Paula Wild | Paula Wild

May 5, 2019May 7, 2019

Wolves share more than dogs

When it comes to generosity, wolves win tales down. A scientific study led by Rachel Dale, animal behaviour specialist at the Wolf Science Center in Vienna, Austria, determined that wolves are more apt to provide treats for other wolves than dogs are to other dogs.

The Center hand-raises wolves and dogs and then conducts tests involving coöperation and cognition in an effort to understand the differences and commonalities of the two species.

A recent study testing coöperation placed a wolf or a dog in a room with a touch screen containing a couple of images. Another wolf or dog was placed in an adjacent room that was visible to the animal being tested.

When the test animal pressed the “giving” symbol, their partner in the other room received a treat. Wolves nudged the symbol with their nose far more often than the dogs.

As a control, sometimes the partner was placed in a room where it wouldn’t receive a reward even if the giving symbol was pushed. Wolves pressed the symbol less under those circumstances.

But they pressed the symbol even more if they knew the wolf in the adjacent room and saw it get a treat. Dogs were less generous on all counts.

The results of the study indicate that domestication may have allowed dogs to lose their coöperative nature as they depend on humans for food, not other dogs.

Although the wolves used in the study are fed by humans, their genetic makeup is much closer to that of wild wolves and they appear to have retained their close bonds with and reliance on pack mates for survival.

Photograph by Rooobert Bayer, Wolf Science Center, Austria

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019

Wolves and monkeys

As well as having complex relationships with their own species, wolves also have intriguing relationships with other wild animals.

Most of these relationships revolve around prey. Ravens follow wolves to scavenge their kills and it’s believed they also lead wolves to prey so they will have something to scavenge.

Bears, especially grizzlies, chase wolves off a kill so they can chow down on the carcass. Sometimes, one wolf will taunt the bear while others dart in to grab a piece of meat.

These exchanges appear ferocious but rarely lead to injury for the wolves or bears. And often, even though they killed the prey, wolves will just lie down nearby and wait for whatever scraps the bear leaves behind.

But wolves and monkeys? That relationship was unheard of until a couple of years ago when researchers observed Ethiopian wolves hunting for rodents — and having more success — when they were among a troop of gelada monkeys, a type of baboon.

The wolves wandered through large groups of six to seven hundred geladas, with the primates showing no fear even when the predators were very close. And even though the wolves were perfectly capable of killing baby geladas, they rarely did.

The wolves always mingled with the monkeys during midday when rodents in the area were most active. Researchers speculate that the grazing monkeys disturb the rodents, making it easier for wolves to hunt them, and that the wolves deliberately avoid harming the monkeys to take advantage of this opportunity.

Photo by Jeffrey Kerby taken in the Guassa Community Reserve, Menz Region of the central highlands of Ethiopia.

February 24, 2019February 24, 2019

Red wolf DNA found in Texas canids

Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild by 1980. Formerly ranging throughout south central and eastern portions of the US, hunting, trapping and loss of habitat decimated their numbers.

Luckily, the US Fish and Wildlife Service captured about forty of the wolves and began a captive breeding program. Red wolf families and individuals were released and captive-born pups were successfully cross-fostered in wilderness areas of North Carolina from the late 1980s on.

According to Regina Mossotti, director of animal care and conservation at the Endangered Wolf Center in Missouri, in early 2018 there were approximately 230 red wolves in captive breeding programs but populations in the wild had dropped from over 100 to around thirty.

Coyotes are found in many urban and rural areas of North America. Photo courtesy US National Park Service

But a few years ago, biologist Ron Wooten noticed something odd about the coyotes he was photographing on Galveston Island in Texas. When he found two of the animals dead on the roadside, he took some samples hoping genetic testing would provide some answers.

Researchers at Princeton University were shocked to find a piece of endangered red wolf genome in the tissue they analysed. The genetic evidence indicates that at least some of the Galveston Island ‘coyotes’ appear to be red wolf/coyote hybrids.

Red wolves (and eastern wolves, which primarily inhabited southeastern Canada and the northeastern US and are now only found in southern Ontario and Quebec) will interbreed with coyotes when their populations fall below a sustainable level.

Still, researchers were surprised to find red wolf DNA on an island in Texas. And the Galveston Island canids are unique in that they possess some red wolf genes not found in the captive population.

Challenges to reintroducing red wolves to wilderness areas continue and they may once again be declared extinct in the wild.

The Endangered Species Act does not include protected status for hybrids but some scientists feel this thinking is outdated, especially since hybridisation does not seem to be as rare as previously thought.

But even if the Galveston Island canids do not receive protected status, their presence is a testament to the resiliency of wolves and opens the door to further discussions on the status of hybrids.

Top image: Red wolves are lean animals with a distinct reddish cast to their coats. They’re in between the size of a grey wolf and coyote. Photo courtesy B. Bartel, USFWS

January 26, 2019February 18, 2019

What wolves eat

As carnivores, wolves will eat anything from a mouse to a moose including grasshoppers, birds and frogs. Although wild wolves will occasionally eat berries, their bodies require meat to survive.

As Jack London wrote in White Fang, a story about a wolf-dog hybrid, “The aim of life was meat. Life itself was meat.”

Most wolves obtain their meat from ungulates such as deer, elk, moose, bison and muskoxen. While it’s dangerous hunting large animals with horns and hooves, the huge food reward is worth the effort and risk of injury or even death. On the other hand, it takes a lot of mice to fill a wolf’s belly and the energy expended is often greater than the calories gained.

While most wolves depend on ungulates for their sustenance, some eat a lot of fish. This has been recorded throughout the world and often involves fish travelling upstream to spawn.

This wolf caught 15 sockeye salmon in one hour in Brooks River, Alaska. Photo courtesy Paul Stinsa

But some wolves rely heavily on fish and marine-related animals year-round. In fact, wolves on some British Columbia coastal islands primarily eat salmon, seals and shellfish, as well as mink and Canada goose eggs. They will even move rocks at low tide to eat tiny molluscs called chitons. Wolves on outer islands may seldom – if ever – see a deer.

Wolves aren’t picky about their food. They may cache some meat and dig it up for dinner later, as well as scavenge prey that has died of natural causes or been killed by other animals.

They can easily become used to the easy pickings found at unsecured human garbage dumps and will raid campsites or break into tents and kayak holds to check out human food. Although they probably won’t eat much of the food they find this way, they will bite into whatever they can access to check it out.

At times, wolves also kill and eat livestock and pets, which is the major source of their conflict with humans.

Top photo was taken on Ellesmere Island in the high arctic where wolves prey on hares and muskoxen. Photo courtesy Dave Mech