Wolves: Behavior

Howling

Wolves howl to warn off intruders, find one another, rally the pack together and for fun. When howling together as a pack, each wolf howls on a different note. One theory on this behavior is that the discord of howling notes makes it difficult for listening ears to tell how many wolves are in the pack. It can make four wolves sound like many more which keeps enemy packs away.

Pups howl as well but in shorter spurts and on higher notes. This is because they are smaller, with smaller lungs and vocal cords.

Wolves are careful where they place their howls from. A lone wolf trying to locate his pack takes the biggest chance. If he is also close to an enemy pack's territory, the enemy wolves may decide to find and kill him. Also, wolves can tell who is howling by their voice and will be careful who they respond to. With the exception of small pups, who'll howl at anyone being too young to tell the difference between howls.

Other Communication

Wolves don't just howl. They yip, bark, growl and whine. They also use body language.

They will crouch and bat their forearms at the ground when they want to play. Like a dog, a wolf wags its tail when excited or happy. A lower ranked wolf will roll on its back in, exposing its underside, to a superior wolf when approached with aggression. Ear movement is important as well. A snarl with ears laid back means "I don't want to fight, back off" whereas a snarl with ears and tail up is openly aggressive and seen as a dominating stance.

Pack Organization

The average wolf pack is made up of an alpha pair and their offspring. There are typically six to eight wolves but there can be as many as twenty. Larger packs will occasionally split to make themselves more manageable. A wolf pack needs a lot of land to be kept happy. Wolves can travel up to thirty (30) miles a day patrolling their boundaries and searching for food. The average wolf eats two and half pounds of meat a day to stay healthy. Thus, only so many wolves can use a single territory.

Wolves will share in caring for pups, the injured and the elderly. When the pack hunts it will leave a wolf behind with the pups at a rendezvous site. The only time a wolf is not left to watch pups is when the pack is very small, and needs all its adult members to take on a large prey animal. Pups left alone are at the mercy of other predators, especially if there are bears in the area.

Jim Brandenburg, a wildlife photographer, wrote about a wolf he called Broken Foot. This wolf had a broken paw that healed badly and caused him to have to hop on three legs. He was unable to hunt with the pack. However, the pack continued over the years to let him eat with them, and they showed the same greeting and respect as they did to other wolves of the pack.

The Hunt

Wolves can gorge themselves on as much as 20 pounds of meat in a sitting. They can also go two weeks without eating. Wolves hunt animals as small as mice and also those as big as a moose, which averages a staggering 1,500 pounds.

Wolves are most active from dusk until early morning, meaning they are nocturnal. They typically begin a hunt shortly after awakening. When hunting a herd, wolves take those animals easiest to get, meaning the old, very young or diseased. Thus, from an ecosystem standpoint, wolves help natural selection by eating off animals of the weaker variety. In areas with herd animals, wolves are helpful at keeping these species from overproducing and thus starving from having too many individuals in too small a space.

Sources and other reading:

Harrington, Fred H. "What's in a Howl?" WGBH Educational Foundation, Nov 2000, accessed June 2011 www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wolves/howl.html

Brandenburg, Jim and Judy Face to Face with Wolves National Geographic, 2008.

Silverstein, Alvin, Virginia, Robert The Red Wolf The Millbrook Press. Brookfield, Connecticut, 1994.

wolfcountry.net www.wolfcountry.net/information/WolfHunting.html

For diagrams showing communication of several wolf body positions: www.wolfdancer.org/communication/