strip because there is nowhere to go on the island. But this unusually warm winter has left the Great Lakes almost ice-free.As climate change accelerates, scientists are working to understand how ice-free winters will affect the world’s largest freshwater system. Most of the effects are…