In Praise of Wolves

by R. D. Lawrence

  We all stood silently for some minutes. I don’t know what the others were thinking, but I was busy reenacting Shawano’s expert throws, lupin field passes that were made with force and bull’s-eye accuracy, the movements of which I had entirely missed during the first throw, but which I carefully noted during the next two. The wolf had run with his head held high and his shoulders erect, the food clamped firmly in his mouth. When he judged the distance to be right, he suddenly snapped his head and chest forward, at the same time opening his jaws. Evidently he sighted down his nose, for when this was pointing directly at the approaching target wolf, he released the chicken, an example of perfect coordination that produced extreme accuracy.

  In the wild, the male and female Alphas usually eat first, followed by the other pack members in descending social status, although the entire family will often congregate around a carcass after the leaders have at least partially satisfied their hunger. Usually, if a subordinate approaches a higher-ranking wolf too closely, the latter will snarl, a deep and rumbling sound that normally causes an underling to retreat; if it does not, the dominant animal will likely snap at the interloper, sometimes fastening its jaws on the latter’s muzzle, a bloodless bite that almost always suffices to intimidate a lower-ranking animal. These generalizations not-withstanding, it should be noted that social interactions within each pack, or family, though they conform to certain basic and inherent characteristics, vary considerably in all behavioural aspects, just as they do among human families, no two of which conduct their affairs in exactly the same ways.

  It is safe to say that the parent wolves, the two Alphas, most often eat first, but it would be presumptuous to state that they always do; and those observers who dare to ascribe to all wolf packs those traits witnessed only in some groups will surely come to regret their brashness if they continue to study wolves.

  Be that as it may, those dominant wolves that insist on taking first place at the dinner table do so not out of selfishness, but rather because they are the guardians of the pack and must remain strong for the good of all. And I have often noted that Alpha males that jealously guard their right to eat first are also the first to face a threat, or even the suspicion of one. Similarly, such dominant wolves are often the first to initiate an attack on large, potentially dangerous animals. Then, too, Alpha wolves will conscientiously bring back food to their nursing mates during the denning time, either carrying pieces of meat in their mouths or regurgitating the food, feeding in this manner the nursing mother and the pups, if these have begun to eat meat. This sharing of food is not unique to the Alphas, however, for all wolves, no matter what their status may be, engage in it with more or less frequency, even after the pups have grown to hunting size and are no longer in need of individual attention. I have also observed one adult wolf regurgitating for another on being solicited, usually in summer. A pack may split up, foraging over a particular area, each animal hunting for itself. Luck or experience may favour some of the wolves, who become replete; others may eat only enough to still their hunger pangs for a time. It is not uncommon, then, for one adult to feed another on demand. Nevertheless, I had not until that day witnessed a lead wolf actually feeding each of his subordinates in turn before he had satisfied his own hunger. But when I remarked about this to Jim, he seemed surprised that I should even mention the matter.

  “Yes, he does it all the time when strangers come to visit,” was his reply.

  It became clear to me then that Shawano, with the unfailing intelligence and sensitivity of his kind, had long ago realized that although he was not personally intimidated by newcomers, his pack members were; so for their sake, if strangers were around when food was being distributed, he deliberately faced visitors on his own, feeding the pack members in turn so that they could eat unmolested. By the time we arrived in Michigan, all the wolves had become accustomed to their leader’s routine, knowing that as they rushed toward him one at a time, he would feed them.

  Between autumn and spring, Jim’s wolves feed largely on the meat of deer and other animals that are killed on U.P. highways, but from late spring and through summer, when road-kills become scarce because animals remain within the shelter of the forests, the wolves are given meat purchased at a local supermarket, mainly chicken parts and raw liver. The pack is fed near the fence, usually by Jim but sometimes by George Wilson or Scott Stewart, another wolf enthusiast who has developed a close relationship with Shawano and his companions. (To those dog and cat owners who are careful to avoid feeding chicken bones to their pets because splinters may pierce the animals’ intestines, let me say that this would be a rare accident for a wolf. Unlike their domestic counterparts, these wild dogs crunch up such small, hollow bones and, additionally, appear to have a superb digestive system capable of voiding even the many strange objects pups tend to swallow, including quite large stones, rolled-up pieces of birch bark, and chunks of wood chewed off dead branches.)

  On the occasion of our first visit with them, after Shawano and his three companions finished eating, they moved away from the fence area and disappeared into the forested part of their enclosure, leaving Brigit alone. The low-ranking bitch, having finished her own meal, began to solicit my attention. Undecided about whether to come to be petted or to run away, she seemed nonetheless to find some solace or reassurance in my presence, so I remained near the fence, watching her and occasionally speaking softly to her, observing her behaviour while at the same time thinking about this pack in particular and wolves in general.

  Meditating in this way, I thought that those of us who have knowledge of the wolf and have deep empathy with the species discover to our frequent amazement, and despite our knowledge, that this much maligned animal possesses the best of human attributes but few, if any, of our weaknesses. Furthermore, judging by those few people who still live in small, closely knit tribal units, it seems to me likely that wolf hierarchy is not much different from that by which early hominids probably governed themselves, when related individuals lived and worked together under strong male and female leadership and cooperated conscientiously to ensure the family’s survival.

  Long before my introduction to the Ishpeming wolves, I had concluded that the wolf reached his evolutionary plateau by the simple expedient of always exercising his full potential. That is to say, his mind, his spirit, and his body have become blended into a single natural and highly efficient instrument that functions in harmony with the environment. No matter what his hierarchical standing, a wild wolf is always in command of himself and is aware of his strengths and his limitations. These things allow the wolf to conform to the disciplines of the pack while at the same time preserving his individuality and his self-respect. Unlike contemporary humans, who consider that to be of low rank is debasing, the wolf readily accepts his social position, whatever this may be, because he is inherently aware that the success of his species is based upon full intra group cooperation. This means that an individual wolf must be subservient to the pack and that the pack cannot function effectively without those rules that cause its members to work to their full potential.

  Occasionally, however, a wolf seems to require solitude. It will then leave the pack, most often wandering off somewhere nearby and lying down alone, there to doze or merely to watch the forest. Sometimes such a wolf may go off to explore farther afield, usually following known trails as he gradually increases the distance between himself and his companions. During such solo journeys, he will often pause to hunt, stalking, killing, and eating small animals, but unable alone to pull down the large prey found within his territory.

  During the summer of 1972, in the mountains of British Columbia, near the source of the Nass River, I watched one such temporary loner leave the pack and make his way along the valley floor. He followed an ancient, well-defined trail that led northwest to thread a twisting course between the Skeena and Cassiar Mountains, a pathway used by animals and man and known topographically as the Old Telegraph Trail, whi
ch in that area follows the course of a waterway named Muckaboo Creek. I had been in contact with the pack for almost a month and had been accepted by the wolves, although now that they had taken that year’s litter of five pups to a summer rendezvous, the Alphas occasionally came near my place of vantage and howl-barked at me – a not uncommon display that wolves resort to when humans intrude, the main intent of which, I believe, is to cause the interlopers to go away. Nevertheless, if an observer has been circumspect in his or her behaviour and has been accepted as harmless by a pack, the rather intimidating outcries of the two leaders will usually cease after fifteen or twenty minutes, when the wolves will return to their family.

  The evening before, the pack, which consisted of nine animals, had made a kill and had returned bulging with food about 8pm The five pups and their babysitter, a small female wolf whom I thought of as an aunt, had alerted me to the return of the pack by howling noisily, the voices of the young high and often yappy, their sitter’s deep and long-drawn. Seconds after this outbreak, the returning pack howled in response. a chorus of throaty songs that continued intermittently until the male and female leaders came into view, followed closely by the other wolves. I had no means of knowing what kind of animal the pack had killed, but guessed that it had probably been a moose, judging by the packs’ bulging stomachs. As the pack entered the boundary of the rendezvous, a sparsely treed area of relatively flat land located along the flanks of a five-thousand-foot-high mountain, the pups and their guardian converged upon them, each soliciting food, the “aunt” whining and nibbling at the muzzle of the Beta male, and the pups mobbing their father and mother. Within seconds, dark red meat was being regurgitated. The stay-at-homes were soon as bulgy as the hunters.

  My very spartan little camp was located farther up the mountain in direct line of sight, about five hundred yards from the rendezvous, but more like one thousand yards up the gradient. From here, with field glasses, I had an excellent view of the rendezvous and of the wolves and could by then recognize each member of the pack and know its hierarchical standing.

  The loner was a young animal, probably a two-year-old, a male of low rank, but not in the least inhibited by his social standing. He was active, playful, and at times downright cheeky, whereupon the big male leader, a dark grey animal with a pepper-and-salt head, would pin the unmannerly wolf to the ground, grasping his muzzle, a task at which he was often joined by the lead female and the Beta male. None of these reprimands had much effect on the young male, however. He was never bitten hard, and although he whined and showed submission while being roughed up, he always sprang to his feet immediately after the ordeal was over and galloped away, sometimes rushing about at full speed, on other occasions picking up a piece of gnawed bone or a chewed stick and soliciting play from one of his companions.

  The day before he left on his personal walkabout, I had noticed that he spent a considerable time lying quietly in the shade of some bushes, snoozing quite a lot, yawning widely, and, between naps, staring fixedly downward, toward Muckaboo Creek. In the afternoon, when the pack gathered amid great excitement, then set off on their hunt, the loner followed, as intent on the business at hand as were his companions. But early next morning, as the sun was blooding the eastern peaks, I saw him rise from his bed, stretch and yawn mightily, then, without a glance at any of the other wolves, begin to trot downward. I watched him until he disappeared from view around Muckaboo Rapids, thinking that he would probably return by evening. An hour later, the pack left as well, but in a different direction, this time the aunt going with the group and the mother staying with the pups. Four hours after departure, the main body of wolves returned. They had gone back to the kill and were as replete as they had been yesterday. Again they fed the stay-at-homes. But the loner was not with the pack.

  On the evening of the fourth day following his departure, the loner announced his return by howling, a cry evidently emitted while he was several miles away and received faintly by my ears. Indeed, had the pack not become electrified by the call, I would have disregarded the distant howls, believing them to be uttered by a wolf from another group. But even before the first notes alerted my hearing, the wolves I was observing reacted, obviously having been able to detect the very beginning of the call. Chorusing, the thirteen wolves exhibited a high degree of arousal. The Alphas came together, the female holding her head close to her mate’s, her muzzle more horizontal than his, which was upraised. Her mouth was open wide: her call was high. The male’s mouth was tunnelled, only about half-open, his voice deeper and modulated by the enclosing lips. The combined voices from the rendezvous made it impossible for me to hear the loner’s call, but then, almost in unison, the pack stopped howling. Now there was much coming and going, some soft growling as one or another wolf mouthed a companion. The pups rushed around, two of them chasing each other, a third, the biggest and a male, trying to catch his own tail while the remaining two ganged up on the aunt and play-bit at her neck. She endured the mauling with the kind of typical forbearance that adults always display toward the young.

  I had started my stopwatch as soon as the wolves replied to the loner. By its timing, the missing pack member howled again four minutes and eleven seconds later. This time, although some of the wolves yelped excitedly, particularly the pups, the Alpha was the only one to reply. But he didn’t howl. Instead, he gave what I call a howl-bark, a sound that begins with a deep, throaty ooooh note, turns into a high-pitched half-growl-half-bark, and ends in a mournful, long-drawn howl. Again there was silence and, as before, great excitement gripped the pack. Two minutes laser, the male and female leaders trotted to the northwestern side of the rendezvous and stood waiting, stiff-legged and tails erect.

  The loner now appeared. He stopped on seeing the leaders then, tail down, ears flattened against his head, and back arched, he moved forward, his mouth gaping in a wide smile, his head bobbing up and down and moving from side to side alternately, a sort of exaggerated bowing movement. The two Alphas went to meet their subordinate and began growling, not the full-throated, deep growl sparked by aggression, but a more ritualized vocalization quite different from the sound that I have come to term “the real thing.”* The loner and his leader met, whereupon the newcomer immediately flopped on his side and was set upon by the Alphas. They muzzle-bit him, growling in that controlled way, while he whined, licked at them, and, right leg lifted high, wetted himself. For about a minute he was mildly roughed up by the Alphas, who were now ringed by the rest of the pack, until the male leader pounced upon his underling. This signalled a general mobbing of the returnee, a free-for-all accompanied by much growling and yapping in which even the pups joined. After some moments the loner regained his feet and began to run round and around the open area, pursued by several of his companions. The two leaders, however, went off on their own, followed by the pups. The father, mother, and young stopped. The adults lay down side by side and the pups began romping with each other. The loner continued to run and leap as he led the chase. But this was clearly a game now. Each wolf ran with sheer abandon, mouth open, tongue lolling out, the white teeth showing in that age-old lupine smile. Then, one by one, the chasers got tired and went off to lie down. In the end, the loner, now fully welcomed into the pack again, flopped on his side near two of the pups, who immediately began to play with him, climbing on his back, biting at his tail, and generally having a joyous time.

  Before that day in British Columbia, I had seen other examples of a wolf’s need for solitude and had noted, on those occasions when I had been able to observe the return, that the packs involved always acted in pretty much the same way as the group I observed in the Nass Valley. Such behaviour suggests to me that the family is glad to welcome back the wanderer, but I get the feeling that a mild reprimand is also intended.

  Thinking about these things while I was watching Brigit, I remembered that I had seen two examples of females being temporarily chased away from their packs during the breeding season, the
first in 1968 and the second in 1969. Although each female belonged to a different pack, both instances had occurred in Ontario, on land I had bought in 1963. These seventy-five acres of forested domain backed onto government wilderness in which wolves, coyotes, foxes, moose, deer, and other animals made their homes.

  In August of the year I bought the land, I completed construction of a one-room cabin. There my late wife, Joan, and I spent as much time as possible. One Friday afternoon in mid-November, after I had hauled in five hundred pounds of coal for our stove, leaving it outside the cabin, Joan and I went shopping at a local store four miles away. The weather was already cold, some twenty degrees below the freezing point;” a light fall of snow covered the landscape.

  When we returned, we discovered that a pack of wolves had inspected our building, tracking all around it; they had urinated copiously on the coal sacks. Interested but not greatly surprised – we had heard this particular pack howling on a number of occasions – I put the coal away in a shed and we had our supper. Before bedtime it began to snow again, a sleety white driven by a westerly wind. In the morning it was still snowing, a fine, blowy, niveous curtain that swirled through the forest and formed patterns against the western sides of the tree trunks. I went outside. As I stood within the trees, I heard the high-pitched barking of wolves coming from the northeast, the calls being fairly constant and seeming to be issuing from one location, suggesting that the pack was more or less stationary. Knowing the country well by now, I felt sure that the wolves were on the ice of one of our largest beaver ponds, located three-quarters of a mile away. Without bothering to have breakfast, I took my camera and set out for the pond, guided by the continuing barks. The excited sounds puzzled me, for they suggested that the pack was worked up over some particular thing that it had found in the area of the pond. The closer I got to the area, the louder and more agitated were the barks. Soon I could see the screen of trees that surrounded the frozen water, and I began taking advantage of whatever cover I could find. Minutes later, I had squeezed myself within the low branches of a large balsam tree, concealed from the wolves but commanding a good view.