Wolves by Strangers

From Emmy in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Check out these facts related to female wolves and male/female wolf relations:

1. Though many females in a pack are able to have pups, only a few will actually mate and bear pups. Often, only the alpha female and male will mate, which serves to produce the strongest cubs and helps limit the number of cubs the pack must care for. The other females will help raise and “babysit” the cubs. – Jill Bailey: Animals under Threat: Gray Wolf

2. Lower-ranking males do not mate and often suffer from a condition of stress and inhibition that has been referred to as “psychological castration.” Lower-ranking females are sometimes so afraid of the alpha female that they do not even go into heat. – Rebecca Gambro: Wolf: Legend, Enemy, Icon

3. A male and female that mate usually stay together for life. They are devoted parents and maintain sophisticated family ties. – Jim and Jamie Dutcher: Living with Wolves

From Warga in Newton, Massachusetts

FACT (Taken from Wolves and Other Wild Dogs by Mary Reid):
Wolves do not make good guard dogs because they are naturally afraid of the unfamiliar and will hide from visitors rather than bark at them.

I hope Warga will forgive me, but I censored the text of this illustration in order to protect younger viewers.

From Lauren in Pickens, South Carolina

FACT: Wolves were once the most widely distributed land predator the world has ever seen. The only places they didn’t thrive were in the true desert and rainforests.

fda

From Olivia in Southland, New Zealand

FACT: A hungry wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single meal, which is akin to a human eating one hundred hamburger patties.

fda

From Jessie in Raleigh, North Carolina

This wolf’s ominously pictured jaws served as the inspiration for this post.

FACT: Immense power is concentrated in a wolf’s jaw. It has a crushing pressure of nearly 1,500 pound per square inch (compared with around 750 for a large dog). The jaws themselves are massive, bearing 42 teeth specialized for stabbing, shearing, and crunching bones. Their jaws also open farther than those of a dog.

v