Wolf Country by John Theberge

Author:John Theberge
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781551994857
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2000-08-31T21:00:00+00:00

These data indicate that for four days the pack was feeding on a moose at a bog edge ten kilometres from the rendezvous site. Foys 2 and Foys 4 were in on the carcass first, stayed there for fifty-two hours, then left to alert other pack members. Foys 4 met Foys 1 four kilometres to the north and led him to the carcass. Foys 2 returned to the rendezvous site, where he met Basin 3 Foys and led her there too. All four collared wolves stayed at the carcass another twenty-four hours when our block flying ended. Foys 2 and Foys 4, instead of hogging it all for themselves, which would maximize their individual fitness, gave up some food for the good of the group.

That type of cooperative behaviour is explainable as “reciprocal altruism”: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. It is worth sharing my kill with you if sometime later you share yours with me. The pack seemed to be operating to maximize its chances of making kills. Never were all five collared wolves together during our monitoring. Instead, they hunted in three loose parties. Occasionally, individuals moved from one party to another.

The pups waiting back in the rendezvous site for food would approve of what the adults were doing. Three parties were out hunting, not just one, and they were searching their entire territory. In one-quarter of our recorded fixes, the collared wolves were between twelve and eighteen kilometres apart, much of the diameter of the territory. Maybe they were having to work hard to find prey, or maybe wolf mobility is so great that they cover their whole territory with ease. Nevertheless, because of their hunting tactics, most of the deer, moose, and beaver in the territory were liable to be found every day. The pack seemed to be operating as a cooperative team.

At the same time, pups would be glad that the adults were keeping an eye on them. Collared wolves were in the rendezvous site for 19 per cent of the seventy-eight fixes. The baby-sitting task was shared; all wolves were there on occasion. Basin 3 Foys and Foys 3 stayed closest to the rendezvous site. Foys 3 was especially attentive to the young. His average distance away was only 4.1 kilometres, and even that is an inflated value because of one brief trip seven kilometres to the west.

Later, genetics showed that Foys 3 was the grandfather of the pups. Basin 3 Foys was his daughter, and she was, as expected, the mother of the pups.

Different wolves appeared to be playing different roles in the pack. Foys 2 and Foys 4 were more closely associated as wide-ranging hunting partners, although near the end of our monitoring session Foys 3 and Foys 2 made a short trip together. Foys 1 associated with the other wolves only at the moose kill and on one visit to the rendezvous site. He appeared to be more of a boundary patroller, averaging 8.1 kilometres from the rendezvous site, greatest of them all.

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