This a public service announcement regarding the shamefully poor collective understanding of wolf hierarchies-- particularly alpha wolves. (which makes some of the online discourse about ~alpha males~
doubly hilarious, as a lot of it was initially inspired by that very same poor understanding about alpha wolves and
that was in part caused by some very early wolf study involving
captive wolves rather than wild wolves)
FIRST of all, most pack leaders accomplished their position essentially by mating and creating pups, which then of course become their pack. As such they are simply reproducers and guardians:
Quote:
Wolf (Canis lupus) packs have long been used as examples in descriptions of behavioral
relationships among members of social groups. The subject of social dominance and
alpha status has gained considerable prominence (Schenkel 1947; Rabb et al. 1967; Fox
1971b; Zimen 1975, 1982), and the prevailing view of a wolf pack is that of a group of
individuals ever vying for dominance but held in check by the "alpha" pair, the alpha
male and the alpha female (Murie 1944; Mech 1966, 1970; Haber 1977; Peterson 1977).
Most research on the social dynamics of wolf packs, however, has been conducted on
wolves in captivity. These captive packs were usually composed of an assortment of
wolves from various sources placed together and allowed to breed at will (Schenkel
1947; Rabb et al. 1967; Zimen 1975, 1982). This approach apparently reflected the view
that in the wild, "pack formation starts with the beginning of winter" (Schenkel 1947),
implying some sort of annual assembling of independent wolves. (Schenkel did consider
the possibility that the pack was a family, as Murie (1944) had already reported, but only
in a footnote.)
In captive packs, the unacquainted wolves formed dominance hierarchies featuring alpha,
beta, omega animals, etc. With such assemblages, these dominance labels were probably
appropriate, for most species thrown together in captivity would usually so arrange
themselves.
In nature, however, the wolf pack is not such an assemblage. Rather, it is usually a family
(Murie 1944; Young and Goldman 1944; Mech 1970, 1988; Clark 1971; Haber 1977)
including a breeding pair and their offspring of the previous 1-3 years, or sometimes two
or three such families (Murie 1944; Haber 1977; Mech et al. 1998).
Occasionally an unrelated wolf is adopted into a pack (Van Ballenberghe 1983; Lehman
et al. 1992; Mech et al. 1998), or a relative of one of the breeders is included (Mech and
Nelson 1990), or a dead parent is replaced by an outside wolf (Rothman and Mech 1979;
Fritts and Mech 1981) and an offspring of opposite sex from the newcomer may then
replace its parent and breed with the stepparent (Fritts and Mech 1981; Mech and Hertel
1983).
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^ From
Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs by L. David Mech
This article from the Art of Manliness summarized it nicely, too:
Quote:
Instead of forming packs of unrelated individuals, in which alphas compete to rise to the top, researchers discovered that wild wolf packs actually consist of little nuclear wolf families. Wolves are in fact a generally monogamous species, in which males and females pair off and mate for life. Together they form a pack that typically consists of 5-11 members — the mate pair plus their children, who stay with the pack until they’re about a year old, and then go off to secure their own mates and form their own packs.
The mate pair shares in the responsibility of leading their family and tending to their pups. In 21st century human terminology, they “co-parent.” And by virtue of being parents, and leading their “subordinate” children, the mates represent a pair of “alphas.” The alpha male, or papa wolf, sits at the top of the male hierarchy in the family and the alpha female, or mamma wolf, sits atop the female hierarchy in the family.
In other words, male alpha wolves don’t gain their status through aggression and the dominance of other males, but because the other wolves in the pack are his mate and kiddos. He’s the pack patriarch. The Pater Familias. Dear Old Dad.
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All of those Reddit children need to keep my beautiful lovely wolves out of their alpha-male discourse!
..if I weren't so insistent on being over-dressed all the time, I would absolutely be one of those people who wear nothing but tie-dyed wolf face t-shirts with socks and birkenstocks.
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