Features

• The subspecies of wolf that resides in Alberta belongs to the Canis lupis occidentalis group, which includes the largest animals . The average winter weight for Alberta males is 48 kg (110 lbs)
• Although normally gray in colour, variations from white to black are common, with black wolves being disproportionately high in Alberta: 55% compared to 33% in northern BC and 32% in Alaska.
• Very social by nature, wolves live in packs that average four to eight animals but may be as low as two and as high as 30.
• Lone wolves account for less than 15% of the population.
• Loners are usually outcasts that exist in the shadows of more formalized packs.
• A pack is dominated by an alpha male and female, which often, but not always, are the sole breeding pair in the pack. Wolf pups enjoy care and training by the entire pack.
• A wolf pack may cover a distance of more than 100 km in a single day and lay claim to a large territory of 100 to 500 km². The boundary is marked repeatedly with urine and scat that signal possession. This territory may then be defended by the pack from other possible wolf intruders.
• Wolves eat anything from mice to moose.
• A wolf’s diet consists mainly (80%) of ungulates, including deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, and bison, with the remaining 20% being smaller mammals like beaver, snowshoe hare, and mice.
• Occasionally wolves dine on birds, berries, insects like grasshoppers, and, in the vicinity of humans, garbage and various livestock from chickens to cattle.
• Their penchant for taking what is easiest to get has long put wolves in conflict with humans and is a reason for centuries of war against wolves.
• Although wolves in captivity have about the same life span as their cousin the dog, wolves in the wild lead precarious lives and often die young. Attacking and bringing down large prey such as a moose is dangerous and often results in injury or death to the wolf.
• Wolves can scent game over 1.5 km away and usually hunt in an organized manner, as a pack.
• They capture fleet-footed ungulates by running them down and throwing their weight against the animals to knock them off balance.
• Often a pack member closes in behind its prey and attacks the rear or the legs with powerful jaws, while other wolves grab the nose or the throat.
• As soon as the victim drops, the pack begins to eat.
• Wolf packs kill an ungulate on average every 2.5 to 5.5 days.
• Usually the pack remains with a kill until it is fully consumed.
• Wolves will take more prey than they can eat if it is plentiful.
• cavengers often profit from the leftovers of wolf kills.
• A pack’s hunting success ratio is low: for example, on average, for every 12 moose pursued, only one is killed.
• If necessary, a wolf can survive for more than two weeks without food, but then must gorge and digest vast amounts when a kill is made.
• On average, an individual wolf will eat 2.2 kg to 4.5 kg of meat, bone, and hide/hair daily and needs approximately 1.7 kg of meat per day for survival.
• In wolf habitat, densities vary remarkably from one wolf per 10 km² to one every 80 km².
• Wolves howl in order to contact and locate their pack members.
• Each pack member sings or howls at a slightly different pitch and is recognized by the others.
• Wolves detect howls from up to 10 km away.
• Alberta wolves breed between late February and early March, with the gestation period being around 60 days.
• Four to seven pups weighing about half a kg each are born in earth dens in late April through early May.
• Pup mortality is high, often around 50%, but it can go up to 80%.
• Because a pack’s kill is sometimes made as far as 30 km away from the den site, adults have to carry meat to the pups.
• They do so by transporting the food in their stomachs and regurgitating it at the den.
• Pups are born blind and deaf, opening their eyes 10 to 15 days after birth.
• After the first two to three weeks of mother’s nursing, the pups become the responsibility of the whole pack. Lesser status adults may act as babysitters.
• At one month old, pups are already fighting for dominance in pup hierarchy, and at two months, they are able to howl.
• This is when the den is usually deserted. By six months of age the pups measure 1.5 to 2 m from snout to tail tip and are almost impossible to distinguish from adults.
• At 22 months, pups have reached sexual maturity.
• Young animals generally leave the family pack as yearlings but may disperse anytime between 9 and 28 months of age.
  
  

Wolf population trends and densities on seven areas in Alberta

Distribution and Status  (Still needed)