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WONDERFUL WORLD of WOLVES

This is the Chapter of the Animal Lovers guild where we all sit and talk about how much we heart LOVE heart wolves.


Table of Contents:
Post 1 = introduction
post 2 = Save the Alaskan Wolves
post 3 = The Wolf Pack
post 4 = Yellowstone wolves
post 5 = Photo gallery
post 6 = NWF/DoW
post 7 = Wolf Haven/Adopt a Wolf
Post 8 = Links
post 9 = more to come later


INTRODUCTION:
Hello, as many of you know, i am Kineta Storm, and i am an avid wolf lover. I enjoy doing my best to help the wolves of the world (and collect their souvoneirs). Wolves are wanderful and facinating animals, unfortunatly many people fear them and hold protests against them and work to rid the world of them. But they are not bad animals, they do what they have to to survive, and not a bit of that means attacking innocent people or animals unless they or their pack are in need of food. Wolves are better then most humans, they do not waste what they hunt, they share their catches with the rest of the pack and the body is then picked to the bone and the remains are left to feed other animals. That is just how the circle of life goes. I encourage you now, to read the following posts and help the wolves in any way that you can.

Facts about wolves:

Latin Name: Canis lupus

Family Name: Canidae (Canine)

Related Species: The Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) is being restored in the Southwest. The red wolf (Canis rufus) is a smaller wolf located in the Carolinas.

Estimated Population: There are approximately 2,500+ gray wolves in Minnesota, 321 in Michigan, 335 in Wisconsin, 81 in Montana, 271 in Yellowstone National Park, 285 in Idaho, 7,500-10,000 in Alaska and 57,000 in Canada. In Arizona and New Mexico, there are approximately 55 Mexican wolves.

Endangered Status: The gray wolf is listed as a threatened species on the U.S. Endangered Species List. Wolves in the Greater Yellowstone area and central Idaho are listed as threatened, nonessential. The Mexican wolf is listed as endangered, nonessential.

Appearance: Color ranges from black, grizzled gray, rust to white. Round erect ears. Tail held down, long and straight, never curls. Muzzle large and blocky with massive, long legs and extremely large feet.

Size: Males are larger than females. They are usually 30 inches tall and weigh 57?130 pounds.

Life Span: Wild wolves are known to live up to 13 years.

(this information was borrowed from the NWF website, look to post 2 for a link to this site)

As many of you may know, wolves travel in packs. Because of the ways in which wolves have evolved and the special demands of their way of life, wolves have become one of the most highly social of all carnivores. Wolves live in packs – groups of animals that are usually related by close, blood ties (family units). A hierarchical order exists within the pack; every animal knows its place in that order.

Wolves live in packs because cooperation allows wolves to bring down larger prey than individual wolves can do on their own. Pack life also insures the care and feeding of the young, and allows wolves to expertly defend their common territory. The male and female leaders of the pack are called alphas. These two animals lead the pack during a hunt and often eat first when a kill is made. Generally, though not always, the alpha wolves are the only wolves in the pack to have pups.

Wolves sexually mature at around 22 months of age. Most often the alpha pair are the only wolves in a pack to mate and produce pups, however in areas where prey is abundant and life is mostly stress-free, multiple litters within a pack can occur. The breeding season for wolves occurs roughly from January through March, depending on the latitude. Animals in the highest latitude usually have the latest season. Pups are born in the spring (following a 63 gestation period). The entire pack takes a part in raising the young. The average litter size is four pups.

Between the time the pups leave the den and the next winter, the young wolves remain at rendezvous sites while the adults hunt the surrounding countryside. When adults return from the hunt, the pups lick the muzzles of the adult animals, and the wolves regurgitate predigested food for the young pups.

As the pups grow, some of them will be very assertive in their play, while others in the same litter will be weaker and more submissive. Like human children, the more assertive wolf pups will grow up to be alphas while the more submissive pups will most likely grow into subordinate wolves.

Next in the social hierarchy of the pack is the beta wolf. Betas can be either male or female and, if something happens to one of the alphas, it is the beta that will most likely move up in rank. the remainder of the pack is typically composed of adolescent wolves, one to four years old, several pups and an omega. An omega wolf can be either male or female and is the scapegoat, the lowest ranking member of the pack. The omega lives on the outskirts of the pack, usually eating last. The omega serves as both a stress-reliever and instigator of play.

When wolves become adolescents and have reached sexual maturity, many will leave their home territory in order to search for a mate. These wolves are called dispersers. The long, drawn-out howl of a 'lone wolf' will hopefully attract another unattached wolf. The two new self-proclaimed alphas find suitable territory to start a family of their own.



all of the above in formation was aquired from:

PHOTO GALLERY:












these pictures were gathered through out the internet. for more pictures and drawings, check out this site:

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bump

Woohoo!! Nice job, Kim!! I'm insanely jealous now. Deleting the last couple of our "are you going to post anything or not?" posts now... (kind of distracting) blaugh

that would be awsome, hehe

hehe i'm glad you like it, and i'm at your disposal big sis