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Location: london, UK
Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 583
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Originally Posted by
Gnasher
Whether or not a lone wolf, sniffing around the periphery of a pack of wolves, stages a successful take-over or not, depends on several things. Firstly, not all lone wolves have alpha status (remember, I believe that alphas are born, not made, and are very rare - both in nature and in domestication). Secondly, the lone male wolf may simply try to join the pack - life as a lone wolf almost certainly means death - so let's take the scenario that our lone male wolf is an omega or a very low ranking beta at best. He will do everything he can to ingratiate himself with the pack, fawn, cower, roll on his back exposing his genitals, frantically lick the mouths of the resident wolves etc. etc. They may allow him to join, they may drive him away or they may even kill him. I am not sure what happens to a lone female wolf who tries to join a pack, I am guessing when I say the same as with a male.
So our lone wolf will either be killed, accepted, driven off but not killed or ... if he is an aspiring alpha ... will fight the beta enforcers and possibly the resident alpha and kill or be killed. It has to be remembered though that there are few alphas, so this lone wolf may not be an alpha, and may not want to stage a take-over, he may just want to join the relative safety of a pack. A wolf living on his own is not going to live long.
In a wild wolf pack, the breeding alpha female actually suppresses the oestrus of the rival females I understand ... how this is done, God only knows, but it is a known fact. So I am not sure it is accurate to say that all female wolves are breeders or potential breeders, some of them will have their oestrus suppressed by the alpha female. Inbreeding within the wolf pack does not happen, so the success of the species depends on those females that either are covered by a rogue lone male, or who run off with a rogue lone male and form a new pack.
I think my post is very muddled, but I hope you understand what I am saying Ben !
Ok, now that this thread is going wey further than the original posters question lets add a little to the wolf alpha theory!
Firstly, I do believe that alphas are 'born', but largely because they are confident animals; timid alphas don't tend to exist. In this way you can see that the most confident personality tends be at the top. The same with any mammal society.
When a wolf pack gets too big, due to social pressures or resource limits there will then be dispersers (lone wolves). Wolves are social animals and for then safety comes in numbers but there are a lot of dispersers and this has been crucial to the success of the species. They will travel for huge distances in search of a mate or new pack that needs to expand. They have been tracked over great distances; for example Italian wolves have got as far as spain without being noticed in France.
Social pressures within wild packs can create very different behaviour. Aggressive behaviour is often seen in packs where they are under pressure from reduced rersources (prey, territory etc). In packs where the density of wolves is very low (Algonquin, Canada; Theberge)) the pressures are different and relatives will travel from pack to pack and interbreed, also these relatives have been known to visit neighboring packs and return to their own.
As for Alphas breeding, it does appear normal to have a breeding pair but it is not un-known for another female to breed as well. Unfortunately it appears that non of the wolves have ever read any text books, but the great thing about science is that it constantly evolves and what is a hard and fast fact today is disproved history tommorow. As nobel prize winning animal behaviourist Konrad Lorenz is reputed to have said: How could I have got it so wrong?
In a captive pack of wolves the pressures are greatly increased and you will often see signs of this (flesh wounds near the tale region on some animals) where animals would normaly disperse or live on the pack periphery. If the Alpha dies then there is not necessarily a replacement to be found within the pack which would back up the concept of the alpha being 'born' or simply having the right personality, if you prefer. There are several good examples of this, one being a captive pack in France where the 'alpha' was poisoned by a member of the public. This pack continued in a state of melt down for months until it was broken up into small units -before it functioned well.
While some wolf ancestry applies to dogs, much does not. Wolves (male and female) have a short breeding season, there is a hierarchy for breeding rights etc, but domestic animals (humans included) have no such constraints. Domestication has changed many of the patterns and survival needs.
Originally Posted by
Gnasher
Mini : I have never owned a hybrid. I have owned a wolf cross. There is no such thing as a wolf hybrid.
Sorry but this is not true. Hybrid is a term that means the offspring of two animals or plants of different species OR varieties. Thus a wolf and a dog may be regarded as either the same species just different varieties (they can interbreed freely; so this is the best definition) or two different species in which case the same applies. When you buy an F1 hybrid tomato plant it is only a cross of varieties; not a cross between a cabbage and a tomato. Some dog breeders will deliberatly use the word 'hybrid' to advertise pups as it will bring a greater price than using the word 'cross'.