5 Simple Reasons To Love Wolves

When I was in third grade, my heart was always immersed in some colorful wildlife magazine, demanding book after book to the chagrin of my patient mother and father. But among all of those enchanting animals and stories, there was something about wolves that got me permanently hooked - and I think you'll be a little obsessed, too. Here are five undeniable reasons to admire gray wolves:

Image credit: Zechariah Judy Not surprisingly, the "alpha wolf" is a stagnant myth perpetrated by pop culture. Gray wolves in captivity often exhibit aggressive behaviors toward one another due to lack of mental stimulation, inadequate housing, and the fact that they've likely never met before, thus producing the "wolf pack hierarchy" of dominance and submission (which really just exposes neglect in zoos). In truth, wild wolf packs consist of one or more breeding pairs and their offspring from various litters. Mated wolves stick together to nurture, feed, and protect their pups until they grow strong enough to form packs of their own. Dr. L. David Mech, senior research scientist of the U.S. Geological Survey and leader of the ongoing Wolf Project, affirms this new position on wolf behavior in an eye-opening video.

Image credit: Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary

Dogs are thought to have arisen thousands of years ago from a population of ancient and genetically diverse wolves in Europe. Before the earliest human settlements, people were already hunting and gathering alongside "man's best friend" - some believe that early peoples tamed wolves by breeding for usefulness, while others maintain that wolves tamed themselves by being friendly and eating leftovers (just like some of today's mischievous pooches). Wolves and dogs are so integrally related that the latter are considered a subspecies of the gray wolf: Canis lupus familiaris, a.k.a. the friendly wolf!

Image credit: Tambako The Jaguar

Wolves are the most widely distributed predators on land. In fact, all of the wolf populations on the linked map belong to just one global species, C. lupus. Although packs generally prefer hoofed mammals, such as antelope and elk, countless individuals have been documented catching rodents, fishing at streams, digging for worms, and even stripping berries from bushes during lean times. The familial bonds, dietary flexibility, and remarkable opportunism of gray wolves have allowed them to thrive from the barren desert to the frozen tundra and everything in between.

Image credit: Michelle Callahan

Reintroduced wolves did wonders for Yellowstone National Park. Before 1995, too much elk supported on too little vegetation caused famine for a dwindling variety of animals present in the park. Wolves not only staved off mass overpopulation through healthy predation of the elk - they also strengthened the elk gene pool by removing old, weak, and/or crippled individuals, allowing the remaining herds to browse without risk of starvation. This in turn sparked massive changes throughout the Yellowstone ecosystem that have been elevating the beauty and biodiversity of the region ever since.

Image credit: Arctic Wolf

Today, wolves around the world are being threatened by unjustified hunting, unstable federal recognition, and the destruction of their natural habitats. So why is this a reason to admire them? The answer is simple: like a wolf pack protecting its members, we protect the things we love. Appreciating wildlife is the first step to becoming passionate about it, and passion transforms into an insatiable hunger to defend. Let's defend the wolves.

Cover photo taken by Tambako The Jaguar.

Annie Huang is a fifteen-year-old conservationist, writer, and animal rights activist aspiring to unite real science with real-world issues in order to increase awareness and promote education on threats to life on Earth. To contact me, please email me at annie.huang3@gmail.com or leave a comment below. I'd love to hear from you!

"At the molecular level, we are all virtually identical." ~ Carl Sagan