Living With Wolves

I learnt about wolves yesterday.

I watched part of a Discovery programme titled “Living With Wolves”.

It was eye-opening. I’d always know wolves lived in packs but I didn’t know the pack structure was so complicated. The Dutchers, Jamie and Jim, a couple working on documenting and researching wolves, lived with a pack of wolves for almost 6 years to make the documentary. It was awe-inspiring to witness their love and concern for the wolves. And even more surprising, the wolves’ attachment to them.

I learned that:

1. There are alpha, beta and omega wolves. Alpha, is of course, the pack leader, omega the loser whom everyone bullies and the beta, who is the caretaker and minder of all the wolf cubs.


2. Wolves mate for life and there can only be one pair that reproduces within the pack, and that’s usually the alpha pair.


3. An omega wolf can elevate its status out of being the omega to be a regular wolf.


4. The pack is really a tight knit family and their communication system is quite complex. Barks, howls, non-verbal and body gestures, the whole works.


5. The wolves really are so adorable!! Thick fluffy fur with distinct markings, each with their own distinct personalities.


6. Their fur is so thick that no amount of heat escapes it during winter. They can romp and frolic in the worst of conditions and the snow would still not melt if it stuck on their fur.


7. There are black wolves (somehow always thought they were brownish, grayish)!

It was a very informative programme and I loved it if only to watch the wolves and their interaction among each other. They really are soooo adorable. Even though we know they are hunters and carnivores. It just strengthened my conviction that animals are so much more complex but more deserving of this big wide world than humans are.  Why? They don’t go about destroying or using up limited resources for their own benefit.

Actually, we two-legged beings can learn a lot from the rest of the four-, eight- and many-legged or winged friends out there.