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Wolf packs and wolf families
I was reading a really interesting article this morning about wolf pack dynamics. (It's a PDF, available here.) Interesting because wolf packs are popularly known as the gold standard for dominance hierarchy (the alpha-beta-omega dominance structure) and in fact, this seems to be not how they work at all. According to the author of the above article, most of the research on wolves has been on captive packs, where unrelated wolves are put together by zookeepers and forced to work out a hierarchy among themselves, since none of them can leave. This is not something they typically do when left to their own devices. In nature, wolf packs are usually families: the parents plus their pups, with the pups naturally deferring to Mom and Dad. Grown kids leave, go off, find mates and start their own families. Larger packs are made up of the parents plus grown "children" and their "spouses" (my terminology, not the author's) who stick around for a while, and sometimes when one of the original parents dies, the remaining wolf may take a new, unrelated mate, who sometimes will later form a family with one of their stepkids.
True dominance struggles are extremely rare, just like they are in families -- how often do you want to challenge your parents and take over control/ownership of the house, after all? You just leave. As (wild) wolf kids do, too, when they start feeling that way. The classic "alpha wolves are the only breeding wolves in the pack" thing makes perfect sense when you look upon it as a family with Mom, Dad and the kids. Wolves in zoos are attempting to replicate this in the only way they know how.
The author also talks about submissive displays, i.e. wolves flattening themselves and fawning on older family members, or rolling over for them. Female wolves typically submit to their mates in this way, and young pack members to older pack members. Sometimes this results in the other wolf giving them food; sometimes, the author suggests, it's simply a family-harmony bonding thing. He doesn't go ahead and analogize to human family dynamics in any way, but it made me think of the similarities with us, and the fact that, while we tend to think of "submission" (in a public setting) as a very loaded act, something with a coercive element to it, families do it naturally and don't usually think of it that way. Or the way that domestic dogs act towards us ... when my dog gives me a typical "submission display" greeting (wagging his tail, rubbing on my leg, rolling over) he is clearly happy, and so am I. It never feels like something I'm forcing him to do. It just feels like love. And ditto for kids wiggling on their parents, or humans hugging and cuddling with their spouses: it feels like love to us, and I can't imagine why it doesn't feel that way for wolves too -- not something they do because they have to or the other wolf will hurt them, but something they do because it makes them and the other wolf feel good, and reinforces that they care about each other.
True dominance struggles are extremely rare, just like they are in families -- how often do you want to challenge your parents and take over control/ownership of the house, after all? You just leave. As (wild) wolf kids do, too, when they start feeling that way. The classic "alpha wolves are the only breeding wolves in the pack" thing makes perfect sense when you look upon it as a family with Mom, Dad and the kids. Wolves in zoos are attempting to replicate this in the only way they know how.
The author also talks about submissive displays, i.e. wolves flattening themselves and fawning on older family members, or rolling over for them. Female wolves typically submit to their mates in this way, and young pack members to older pack members. Sometimes this results in the other wolf giving them food; sometimes, the author suggests, it's simply a family-harmony bonding thing. He doesn't go ahead and analogize to human family dynamics in any way, but it made me think of the similarities with us, and the fact that, while we tend to think of "submission" (in a public setting) as a very loaded act, something with a coercive element to it, families do it naturally and don't usually think of it that way. Or the way that domestic dogs act towards us ... when my dog gives me a typical "submission display" greeting (wagging his tail, rubbing on my leg, rolling over) he is clearly happy, and so am I. It never feels like something I'm forcing him to do. It just feels like love. And ditto for kids wiggling on their parents, or humans hugging and cuddling with their spouses: it feels like love to us, and I can't imagine why it doesn't feel that way for wolves too -- not something they do because they have to or the other wolf will hurt them, but something they do because it makes them and the other wolf feel good, and reinforces that they care about each other.
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