Because of this, wolves can take on prey much larger than themselves: elk, caribou, deer, bison and even moose! Each member of the pack has a specific role while hunting that will depend on their age, gender, and ranking within the pack. Their winter coat will once again fill in the following autumn.Ī grey wolf is smaller and less powerful than a mountain lion, but what they lack in size, they make up for in strategy and teamwork. Each spring most of the wolf’s underfur is shed, along with some of the guard hairs. Conversely there are shorter hairs, such as are found on their ears, and limbs. There are distinct areas that have longer hairs, for example the shoulders and cheeks (which form tufts). Their coat is not uniform across their body. Additionally ice does not build up on it from the condensation of their warm breath. Wolf fur is better at protecting them from the cold than dog fur. This winter coat is very resistant to the cold, allowing wolves to withstand −40☌ temperatures. They have short underfur for providing warmth, and longer, courser guard hairs for protection. It was amazing to see just how dense and fluffy the fur on gray wolves is during winter months. A new pack is usually formed when a lone male and female, traveling together, find an area not controlled by other hostile packs. Some of these wolves will stay in the vicinity of their former pack, while others may travel very far (206 – 670 km). The younger wolves can move up or down the pecking order as the years go by, but by 10–54 months they typically break off from the pack and disperse. They also get first dibs on kills made by the pack. The alphas are the only members of the pack that breed and raise pups. A typical wolf pack consists of 3 – 20 wolves. These packs are essentially families consisting of an alpha male and female, along with their offspring. They live and hunt in highly hierarchical packs. Wolves are highly social animals, and grey wolves are no exception. Interestingly nearly half of North American wolves have black coats, while European wolves are overwhelmingly grey or white. In my next post, I will focus on the more commonly coloured gray wolves, and their social pack structures. I decided to not make this photo black and white in order to really show the beautiful subtleties in colour. One thing is for sure: a black wolf’s coat is gorgeous. This led them to hypothesize that sometime in the past, domestic dogs (or wolf-dog hybrids) may have crossbred with wild wolves. They found that the wolves with black coats shared the same variant of a gene found in domesticated dogs. They analyzed the DNA sequences of 150 wolves in Yellowstone National Park (half of the wolves sampled were black-coated). This fascinated a team of biologists and molecular geneticists from Stanford University, UCLA, Sweden, Canada, and Italy. As with all wildlife, we need to respect them, understand their needs (food and habitat) and give them space to be wild. Wild wolf attacks are extremely rare, and attacks leading to death are rarer still. One thing is certain as you observe them, they are not the blood thirsty killers they are often portrayed as. Wolves are probably an animal every wildlife photographer dreams about photographing, and photographing them in a purely wild setting is extremely difficult due to their stealthy nature as well as their small numbers from habitat loss and hunting. This pack of black wolves (a melanistic colour variant of gray wolves) may look menacing in this photo, but they were in fact casually walking along the forest edge. Even though and I were at a safe distance, looking through our viewfinder in an enclosed wildlife park, we couldn’t help but admire the beauty and power of these incredible creatures! Nothing prepares you for seeing your first wolves in person.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |