LEADER OF THE PACK

The wolf pack is very like a human family group, in which the oldest male and the oldest female are the leaders, and the young must do as they are told. Wolves and human have many patterns of social behaviour in common, for both evolved as social hunters who had to keep together in a team so they could kill animals larger than themselves. Wolves guard their territory closely and make their presence known by howling. Each member of the pack knows his or her position in the scale of dominance, and any wolf that tries to assert itself is likely to be expelled from the pack by the leaders. The only pair of wolves to mate are the dominant male and the dominant female, and after the cubs are born the father will bring meat back to the den for the mother. The cubs are suckled for about ten weeks, and then the mother and the younger wolves will feed them with regurgitated meat (partly digested meat returned to the mouth from the stomach) until they are old enough to start hunting with the pack. At first, the young cubs can behave as they like and all the wolves will put up with their play-fights, but as they grow older they too must learn to keep their place.