Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff florin volgebam.
Speaker 1: Here you can find all sorts of high school and
Speaker 1: college athletic programs named after wolves, and why not in
Speaker 1: a mascot battle, North Carolina State University's Mister Wolf would
Speaker 1: surely vanquish Sammy the slug of University of California Santa Cruz.
Speaker 1: But furthermore, gray wolves do tend to organize themselves into
Speaker 1: social groups known as packs, with multiple animals cooperating and
Speaker 1: hunting together, a great metaphor for sports teamwork. But in nature,
Speaker 1: wolf packs operate very differently than most people think. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest misconceptions involves their power structures. ALFA wolf
Speaker 1: is a term that gets tossed around in a lot
Speaker 1: of popular culture. The concept as we know it today
Speaker 1: can be traced back to a nineteen forty seven study
Speaker 1: written by animal behaviorist Rudolph Schneckel. According to this study,
Speaker 1: a wolf packs are led by an alpha male and
Speaker 1: an alpha female, which rule the roost by fighting the
Speaker 1: other wolves for dominance until they've clawed their way up
Speaker 1: the pecking order. A Schneckel wrote, by continuously controlling and
Speaker 1: suppressing all types of competition within the same sex. Both
Speaker 1: alpha animals defend their social position. He also posited that
Speaker 1: the alpha wolves outrank beta wolves, who in turn looked
Speaker 1: down on submissive omega wolves. All very hierarchical. This belief
Speaker 1: that every wolf pack is a dog eat dog environment
Speaker 1: where some members are constantly vying to climb the ranks
Speaker 1: by aggressive means has been repeated in countless wildlife documentaries
Speaker 1: and nonfiction books over the past seventy odd years. Our
Speaker 1: colleagues at Houstuff Works even repeated that idea when we
Speaker 1: first published the article this episode is based on back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. However, it is misleading. Bencke's
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven paper was describing two wolf packs in captivity.
Speaker 1: His study specimens were unrelated animals that had been brought
Speaker 1: together at a Swiss zoo where they shared an enclosure
Speaker 1: measuring only about two thousand square feet or two hundred
Speaker 1: square meters. N Schneckel didn't study any wild wolves at
Speaker 1: the time, unlike their counterparts at this particular zoo, a
Speaker 1: natural wolf packs mainly consist of genetic relatives. They also
Speaker 1: take up way more space patrolling territories of one thousand
Speaker 1: square miles or about twenty five hundred square kilometers or
Speaker 1: even more. Because they don't live under the artificial constraints
Speaker 1: that Schneckel observed, wild wolves usually organize themselves in a
Speaker 1: way that's less competitive. A noted wolf researcher, David Meck,
Speaker 1: published a book in nineteen seventy that used the alpha terminology,
Speaker 1: and more recently updated his views based on more current
Speaker 1: scientific understanding. In a video from two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: he said the term alpha isn't really accurate when describing
Speaker 1: most of the leaders of wolf packs because it implies
Speaker 1: that the wolves fought and competed strongly to get to
Speaker 1: the top of the pack. In actuality, the way they
Speaker 1: get there is by mating with the member of the
Speaker 1: opposite sex, producing a bunch of offspring, which are the
Speaker 1: rest of the pack, then and becoming the natural leaders
Speaker 1: that way, just like with a pair of humans producing
Speaker 1: a family. Don't get us wrong, the alpha wolf hierarchy
Speaker 1: system isn't a complete myth. Again, a captive wolf packs
Speaker 1: like Schnekels have been known to adopt this kind of
Speaker 1: pecking order, but outside of zoos and other artificial environments,
Speaker 1: the stereotypical alpha beta omega social structure is incredibly rare,
Speaker 1: if it can be said to exist at all. Instead,
Speaker 1: what we usually see is a howling nuclear family. Your
Speaker 1: typical wild wolf pack is made up of two breeding
Speaker 1: adults and their progeny, and new pups are born during
Speaker 1: the spring in litters, usually consisting of four to six
Speaker 1: babies weighing about one pound or half a kilo each. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: the little tykes receive care from both parents as well
Speaker 1: as from their older siblings. Most youngsters leave their original
Speaker 1: pack after anywhere from nine months to three years, so
Speaker 1: it's not uncommon to find parents and tiny infants living
Speaker 1: together with adolescent wolves born in previous years. After moving out,
Speaker 1: young adults try to find mates and establish their own packs,
Speaker 1: beginning the cycle. Anew unrelated wolves do sometimes join a pack,
Speaker 1: and packs may include multiple breeding pairs, although that's a
Speaker 1: departure from the norm. Bigger packs aren't necessarily the most successful.
Speaker 1: Having extra mouths to feed can be a real detriment
Speaker 1: when your prey is scarce, though of course it depends
Speaker 1: on your prey. At Yellowstone National for example, packs of
Speaker 1: nine or more wolves are the most likely to succeed
Speaker 1: when they go bison hunting. Elk, by comparison, are easier
Speaker 1: to kill, with packs containing two to six wolves regularly
Speaker 1: taking them down. That being said, it's not all friendly cooperation.
Speaker 1: Wolves are territorial creatures. A crossing into another group's domain
Speaker 1: can open the door for confrontation. But how can wolves
Speaker 1: tell where their land begins and ends? Sometimes the nose nose.
Speaker 1: Wolves scent mark by spreading urine and feces on above
Speaker 1: ground targets, such as a tree stump. This tells intruders
Speaker 1: that they're approaching boundaries and provides the wolves with olfactory signposts.
Speaker 1: Howling can also be used to signal rival packs, hopefully
Speaker 1: keeping them at bay. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article what is a wolfpac mentality on how stufforks dot
Speaker 1: Com written by Kristin Conger and Mark Vncini. The Brainstuff
Speaker 1: is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com
Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts myheart Radio,
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