{"id":7367,"date":"2015-07-10T09:16:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T15:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=7367"},"modified":"2015-07-10T09:26:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T15:26:51","slug":"reputation-for-brutality-aside-its-not-easy-being-a-wolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/07\/reputation-for-brutality-aside-its-not-easy-being-a-wolf\/","title":{"rendered":"Reputation for brutality aside, it’s not easy being a wolf"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wolves\"<\/a>

Wolves in Yellowstone National Park bait a bison in this National Park Service photograph.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMany people\u2014especially those opposed to wolves\u2014think of the wolf as a killing machine. And in a general sense they are right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across decades of writing about wolves and the science associated with their study, I\u2019ve seldom encountered a more gripping opening to a natural history book than the one above.<\/p>\n

It appears in the introduction to a new tome on lobos, \u201cWolves on the Hunt: The Behavior of Wolves Hunting Wild Prey.\u201d And it\u2019s authored by three experts on wolf ecology: the U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s L. David Mech, Yellowstone biologist Douglas Smith, and Utah State University professor Daniel MacNulty.<\/p>\n

Their provocative opening continues with this observation: \u201cAt first glance, it certainly appears that a wolf, or especially a pack of wolves, can kill just about anything it wants. In fact, many laypeople even believe that wolves kill for the sheer sport of it. The reality is different and far more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWolves on the Hunt\u201d is an in-depth analysis of how wolves kill prey to survive. \u00a0And where it really opens eyes is revealing just how perilous it is to make a living as wolves do hunting animals several times larger than themselves.<\/p>\n

When biologists find the skulls of wolves or perform necropsies on dead lobos, they are often\u00a0amazed at how many cranial fractures and broken bones and teeth the wild canids have sustained. \u00a0Some have endured\u00a0more orthopedic misadventures than the\u00a0late Evel Knievel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWolves on the Hunt\u201d could not come at a better time. Even though the year is 2015, there remains in the American West some pretty extreme\u00a0notions about alleged wolf behavior that have little basis\u00a0in reality.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Recently I received an email from a Jackson Hole, Wyo., resident who claimed that wolves are single-handedly responsible for falling moose numbers in our region\u2014even though moose populations are declining quickly\u00a0in many parts of the Lower 48 and wolves generally rank lower on a long list of causal factors.<\/p>\n

Mech, a Minnesotan and the world\u2019s foremost wolf authority, joins his scientific colleagues in delivering a hair-raising\u2014and at times grim\u2014narrative on how lobos stalk moose, deer, elk, caribou, Dall sheep, mountain goats, bison, musk oxen, arctic hares, beavers, waterfowl, even salmon.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, they conclude that no matter how it appears, no matter how smart Canis lupus is, it\u2019s not easy being a wolf.<\/p>\n

Not only are most attempts at bringing down prey unsuccessful, but such episodes, the researchers note, are fraught with the unforgiving perils of meeting sharp lethal horns and skull-crunching hoof kicks. Outwit danger today; tomorrow, you might not be so lucky.<\/p>\n

The authors provide an abundance of field observations illustrating the highly evolved defense strategies prey use to fend off attacks.\u00a0Most enlightening, based on many cited examples of how wolves target each species, is that many of the modern scientifically supported notions about wolves actually do hold up.<\/p>\n

Yes, lobos do tend to target the sick, injured, old, weakened, young and otherwise vulnerable. Why?\u00a0 Because it\u2019s safer and the odds of achieving success are improved.<\/p>\n

On the other hand and sure to delight wolf critics, lobos sometimes do kill more prey\u2014such as calves\u2014than they need, but those incidents tend to be exceptions rather than the rule.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another factoid: \u201cThe odds of elk being encountered by wolves was 1.3 times higher in pine forest and 4.1 times less in grasslands than other habitats.\u201d The authors surmise that both elderly elk and moose, feeling vulnerable in open country, retreat into wooded terrain where, ironically, they become easier marks.<\/p>\n

Certainly, wolves are not gentle dispatchers, the authors note. They secure their meals with the dental tools nature gave them.<\/p>\n

Yet, in truth, little killing anywhere is ever pretty or clean; livestock slaughterhouses, gut-shot elk wounded by poor marksmanship, and leg-hold trapping of animals for their fur are also not scenes for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n

Also, wolf opponents forget: The very elusive big game species they covet are creatures sharpened and made more resilient by the predators that have pursued them.<\/p>\n

The authors write, \u201cAnd so it goes, day after day, as wolves continue their rounds, ever searching for more vulnerable prey animals\u2014chasing, missing, trying again and again, and eventually connecting. The net result of all this sifting and selecting of prey over eons is that prey gradually get faster, smarter, and more alert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, compared to having slower, dumber and more docile critters dominating the public landscape, isn\u2019t it a good thing to have public wildlife being made faster, smarter, and more alert?<\/p>\n

No matter what lobo camp you\u2019re in, you\u2019ll find \u201cWolves on the Hunt\u201d to be endlessly fascinating reading.<\/p>\n

Todd Wilkinson, a a longtime journalist based in Bozeman, is author of a forthcoming book,\u00a0\u201cGrizzlies of Pilgrim Creek\u2014An Intimate Portrait of 399, the Most Famous Bear of Greater Yellowstone”\u00a0featuring 150 amazing photographs by Jackson Hole photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMany people\u2014especially those opposed to wolves\u2014think of the wolf as a killing machine. And in a general sense they are right.\u201d Across decades of writing about wolves and the science associated with their study, I\u2019ve seldom encountered a more gripping opening to a natural history book than the one above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":7368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2780,2779,2778,2777,2781,119],"class_list":["post-7367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-daniel-macnulty","tag-douglas-smith","tag-l-david-mech","tag-usgs","tag-utah-state-university","tag-yellowstone-national-park","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}