#wolf info

So I’ve been seeing a lot of comments from you guys about this post. Most are positive, but there are two comments that keep coming up. So, I’m going to take a moment to address them now.

1. The “Alpha Wolf” theory was proven to be untrue.

I’m assuming you’re all referring to David Mech’s belief that alpha wolves do not exist. He is both right and wrong. You see, while Mech doesn’t disagree with the idea of a social hierarchy among wolves, he does disagree with the term alpha. He claims that to be an alpha one must fight for that position and most alpha wolves are given that position simply by being the oldest/parents of the rest of the pack.

And he’s right, sort of.

Yes, the alpha wolves of the pack are usually the oldest/parents, but that is not always the case. Wolves do challenge each other for pack rank. If they lose the fight, they are chased off and forced to start their own pack or forced to accept their lower-rank. Alpha wolf does not inherently mean that it is a wolf who had to fight to win their position. It just refers to the wolves who run the pack.

No one is arguing that there isn’t a social hierarchy among wolves. If you came out to the sanctuary where I work and watched these wolves for even an hour, you could not tell me that there was no hierarchy.

Some stories/examples:

(I’ll preface this with a disclaimer that animals in captivity do behave slightly different than their wild counterparts, but they all share the same basic instincts.)

With the 37 wolves we have, they are divided into 14 packs. For the simple reason that if they weren’t, it would be a bloodbath.

This is Aquene’s pack (pronounced Ah-kee-nah), which we lovingly call the “Days of our Wolves” pack because of all the drama that goes on among the ladies. Here we have (from left to right): Aurora, Tala, Koda, Bartok, and Aquene.

Aquene is the current alpha female, and that’s probably not going to change because she’s good at her job. Aurora does not want to be at the bottom of the pack rank and likes to prove this by picking on Tala by chasing her around the enclosure (Nothing too serious, I promise. If it were to get bad we would separate them). Aquene, doing her job as alpha, disciplines Aurora every time she does this. Wolf discipline occurs when the alpha forces another wolf to the ground (or “puts them down”). The submitting wolf will roll onto their back and tuck their tail in as the alpha stands over them. Aquene is the only wolf in the pack who does this, because that is her job and no one else’s. Aquene also disciplines Tala from time to time. For instance, it is currently breeding season. Aquene and the boys (Koda and Bartok) are fixed, but Aurora and Tala are not, so they went into heat. But only the alpha pair is allowed to mate. This did not stop Tala from trying to mate with the boys. She got in trouble. Big time. Aquene disciplined her immediately, and Tala was smart enough to not try mating again.

A clear hierarchy is established here: Aquene as the alpha, Aurora as the beta, and Tala as the omega. Yes, Aquene is the oldest, but she has remained alpha because the other girls have not challenged her for this position.

Story/Example 2:

My favourite pack (unfortunately, I have no good pictures of the four of them together) consists of “the pups”, Arrow, Zonta, Tokori, and Athena. Called “the pups” because they are the youngest wolves we have currently. These guys are all litter mates, meaning they are brothers and sisters who are all the same age. This pack is slightly different from Aquene’s pack, mainly because the boys (Arrow and Zonta) are the dramatic ones here.

When they were young, they didn’t care so much about who was in charge of their pack, but as they got older, that changed. Arrow and Zonta challenged each other. Arrow won and has since established himself as the alpha of the pack (with Athena being his chosen alpha mate). Even without an age difference or parent-child relationship, the wolves still established a hierarchy. Arrow’s place is not permanent. It could easily be taken away from him if Zonta decides to challenge him again.

Basically, call them alphas, dominant wolves, breeding pairs, etc. there is always going to be two wolves (one male, one female) that run the pack. Out of those two, one will be more in charge than the other (think: president and vice president). The female is usually the main one in charge. Alpha is just the term most commonly used.

2. “But my wolfdog is super sweet!”

Yes, wolfdogs can be sweet and nice, but this is more often seen as the exception, not the rule. Our wolfdog (Nanook), is very sweet, but he’s also blind. He lost his vision when he was barely a year old from cataracts.

Even if you got lucky and have a nice wolfdog, that doesn’t change the fact that these animals (like any other hybrid or pseudo-hybrid) weren’t meant to exist. They almost always have health problems, and as I said in the last post: On average, 200,000 wolfdogs are born every year. 90% of them are euthanized. And wolfdog breeding facilities are no different than puppy mills.

Please, stick with regular domestic dogs as pets. Support your local animal shelter.

I stand by what I said in my original post, and still plan to make more wolf-related posts in the future. Thank you all for your support!

Anonymous asked: do wolves call the pack together before a hunt

Summer holiday started for most of us, which for me means; more time for wolf studying!