Voyageurs’ Two Muskie Lakes: Studying a Small, Isolated Population

Voyageurs National Park covers 218,000 acres (341 square miles) of lakes, forests and streams in northern Minnesota, and almost 40% of it is water. It has 30 named lakes — four large ones and 26 smaller interior lakes. Only two of them, both interior lakes, hold muskellunge: Little Shoepack and Shoepack.

Why managers are worried

Muskellunge (Esox masquinongy), or muskies, are large, predatory fish native to some Minnesota lakes. Voyageurs' two muskie lakes are small — 51 acres and 304 acres — and their muskie populations are expected to be small too.

That is a problem for a fish's long-term survival:

• A 2019 assessment of Shoepack Lake's muskies estimated a smaller population than an estimate from the early 2000s.
• Once a population falls low enough, it can lose genetic variability, raising the risk that it disappears from the lake altogether (extirpation).

The study

Researchers at Voyageurs teamed up with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to:

1. study the genetics of the muskies in both lakes, and
2. estimate the population size in Little Shoepack Lake.

The results are meant to guide the park's planning, management and stewardship. One headline finding: the muskies of Shoepack and Little Shoepack are different from muskies found elsewhere.

The Park Service's two-page brief on the study. Image from the National Park Service's page on the Voyageurs muskellunge study.

The work is part of the Park Service's Natural Resource Condition Assessment program, which parks use to answer specific questions about their natural resources.

Sources

Based on "Studying the Genetics and Population Size of Muskellunge in Little Shoepack and Shoepack Lakes," Voyageurs National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The study: Maki, R. P., et al. 2024. Little Shoepack Lake muskellunge (Esox masquinongy) population estimate and genetic evaluation of muskellunge from Shoepack and Little Shoepack lakes. Science Report NPS/SR—2024/164. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado.