The Inspiring of  Wolves

about wolves

• Wolves are legendary because of their spine-tingling howl, which they use to communicate. A lone wolf howls to attract the attention of his pack, while communal howls may send territorial messages from one pack to another.
• Some howls are confrontational. Much like barking domestic dogs, wolves may simply begin howling because a nearby wolf has already begun.
• Wolves are the largest members of the dog family. Adaptable gray wolves are by far the most common and were once found all over the Northern Hemisphere. But wolves and humans have a long adversarial history. Though they almost never attack humans, wolves are considered one of the animal world's most fearsome natural villains. They do attack domestic animals, and countless wolves have been shot, trapped, and poisoned because of this tendency.
• In the lower 48 states, gray wolves were hunted to near extinction, though some populations survived and others have since been reintroduced. Few gray wolves survive in Europe, though many live in Alaska, Canada, and Asia. Red wolves live in the southeastern United States, where they are endangered. These animals actually became extinct in the wild in 1980. Scientists established a breeding program with a small number of captive red wolves and have reintroduced the animal to North Carolina. Today, perhaps 100 red wolves survive in the wild. The maned wolf, a distant relative of the more familiar gray and red wolves, lives in South America. Physically, this animal resembles a large, red fox more than its wolf relatives. Wolves live and hunt in packs of around six to ten animals. They are known to roam large distances, perhaps 12 miles (20 kilometers) in a single day. These social animals cooperate on their preferred prey—large animals such as deer, elk, and moose. When they are successful, wolves do not eat in moderation. A single animal can consume 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of meat at a sitting. Wolves also eat smaller mammals, birds, fish, lizards, snakes, and fruit. Wolfpacks are established according to a strict hierarchy, with a dominant male at the top and his mate not far behind. Usually this male and female are the only animals of the pack to breed. All of a pack's adults help to care for young pups by bringing them food and watching them while others hunt.
• Reproduction Breeding season occurs once a year late January through March. Pups are born blind and defenseless. The pack cares for the pups until they fully mature at about 10 months of age when they can hunt on their own. Once grown, young wolves may disperse. Dispersing wolves have been known to travel 50 to 500 miles. Mating Season: January or February. Gestation: 63 days Litter size: 4-7 pups

Gray wolf

• Gray wolves range in color from grizzled gray or black to all-white. As the ancestor of the domestic dog, the gray wolf resembles German shepherds or malamutes. Though they once nearly disappeared from the lower 48 states, today wolves have returned to the Great Lakes, northern Rockies and Southwestern United States. Wolves play a key role in keeping ecosystems healthy. They help keep deer and elk populations in check, which can benefit many other plant and animal species. The carcasses of their prey also help to redistribute nutrients and provide food for other wildlife species, like grizzly bears and scavengers. Scientists are just beginning to fully understand the positive ripple effects that wolves have on ecosystems.
• Diet Wolves eat ungulates, or large hoofed mammals, like elk, deer, moose and caribou, as well as beaver, rabbits and other small prey. Wolves are also scavengers and often eat animals that have died due to other causes.
• Population Did You Know? Wolves have unique howls, like fingerprints, that scientists (and other pack members) can use to tell them apart. There are an estimated 7,000 to 11,200 gray wolves in Alaska, 3,700 in the Great Lakes region and 1,675 in the Northern Rockies.
• Habitat & Range Gray wolves were once common throughout all of North America, but were exterminated in most areas of the United States by the mid 1930s. Today, their range has been reduced to Canada, Alaska, the Great Lakes, northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest. Thanks to the reintroduction of wolves in 1995, Yellowstone National Park is one of the most favored places to see and hear wolves in their native habitat. Wolves require large areas of contiguous habitat that can include forests and mountainous terrain, and Mexican gray wolves can thrive in desert and brush in the southwest. Suitable habitat must have sufficient access to prey, protection from excessive persecution, and areas for denning and taking shelter.
• Behavior Wolves live, travel and hunt in packs of 7 to 8 animals on average. Packs include the mother and father wolves (called the alphas), their pups and older offspring. The alpha female and male are typically the pack leaders that track and hunt prey, choose den sites and establish the pack's territory. Wolves develop strong social bonds within their packs. Wolves have a complex communication system ranging from barks and whines to growls and howls. While they don't actually howl at the moon, they are more active at dawn and dusk, and they do howl more when it's lighter at night, which occurs more often when the moon is full.

White/Arctic wolf

• No other wolf in the world can offer the same coloring as the Arctic Wolf. It is very unique due to the location where it is found. While some species of wolves do have some white coloring, this one is almost completely white. They do offer some aspects of yellow, gray, and black in places though.
• The overall size of them will depend on where they happen to live in their region. Some of them only weight about 75 pounds. Others though can weigh up to 125. Some of them are about 3 feet in length when they are fully grown. Others are twice that long though at about 6 feet.
• Anatomy Due to the extreme cold where the Arctic Wolf lives, they have two thick layers of fur. The outer layer actually gets thicker as the winter months come along. They first layer helps to form a waterproof barrier for the skin. As a result their body temperature can stay warm enough even when it is bitter cold. These wolves also have smaller ears than other species. That is part of them staying warm as well. They also help them to regular their overall body temperature. Since the ground is permanently frozen they have padded paws that are designed to offer them a good grip when they walk.
• Evolution The information about the evolution of the Arctic Wolf continues to be debated among the experts. It is believed by most they that evolved from other types of canines more than 50 million years ago. It is also believed that due to the Ice Age some wolves ended up in this very cold region. They were able to develop an anatomy that allowed them to adapt to the extremely cold temperatures. They also learned how to survive on fat stored in the body instead of needing food as often as other species of wolves do. Arctic Wolf Facts

Black wolf

• A black wolf is a melanistic colour variant of the grey wolf (Canis lupus). Black specimens are recorded among red wolves (Canis lupus rufus), but these color variants are probably extinct. Genetic research from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles revealed that wolves with black pelts owe their distinctive coloration to a mutation which occurred in domestic dogs, and was carried to wolves through wolf-dog hybridization.
• Although the black wolves of America were originally given the same binomial name as those in Europe, Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest believed that they were a different species. Historically, the natives of the banks of the Mackenzie River, Saskatchewan River and southern Canada apparently never viewed black wolves as a distinct species. In his 1791 book Travels, William Bartram mentioned seeing black wolves among the few red wolf populations he saw in Florida. He stated that they were "perfectly black", except the females which were described as having a white spot on the breast. Bartram also described a "black wolf-dog of the Florida Indians" which was identical to the local wolves, save for the fact that it could bark, and could be trusted around horses.The fur of a black wolf was once considered by the natives of New England to be worth over 40 American beaver skins. A chieftain accepting a gift of black wolf fur was seen as an act of reconciliation.[10] The black wolves of the Southern United States were considered a separate species to the northern kind due to differences in colour and morphology, and were named clouded or dusky wolves (Canis nubilus). The dusky wolves occurred in Missouri Territory, and were intermediate in size between common wolves and coyotes. They apparently produced a foul odour. On January 15, 2009, a black male wolf from "Mollie's Pack" in the Yellowstone National Park's Pelican Valley was weighed in at 143 lbs, making it the largest Yellowstone wolf on record.

timber wolf

• STATUS: Endangered under Endangered Species Act. Today the eastern timber wolf survives in only three percent of its original home range in the U.S. The largest population exists in northern Minnesota. There are smaller populations in Michigan and Wisconsin. In the northeast U.S. ( New York and New England), wolves have been extinct for 100 years.
• DESCRIPTION: Subspecies of the gray wolf, which is the largest member of the canine family and ancestor of the dog. Color ranges: grizzled gray, black, all-white.
• SIZE: Height: 26 to 32 inches at the shoulder. Weight: 55 to 115 pounds. Females are usually slightly smaller.SIZE: Height: 26 to 32 inches at the shoulder. Weight: 55 to 115 pounds. Females are usually slightly smaller.
• ORIGINAL RANGE: The eastern timber wolf once ranged from New England Range to the Great Lakes and through southeastern Canada to the Hudson Bay.
• HABITAT: Forests, tundra, plains and mountains.
• FOOD: Large, hoofed mammals such as deer and elk and occasionally smaller animals (beavers or rabbits). Wolves generally kill animals that are the easiest to capture -- young, old or diseased ones.
• PACK BEHAVIOR: Wolves live in packs, which are complex social structures that include the breeding adult pair (the alpha male and female) and their offspring. Size of the pack varies with the size of available prey. A hierarchy of dominant and subordinate animals within the pack help it to function as a unit. Wolves communicate by scent marking, vocalizations (including howling), facial expressions and body postures.
• OFFSPRING: Wolves mate in January or February. Females give birth two months later to a litter of pups. An average litter is four to seven pups.