A wolf-pack consists of two parents
and their children. The pack lives in a specific area which they defend
against other wolves.
An average litter comprises five
to six puppies, so a pack can increase in just one year to more than seven
or eight members. Some of the young wolves die or they go away already
after one or two years. Others can stay for four years with their parents.
Some wolf-packs consist of about twenty members.
In the pack exists a hierarchy:
The Alpha-male and the Alpha-female are on the top and they dominate the
members below. These again dominate the members in the lowest positions.
The position of a wolf in the social hierarchy depends much of its age.
In general, the Alphas are the oldest ones and they have the most privilegies:
When the pack has caught a prey, the Alpha-animals get the best and the
biggest pieces. And when there’s not enough food for all, the Alphas have
got the first right on it. But they share with the young.
see also „BEHAVIOUR IN THE PACK"
A big part of the year, during the
autumn, the winter and the beginning of spring, the pack roams the whole
territory. But in the middle of spring, when the puppies are born, their
life changes: The youngest members are now in the focus of interest, and
during the whole summer the pack stays at the vicinity of the hole.
In this time the wolves are chasing
more time alone than in the pack. But at the minimum one time a day, they
return to the hole.
A wolf pack stays as long together
as the puppies have learnt to chase alone. So the puppies have to go to
the „wolf school".
see also "WOLF SCHOOL"
Especially in summer, some of the
wolves which are already one or two years old go away from the pack and
take to the road. Now they are independent, but they return sometimes to
the hole.
The other ones which remain in
the pack, they have to feed the puppies, they play with them and they must
baby-sit; like the parents. But they don´t have to feed only the
puppies: also the Alpha-female which remains three weeks with the puppies
after their birth, needs to be fed.
At the end of September, or at the
beginning of the October, the pack leaves its summer-camp. The young look
now very similar to the adults, but they are about half as long and the
weigh half as much.
The wolves`s coat changes now:
a thick, warm coat is growing with long hairs. With this coat, the wolves
seem much heavier than they actually are.
The pack roams the wilderness by
covering a distance of about 50 km a day.
On that way, the young wolves learn,
where the boundaries of their territory are.
At some special places, the pack
marks -at the order of precedence- tree roots, rocks or similar striking
points. These marks designate the boundaries of the territory. Besides,
that smells give information about the different members of the pack to
strange wolves.
Source:
„Wölfe, Verhalten und Lebensweise".R.
D. Lawrence
Schneider Verlag GmbH, 1993.