The Wisdom of Wolves

by Jim Dutcher

  When the other wolves mistreated Lakota, my heart went out to him, but I could never intervene. The goal of our project was to document wolf behavior as naturally as possible, so we followed a strict code of interacting with the wolves only on their terms. We were responsible for giving them a safe home, regular food, and, if necessary, veterinary care. But in their day-to-day lives, we were committed to letting the wolves be wolves. It was part of the foundation of trust that we had with the pack. Sometimes that was difficult. If two wolves had a dominance scuffle, all we could do was watch and hope all would end well.

  When abuse from Amani or one of the others became too great, Lakota would simply retreat into the willows to be by himself. It was heartbreaking to watch. In my earliest days at wolf camp, it seemed to me that Lakota lived in a friendless world and that those moments we spent together might have been his only relief. But as I got to know the pack better I discovered, to my joy, that this was hardly the case. Another wolf understood his timidity and felt for him as I did.

  Wolf communication isn’t always easy for us to read. But we had the advantage of capturing so much of it on film, much of it shot in slow motion or in a sequence of rapid-fire transparencies, so we could go back and observe details even more closely that we might have missed in the moment. At times, we weren’t able to decode the wolves’ behavior and understand what was actually going on between them until we looked at our images or watched the film footage. In one particular sequence of images of a pack rally, for example, we noticed a pattern emerging—and Matsi’s reputation as a peacemaker was born.

  THE RALLY HAD TURNED SOUR on Lakota, as occasionally happened. Even though it would have been safer to keep to himself, Lakota was part of the Sawtooth Pack, and when they howled together he wanted to join in. In this particular rally, Lakota wound up being the target of the extra energy that permeated the event. The pack had formed a mob around the hapless omega, and a few of them were displaying their dominance by nipping and snarling and standing over him. Even the yearling Chemukh got involved.

  As always, Amani was the main perpetrator. He just didn’t seem secure in his position as a mid-ranking wolf, and he seemed to feel that the best way to avoid winding up as the omega himself was to do everything he could to keep Lakota down. In the midst of this rally, he literally climbed on Lakota’s back and started nipping at his neck. Lakota sank to the ground and tried to worm-crawl his way out of the frenzy.

  A moment later, Matsi charged into the fray. When I watched this unfold in real time, I assumed that Matsi was simply showing dominance over Lakota, as the others were. Looking at the sequence of rapid-fire images, however, I could see where Matsi’s energy was actually directed. He wasn’t digging into Lakota; he was body-checking Amani out of the way and giving Lakota the chance to get away. Matsi was disciplining Amani for disciplining Lakota.

  At first we thought this was some kind of fluke, but we began to notice this kind of behavior more and more. At mealtime Kamots enforced the hierarchy and sometimes prevented others from eating for a while, but once he made his point he usually mellowed out. Often it was Amani, not Kamots, who tried to keep Lakota from eating. On one occasion the entire pack, except Lakota, was enjoying a big elk carcass. Lakota put his head down and crawled forward, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible but still getting a place at the table. Amani snarled and grabbed Lakota by the neck. Lakota let out a cry and flipped onto his back. The next thing we knew, Matsi left his place and lunged toward Amani, who yelped and ran a few yards away. Matsi didn’t pursue. He just walked back to his spot on the carcass. His message was clear: “Leave him alone.” The entire scuffle lasted less than 10 seconds, and in the end Amani and Lakota were both eating without trouble.

  We were never able to explain the special bond that Matsi developed with Lakota. Their relationship was particularly surprising because Matsi had participated in pushing Lakota into the omega position to begin with. Once the ranks were established, however, Matsi was extremely gentle with the omega. Even though we couldn’t explain it, we did have a simple word for it. Matsi and Lakota were friends.

  As adults, the two often slept alongside each other. At the very least, Lakota knew Matsi was the one wolf who would not pick on him and might even defend him against others, but there seemed to be more to it. When Matsi went exploring, Lakota frequently joined him, and Matsi genuinely seemed to enjoy the company. Being with Matsi gave Lakota the freedom to do things he wouldn’t dare do around the others. He felt relaxed enough to roughhouse, jumping on Matsi’s back for example—he would never have invited Amani or Motomo to play in the same way. Matsi relished these invitations and launched into playful tumble or a game of chase with Lakota. It was such a delight to watch these two frolicking together and to see the look of joy on Lakota’s face, freed for a moment from his burdensome role as the underdog. I believe that Matsi genuinely understood how much Lakota suffered as the omega and wanted to offer him some relief.

  IF ONLY IT WERE THAT SIMPLE! I guess all good friendships can be tested, and there was one puzzling interaction between these two friends that we love to tell wolf biologists about. One day, as Jim and I were photographing the pack, we noticed Lakota cowering under a tree. He was tucked into a deep crouch with his ears plastered back, looking as if he were trying to be absorbed by the ground and disappear. As I watched him and wondered what was going on, Matsi walked up to Lakota, lifted his leg, and urinated all over the unfortunate wolf’s back. I had missed whatever earlier altercation had provoked this extreme demonstration of dominance, but it was clear that Matsi felt the need to put Lakota severely in his place. But apparently neither of them held a grudge: A few hours later I spied the two playing by the pond together, and that night they slept side by side. Whatever the disagreement, it seems that wolves can forgive.

  Forgiveness, compassion, and empathy are very complex emotions. First they require having a concept of one’s own individual self and of others as individuals as well. Then one has to make the mental leap of imagining oneself in the position of the other. Matsi must have understood how he would have felt if he were in Lakota’s predicament. Otherwise, why would he have gone out of his way to help Lakota? It’s not an intellectual process; it’s a gut feeling. I believe Matsi could feel what Lakota was going through.

  There’s no doubt that the wolves understand their own individuality and the individuality of others. We saw evidence of this in the Sawtooth Pack every day. There’s a story that Jim likes to tell of an episode that happened before I arrived at wolf camp. It was the first snowfall of the year, and it sent Kamots, nearly two years old, charging around with excitement. He ran back and forth, not playing tag or chasing another wolf, just darting about full of energy and exuberance.

  Amani, less than a year old and not yet full size, wasn’t quite sure what to make of the alpha carrying on this way. He sat down in the fresh snow and watched as Kamots burst out from the willows at full speed. Then Kamots, gleefully out of control, barreled right over Amani. Amani did a cartwheel and sat up, blinking and covered in powder, not sure what had just happened. Kamots slammed on the brakes, turned, and hurried back to Amani, sniffing the little wolf up and down and giving him a reassuring lick. It was a touching gesture, and it reveals Kamots’s mind-set clearly. He understood that he was a big wolf and that Amani was smaller and weaker. He realized that the collision might have been upsetting to the younger wolf, and he cared enough to stop what he was doing to go check on his little packmate.

  Observations such as this aren’t unique to the Sawtooth Pack. On a visit to Fairbanks, Alaska, a fish and game biologist showed us the skull of an average-size male wolf that bore unmistakable evidence of a broken jaw that had healed. A defensive moose or caribou probably dealt him that injury while he was hunting. It’s not uncommon. What is more interesting, though, is that the jawbone healed and the wolf went on to live for several more years. Such an injury would have rendered the wolf u
nable to tear chunks of meat from a kill and possibly even unable to chew. The only way he could have survived this injury is for the other wolves of his pack to feed him. At the least they would have had to bring him pieces of meat and likely even regurgitate partially digested food for him, as they would a pup. The only way that wolf could have survived with a broken jaw was through the generosity of others.

  We can only guess the motivation of this wolf’s packmates. I suppose there’s a chance that nursing a fellow wolf back to health could be a purely selfish act. Maybe he was a good hunter and the others wanted to keep him around. But I just don’t see them being motivated by such cold pragmatism. After seeing so many moments of unambiguous kindness between the wolves of the Sawtooth Pack, I’m sure this was an act of compassion between family members. Is it really surprising? When we humans see a friend or relative in pain, we feel an emotional urge to ease the burden.

  Recently there have been some fascinating studies into the connection between human empathy and a weird social phenomenon that most of us have experienced—contagious yawning. I can remember sitting in a college classroom, bored by a lecture. One student would yawn and then the next, and the yawn would pass from student to student like a wave across the room. We’d notice and begin to titter, much to the professor’s great annoyance. It turns out this didn’t mean we were all equally tired or bored, but rather that we were fairly healthy mentally.

  Yawning in response to another’s yawn isn’t very well understood, but as far as we know, it has less to do with breathing and more to do with sociability. It’s an urge connected to our own emotional cognition—that is, the ability to tune in to the emotions of someone nearby. Not surprisingly the earliest studies of nonhuman contagious yawning focused on other social primates. Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gelada baboons all experience it. It has since been observed that humans can sometimes pass a yawn to a dog, but it was suggested that this was because dogs have spent thousands of years evolving in our company. We saw the Sawtooth wolves pass yawns from one to another all the time. Quite often Jim and I would be watching them, he with his film camera and me with my audio equipment, waiting for them to do something worthy of rolling precious film. As they lounged together, one of them would yawn and it would break like a wave over the entire pack. Before I knew it, I would feel the uncontrollable urge take over, then I’d look over at Jim and he’d be yawning too. We thought it was funny, but we never assigned any significance to it. Now it’s been scientifically confirmed that wolves also experience contagious yawning—an indication that they, too, have emotional cognition, the roots of empathy.

  It is enough to realize that the capacity for empathy and compassion, although undeniably human, is not uniquely human. But for me the lesson of the Sawtooth Pack didn’t stop there. Compassion was their first impulse. It was instinctive in them just as it is in us. But wolves aren’t perfect either. Amani especially could forget his instinct for compassion and become a bully. The reason, I believe, is that his own insecurities about his position in the pack hierarchy sometimes got the better of his inclination to care for his packmates.

  Every wolf feels itself pulled by opposing forces. On one side there is ambition, self-interest, and fear; on the other there is forgiveness, compassion, and empathy. That’s what makes wolves so endlessly fascinating. When you think about it, that’s what makes human life interesting too, but wolves are less prone, or less able, to blur intentions and counterfeit emotions. As a wolf struggles to find a balance between these two opposing drives, its motivations are laid bare. In the end there is no contest. It must follow the path of compassion, of cooperation, of togetherness above all. Survival offers no other choice.

  Matsi and Kamots

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHERISH ONE ANOTHER

  JIM

  A MISTY RAIN GATHERED ON MY WINDSHIELD as I raced toward wolf camp, pushing the limits of my old van on the windy road over Galena Summit. I had been away from camp for the night, caring for the second litter of Sawtooth pups—Motomo, Amani, and Matsi—who had to go through a round of vet checkups before they could join their new pack. The crew member who was in charge of the pack while I was away had driven the muddy jeep track to the town of Stanley after dark to call me from a pay phone. One of the wolves was missing.

  The wolf was a sibling to Kamots and Lakota, a mysterious and shy female with a coat of black and brown and piercing yellow eyes. We had given her the name Motaki, the Blackfoot word for “shadow.” She was the pack’s original omega in the earliest years, before Lakota took on that role and before Jamie joined my life at wolf camp.

  I had bonded with all the wolves of the Sawtooth Pack, but Motaki had a special hold on me. Other wolves may feel the biological pull to be an alpha, but Motaki didn’t have an ambitious bone in her body. She avoided the minor confrontations and dominance displays that are part of life in a wolf pack. As sometimes happens in human society, her sensitive spirit relegated her to the bottom of the social order, and she accepted that. As the original omega, Motaki was the first wolf to show me how important that role was within the wolf pack. I could see how her gentle nature helped soothe tensions and create harmony. She was always the one who could get a game of tag going and put every other wolf in a playful mood. Although she sometimes had to endure dominance and aggression, she howled with the rest of the pack, slept with the others, and always joined them at feeding time. There was never any doubt that she belonged.

  Like Lakota after her, Motaki sometimes spent hours away from the rest of the pack, retreating to the denser forest to be alone. I had learned not to worry if I didn’t see her for a while. This time, however, she had failed to show up when the field assistant brought in food, and that was not like her.

  I arrived at camp and began searching along with the crew. The first thing we did was walk the perimeter of the enclosed territory to make sure a fallen tree hadn’t brought down a section of the fence. Finding the fence intact, I doubted that Motaki had left the enclosure. We had designed it with an inward overhang at all corners so that even the most athletic wolf wouldn’t be able to climb over it. A six-foot apron prevented them from digging under it. There was even a solar-powered electric wire added to the fencing for good measure, and there was no sign it had stopped functioning. The realization that Motaki was most likely still inside did not bring any sense of relief. It meant that she was close but unable to join the others. So we moved in from the fence line and began to crisscross through the aspens, willows, and evergreens where she might be hiding.

  I found her in an aspen grove at the southeast end of the enclosure, lying still and silent among half-fallen trees. Across her belly ran a deep gash. The gentlest, most playful wolf whom I had known was dead.

  My first thought, one I am somewhat ashamed to admit now, was to wonder if the other wolves had done it. I just couldn’t think of any other explanation. But the more I looked, the more I could see that the pieces didn’t fit. I had never seen her enter into a violent confrontation with the rest of the pack, but if she had this once, her legs and hindquarters would have borne the scars that wolves deliver in these fights.

  When I inspected the wound, I could see that something had started to eat her and then stopped. The other wolves? Again, it didn’t add up. This might occur under the most desperate circumstances, but not in a healthy pack with a steady food supply. Plus, wolves eat by tearing at a carcass and ripping off sections, and Motaki’s body was still intact.

  Something about the way she looked brought a memory back to life. Years earlier I had documented the life of a mountain lion for my film Cougar: Ghost of the Rockies. I remembered how the cat I filmed would always lick and clean away the fur before beginning to eat her prey. When she ate, she always opened up the belly first. The pieces started fitting together.

  With a picture of a new culprit in mind, I began searching for clues. Next to where she lay was a partially toppled aspen t
ree. Where the trunk forked, seven feet off the ground, I found black wolf fur. At the base of this tree were the dull claw marks of wolves, as if they had been trying to get at something up in the tree. Months earlier, I’d seen them claw at the base of another tree beneath a woodpecker’s nest in a vain attempt to reach the bird. These new marks looked exactly the same. I looked around for the paw prints of wolves or any other animal but found nothing. It had been dry before the incident and had rained since, so the chances of finding prints were not good.

  Nevertheless, I began to piece together a picture of what most likely had happened. The cougar, moving through his territory, had likely climbed a tree close to the fence and jumped in. Mountain lions and wolves have been known to kill one another, competing for territory. It was possible that the lion had caught wind of the wolves and taken them as a threat. The cougar had probably caught Motaki by herself while the rest of the pack was far away. The kill would have been swift and silent. The single crew member at camp was too far away to hear any commotion. The wolves may have caught up with the cougar, driving him to drag Motaki’s small body into the tree, but eventually the cougar let go of his prey and dashed back over the fence to escape the pack. A fence containing a wolf would barely have slowed a powerful mountain lion.

  FOR A WHILE I WAS SO WRAPPED UP in my own feelings about the loss of Motaki that I didn’t consider the feelings of her own family and most loyal friends. A wolf’s grief may not be obvious, but as I observed them I began to see the subtle signs, familiar to me because it’s so much like the behavior of grieving humans. As anyone who studies them will confirm, wolves usually engage in some type of play every day. This was certainly true for the Sawtooth Pack. Yet after Motaki’s death, a full six weeks went by during which I observed no play whatsoever. Motaki had been the main instigator of play among them, and without her, they just lost the spirit.