Wolves are big, badass, powerful creatures. It’s hard to believe we were able to turn them into pugs and Pomeranians and chihuahuas. It makes me wonder what would happen if a superior race of aliens landed on earth and did the same to us. I imagine an alien lounging in a chair, gently stroking a miniature, wrinkly human perched in its lap. The tiny human pet would just sit around all day trembling and slobbering on itself, occasionally being stuffed into a designer handbag and brought to the alien shopping mall while its master buys new clothes at Forever 21,000 and new shoes at Tentacle Locker. The aliens would find the inbred mini people adorable, but to us they would a be a grotesque sight. I wonder if wolves and dogs are aware — even slightly — of how we’ve domesticated them. Castrated them. Robbed them of their wild, free spirits.
I’m not anti lap dog or anything (it’s just trippy to think about). After all, the life of a domesticated dog is peaches. Wolves, on the other hand, can have a pretty rough existence. Here’s a look at the majestic wild wolf, as well as some facts you may not have known.
Vikings drank wolf blood and wore wolf firs into battle. Sometimes they brought live wolves along as battle companions, which they called hrægifr (corpse trolls).
The relationship between wolves and humans began in caveman times. The humans fed the wolves meat and the wolves would eventually become trained, guarding the food supply. Some scientists believe the domestication of wolves actually led to the creation of the first permanent societies. With wolves guarding our supplies (and serving as a food supply themselves), humans no longer had to live as nomads hunting and avoiding food-stealing animals, which allowed for the birth of civilization.
This is Madadh, the oldest known wolf in the world. She is 19 years old and resides in Wolf Watch UK.
A hungry wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single sitting, which is the equivalent of a human eating 100 hamburgers.
Wolf pups can only urinate if the mother wolf licks its tummy.
Most of the time, only one female in a pack will mate. The lucky lady is chosen by the alpha male. The rest of the females are often so scared of the alpha female, they don’t even go into heat. They help out by acting as caretakers and babysitters to the pups.
Lower-ranking males in a pack do not mate. And the lack of sex takes its toll. Many suffer from anxiety and self-consciousness that causes them to act unnatural, a result of what experts call “psychological castration.”
At the bottom of the male hierarchy is the omega. Not only does the omega never get laid, but he serves as “comic relief” to the others, who will snap at him and harass him for entertainment. Sometimes, an omega that has been picked on enough, or a former alpha that lost a territorial dispute to a beta, will set off on their own, away from the pack. These are known as “lone wolves.”
Without protection from the rest of the pack, the life of a lone wolf is dangerous. But most of the time, lone wolves don’t remain alone. They may find a different pack with a weak Alpha and take over, or a breeding female and drop an anchor baby in her. Sometimes they’ll even return to their birth packs if the solo life isn’t working out.
Dire Wolves were large, prehistoric wolves that lived in North America 2 million years ago. They hunted in packs and could bring down animals as large as wooly mammoths.
Wolves were once the most widely-spread animal on earth, but their numbers have been greatly decreased. The North American gray wolf population in 1600 was 2 million. Today it’s 65,000. The world population is approximately 150,000. The decrease in population is mostly caused by hunting — Wild West towns in America even placed bounties on wolves. Farley Mowat, a Canadian environmentalist said:
“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”
Wolves howl to find each other when separated, get the pack psyched up for a hunt, or warn other packs to stay out of their territory. Each pack has its own distinct howling sound. Lone wolves howl to find a mate, but some experts have recorded more unfamiliar howls from lone wolves. While the exact purpose of these remains a mystery, it could be simply be an expression of loneliness, not necessarily intended for anyone else to hear.
The smallest full-grown wolves in the world are about 30 pounds and live in the middle east. The largest can reach up to 175 pounds and live in Canada and Russia.
The Cherokee Indians did not hunt wolves because they believed its brethren would enact revenge by attacking their village.
In 1500, the last wolf was killed in England. In 1770, Ireland’s last wolf was killed. In 1772, Denmark’s last wolf was killed.
Here’s a man helping a wolf stuck in trap.
When two wolves mate, they usually stay together for life.
In the Middle Ages, many people believed wolves contained spirits that possessed people to do evil. Sometimes during executions, they would hang a wolf alongside the offender.
Bonus: Look at this big bison George Costanza the baby one. Nature, you fucked up.
Via The Washington Post, factretriever, howstuffworks, ABCNews
