에피소드 33: Dr. L. David Mech

But I guess, really, where I wanted to start with is like, what is anything of recent, any recent discoveries, any something new with the wolves that we didn't quite know or understand so far? Well, when I began, you know, it was a long time ago. And we knew very little about wolves at that time. We hardly knew, we didn't really know what a wolf pack was. And so, you know, the things I've learned in the last 60 years, some of you have known for a long time, because we made those findings known. But when I started, we didn't know just what a wolf pack was. It turns out it's a family of wolves, basically. But we didn't know that at the time. And so, it was that kind of information that we were gathering, that began to add to science's knowledge about wolves. Yeah. One of the first things, one of the first things I found was that wolves have a very hard time catching their prey. And they have a very low success rate. I think, at that time, because wolves lived in packs with lots of animals in the group, people just kind of thought they could kill whatever they wanted to. Just about whenever they wanted to. But I quickly learned that that's just not the case at all. That their success rate, I was, I started my wolf studies with a population of wolves that were preying on moose. And with that study, I learned that, at least in winter, their success rate was less than 10%. Really? Yeah. So, of all the moose they were trying to catch, they caught basically 7% or so. Interesting. And of those ones that they did catch, those animals tended to be old or weak or in some other way, debilitated. Now, I wasn't the first to say, to find that. Adolph Murie found that in 1944, when he was studying wolves that were chasing doll sheep. He found that they just took the oldest ones and those that had some disabilities. My work was a second on that. But I was able, as I said, to gain actual quantification of what percentage successful they were. Interesting. And a few years later, when we started putting radios on wolves, we started understanding then what a wolf pack was, that it was a family of wolves. Right, right. And how did that change everything? I mean, like we all know, in a nutshell, the story of, you know, the term alpha wolf and how in the 47, whatever the Rudolf Schenkel and how they did, how he was just put a bunch of wolves together. And they, of course, had to fight for some status and being social species.

And so, you know, it's not just like the fish is, it's normal, just as with us, to basically find out who is who in that kind of environment. That's very natural, correct? But eventually, you and almost everybody had to kind of retract from this alpha wolf term. And I'm, it's a little bit, it's interesting to me, but I will let you give you, give your thoughts on this first, and then I will share some questions and ideas that I have. Yes. Okay. Well, as you mentioned, the early behaviorist didn't understand what a wolf pack was. So they, when they wanted to study a wolf pack, they, they put a lot of unrelated wolves together and called it a pack. And of course, like, we, we know about the pack order in chickens. So that's what they do. They make a dominance hierarchy. And Schenkel saw the wolves do that. And he, as he called the top male wolf, the alpha male, the top female wolf, the alpha female. And so when I summarized the information available for my 1970 book, that's all we knew at the time. And so, you know, I just labeled those wolves like he did that the, the top ranking one was the alpha male and then the alpha female. And for so long, we continued, even after we realized that the wolf pack was a family, we continued to use those terms. And it wasn't until many years later in the late nineties, 1990s. Correct. That it dawned on me as I was watching a family of wolves that sure, here was this big male wolf, the parent male, the father of the pack. And I was referring to him as the alpha. And I thought, wait a minute, why am I calling him alpha? And, you know, I mean, it, it, it was in my mind for so long. So it, it took a lot to suddenly make me realize that, wait a minute, this isn't right. The, the way that animal got to be the dominant wolf in the pack is he just made it with another wolf. And they had offspring. And so they were automatically just like human parents. Right. They were dominant to the rest of the pack. But that didn't mean they fought to get to the top or anything. They just made it and produce their own pups. And so that's when I published the paper indicating that, you know, use of the term alpha was pretty outdated and we should change that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Very, very interesting. And, you know, this kind of open a whole big can of worms in, in, in, even in the whole society, forget about the, the, the animal kingdom, but really even in a, a, a, a social sciences, you know, like that whole idea of dominance. And then it became a, a, a very, very controversial and everybody's trying to kind of pull the rug their way.

And, and, and sure, everybody has a valid point in it. Um, in, as a dog trainer, one of the big problems for us is that because of that statement that you did, and I know that you tried to retract it so many times, like I've, I've, because I follow you and you try not to retract it, but to, to, to explain it. Explain it. Explain exactly what you mean. Yeah. Because it, it, it really was taken out of context to where it, you know, certain, certain groups of, of even researchers and, and dog trainers and people as a group started to think. And they misunderstood. Yeah, that, that basically there is no, I didn't say there was no, I didn't say there was no such thing as dominance. Right. But they, but a lot of the dog people thought that's what I was saying. Yes, because it kind of fits a certain narrative of a, of a specific way of dog training. But at the same time that it's not, of course, for once, when, when you do good science, you, you cannot just twist it because of a narrative that you are following. And, and, but it's also dangerous and dominance, we know from, from everywhere that it's not a, it's not a bad thing by means. There is no horrible things that are happening daily. But at the same time, dominance is something that it's a, it's a constant. Every day, every hour, mom has to tell the puppy, you're still the puppy. Yeah. The yearling is trying to go to his dad and the dad has to look at him tall and say, hey, you are still not, not yet, not yet. And, and so dominance is a, it's a must have because it keeps harmony. Everything is in peace. Yes. Everybody knows their place in the family. Yes. All I, all I said is the term alpha was not the right term. That's all. I didn't say dominance wasn't the case. It's, you know, yeah. And, and so I, I, I've been like, since, since that time, I've been thinking about the, the alpha. And I guess, would it be correct or incorrect to say we have the parents, we can call them the parents or the, you know, like, the, the family, the, the whatever. And not, not the, the parents. Right. And, but we also could correctly say, this is just my take on it, that the father is the alpha in the family. And he didn't have to fight for that status, but he is the most dominant in the family. He is. Well, he and she, because. Right. With Wolt, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and there's still a question as to, I mean, a lot of the workers in Yellowstone think the, the female is maybe more of the leader than, than the male. I disagree with that, but, but that's science, you know. Yes. Yes. Alpha implies more than dominance.

And that's, that's what I was trying to get to make the distinction between. So it's certainly proper to call the parent, both the, the, the breeding male or the father to call it the dominant male. Mm-hmm. And a leader at the same time. Correct? Sorry. And we also can call it the leader of the family or. Well. Yes. So the leader of the group, as long as you understand that the female may be the leader as well. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The, the parents are the leaders of the group and they dominate the offspring. They are dominant to the offspring. My only concern was calling them alpha, which implies that they fought to get to that position. Mm-hmm. There's nothing wrong with calling them dominant. Right. And, but there are, around there in, and I'm looking from, from dogs angle and, and from the little exposure to wolves that I've had in, I grew up back in Eastern Europe. So they were a little bit different. And I, I was looking at wolves from the different side. I was with the, with the shepherds and the big sheep dogs and, and it, it still is a problem, but back then in, in early sixties, seventies, this was a bigger problem with the, with the wolves. Uh, but to my point, when we have, within the family, there will be, there will be testing. Even though we know who is who in the family, there still will be constant check-ins. Um, and, and a little bit, you know, pushing the envelope to try to fight for, for a higher status in the, in the family. Um, eventually as they grow up, they have two choices. One is to, to be, to accept it as being subordinate, or the other one would be to move out and find, find a mate and create their own family. That's what wolves do. Right. That's what wolves do. Yes. And so would you say, is there any type of fighting, any type of aggression when enough of body posture and constant body language is not enough to, to, to subdue the, the wolf that is trying to now assert himself. Do you understand what I mean? I think I do. And I've seen cases of that in, in captivity where, where an offspring, um, would challenge, uh, the parent and there would be a fight. Uh, and then I actually saw the fight. Um, that's in captivity, but in the wild, what happens is, you know, they can't keep fighting. That just doesn't make sense in terms of, but so what happens is one of them runs off, you know, and usually it's the offspring. Um, I have seen a case where, uh, and I don't know the details because I wasn't watching this, but I had the wolves radio collared.

So I knew what happened, but where I had, uh, the, uh, the breeding female for several years and one of her, her daughter offspring became, uh, um, started breeding. Um, okay. Um, it's complicated. The, the, um, in this pack, I had both the, the father and the mother radio collared and one of the daughters. And I had another male radio collared somewhere else. And, um, the, um, the, um, one day the, the, uh, the, uh, mother wolf disappeared. Um, we know she left, she didn't die because we had the, we had her collared. We had her collared so we know she left the pack and the, this was 50 years ago. No, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm amazed even that you can. Oh, I know the, the, the, a new male, uh, um, I think either killed the father or the father left and a new male that I had collared elsewhere, moved in and bred with the female. Okay. All right. So now that animal was a stepfather. Well, then that mother wolf left and the daughter bred with the stepfather. Okay. Yeah. So maybe in that case, maybe the daughter female might have challenged her mother. I can't, I don't know that. Sure, sure. I just know the mother left and I know the, the daughter became, uh, the breeder in that pack. But basically the idea is that they don't stay and fight. They may not get along, but they, you know, and, and this is actually, you know, not that different in a human family. Often, uh, breeding, uh, young teenager, um, doesn't get along with his folks and they leave and become, they go off on their own, that kind of thing. Correct. You said, and that is what happens with wolves. Yes. And so they, I mean, yeah, like, as you said, the, there is a huge difference between having enough space to choose to, to remove yourself. This is like, we see this even because I, I also breed, uh, uh, because I breed Belcher Malinois and I've been doing this for, since 1989. So it's like good 40 years or so. And even with the smallest puppies, as soon as they start to walk around and they are in that, uh, whelping box, all of a sudden, if they don't have enough room, they start to bump at each other a little bit too much to where you, you start to see the tension. Um, and they actually really start to become a little bit aggressive towards each other simply because there is not enough room. And, uh, throughout the years, I've kind of learned to, to really pay attention. And, and there is certain times where you just keep expanding their space and they live very peacefully because of the reason that there is space and they can choose to, to walk away, which is so important.

So, but nevertheless, there, there must be, even with the wolf, just like with the dogs, there can be some brief altercations to where it's like, Hey, back to your place. You, you, you're not here yet. Um, instead of just, just a pasture, right? There can be some. Well, with the, with the wolf pups, both pups, you know, and in the wild, there is kind of, there is kind of, there is kind of, constant competition. And there are times when one pup might seem to be dominant. And then before you know it, a different one is dominant. Um, and of course they have enough room, like you say. So, so they don't, while they're in that situation, they don't form a dominance hierarchy. It's just that they keep battling each other. And this is probably practice just, uh, you know, to, to, um, assert themselves, which is with wolves is very good to be aggressive and competitive. And they do that, but they are still subordinate to the adults and even subordinate to their older siblings. Like there's usually one years old or two year old, uh, wolves with them. Yeah. And those older wolves are dominant to those pups themselves. And that is, that is not disputed. In other words, that's kind of a given those, that hierarchy, you, you know, it stays pretty much that way. Yes. So, so one of the things like almost everywhere that when you, especially at the moment, if, if somebody goes on YouTube or watches some of the annual channels on TV. And, and we go into watching a, a, a wolf show. There is still this thing about, uh, um, that notion still somehow is trying to say that, okay, well, they are very, uh, wolves are. They, uh, in a way they live in this peaceful harmony, not because of the hierarchy and because of the, the, the, the dominance, but just because they are somehow have found a, a, a better way than, than we understood before. Uh, which in my opinion, again, it's a fallacy. Um, um, it, it's like a, just this fairy tale of, they cannot be like really every social animal on our planet. The only way there is harmony is when there is a very stable understanding of who belongs where within that social society. Otherwise it becomes very problematic. Right. Um, and, and, and the other, the other one, Dave, is the, how do wolves compare to dogs? There is always like, like, let me ask you in, in a different way. I know you, you are, uh, the expert of wolves, but you have had some interactions with dogs throughout your life for sure. Yeah. What, how much, like if you didn't know dogs at all, but you see few dogs interacting with each other,

how much do you see and how much can you tell about the dogs from your experience with the wolves? Well, that is a problem actually more than you'd think, because with, with dogs. Okay. Or let's start back with wolves. Um, with, with wolves, the interactions that most biologists who study wolves see are the inter- interactions within the pack itself. And they're related. And that hierarchy, as you said, that's established. So that's one thing. Now, when you see dogs interacting, the, the usual thing that I see is, um, someone with a dog on a leash walking down the street, and then somebody else with a different dog comes down. If that were wolves, they would be fighting. That doesn't happen with wolves. Right. What happens when one sees the other, unless they're in the position to mate, you know, if they're looking for a mate. But other than that, if, if one pack of wolves see comes upon another pack, well, there's a fight. Or one pack chases the other usually. Right. So, so that's where it differs in the dogs. They, they don't just automatically try to kill each other. Sometimes they do fight. I've seen that, of course, you know, in general. I guess it wasn't going too much about the, not so much about the, the, the, but this is a interesting, very, very interesting and important part. But I was thinking more of like the way dogs just, just how they communicate with each other. If not necessarily when the, like, you know, they sniff each other. They do put their head on top of the other one. They do, like in, in my opinion, there is abundance of similarities of how they interact in between each other using the same body language. Yes. For the same reasons. Yes. Yes. Yes. On an individual basis. The problem comes in the context for the whole thing, because the context is different when dogs meet up with each other, but they do go through the similar ways of sniffing each other and body language and all that is similar to what it is with wolves. It's just that because of this difference that I just described, interpreting what's going on is not necessarily, is very difficult, would be very difficult for me, for example, thinking about wolves to interpret what's going on with the dogs. I would not know how to interpret that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because, because of this difference, you see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um. In other words, they're saying, they're using the same language, but they might be, they probably are saying different things. Yes, this will be when, I guess once the dogs are, I mean, they're clearly in a very different position. They don't have space.

They are put in a family and they're depending at what age, that also is going to matter, how they will accept and how they also, depending on what the rules in the house are. Yeah. If it's more chaotic, just like with kids, there's going to be guaranteed some, some not so good outcomes eventually. Um, I, I guess I, I, I, I spent, like I grew up in, in Bulgaria, in way back before in the communist times. And I used to spend a lot of times with the stray dogs. And they also lived very much in the same, very much the same concept really to where it's like there, there is the family here. And these are the few blocks that are their blocks. And all of a sudden, uh, uh, loner tries to come in and, and this is a very bad idea for that dog. It doesn't matter how big that, you know, when you get outnumbered and, and it really matters to you because this is your home. Yes. Then, then we have problems. And so, so I was, I guess, uh, talking more about this, uh, situations where, you know, uh, more of a free reign, free roaming kind of stray dogs or whatever we want to call them and wolves. Um, and also if we have the, the male and a female with their puppies, which I have often. Um, I find that, um, you know, it's just beautiful to watch how they are born and they're learning. And it's almost, it's almost a big question in my head. Do they really learn it from experience or how much genetically this comes to where they come ready to be supported? Not to begin with at birth. And then as they're growing up, they start to, uh, grow up also mentally and sexually mature. And then they start to be like, okay, I, I, I, I am growing now, but as, as a really young ones, we never see a puppy dog to try to be aggressively biting mom. So she can, uh, uh, throw up food. I'm sure that's, uh, clearly a different program, genetically mechanism to stimulate her in a very different way, instead of stomping their foot and demanding with aggression to get food. So they're already at birth program to be subordinate for, for, for a quite a bit of time. Um, and, and it's almost the same with, with every, uh, every social creature. Um, but there are times when two puppies can get into a little scruffle. And it's not necessarily even that one now has the upper hand and that's lasting. It's just a moment of in time, but there is this little, yes.

Um, when, when, um, like what the wolves before they. So like, let, let's say two pucks, two families. I, I am almost always confused what to call them families, pucks, parents, like it's just becoming very difficult, but let's say two, two families. And the one outnumbers the other, and maybe the other couple are a little bit older. Uh, uh, so, so they're clearly going to lose. Has there been a time when they would get in this, like the, the, the stronger family tries to push them away from, so they can get territory. But has it, does it happen often to where the female from the one family gets to stay with the new family? You, you know what I'm saying? Yes, I do. That's pretty rare. Okay. Yes. Um, I mean, ordinarily, uh, that wouldn't happen. Um, if the pack is broken up because some are killed, then that could happen. But, um, it wouldn't happen like when they meet. Right. When they meet is a battle. Yes. A chase. Yeah. And we, we have a paper on, on these battles. I don't know if you know that paper. Yes. I, I think. I can send it to you. No, no, I, I, I've read that one. Okay. I mean, the interesting part is that then the, the little, the younger ones later on, they may end up joining or one of them, but certainly doesn't happen during that confrontation. Right. Right. Yeah. So how much do you know about the, like, you know, how they keep talking about this superpacks in, in Russia, in Siberia. Yeah. Does that happen in, in the States or in Canada or anywhere else in the world? And what, what is your thoughts on this? Cause we're talking like 400. Yeah. I don't, I don't believe it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't believe it. I don't know how that would be. We don't have that. I mean, you know, when you see a lot of wolves together, it looks like more than there are. But the biggest pack I have ever seen. And that I know of really is 37. I do know that from Yellowstone park. I've seen that. And there is another record of a 42. And I know how that happens. But beyond that, no, I just don't believe, I believe that some journalist exaggeration or some rumor, not good evidence. Mm hmm. There was a, I guess I'm going to have to go back and watch those videos again, because there is quite a few videos and they show a lot of, I mean, like a huge number of them. But who knows? Today, you never know what you see on, on video. Oh, that is for sure. You know, like, yeah. And then there was this one.

So, so, okay, that's very interesting because again, this kind of gaining some popularity and it's all over. Well, not, not at the moment, but I think it was 2015 or 14, something back then. And there were, I think, a bunch of kids got killed by the wolves in, in somewhere in Siberia and they were going to hunt them down. And, and then there is this other kind of legend, like probably also very questionable where the, at the World War One, the Germans and the Russians stopped fighting because they've been being attacked constantly and eaten by, outnumbered basically by wolves. So they, the story goes that they teamed up, stopped fighting so they can resolve that problem with the wolves and then continue to fight. But again, that's a, there is no real grounds on that, I guess. Right. Right. Right. Right. It really wouldn't make much sense to like, it's an interesting idea because superpunk, but, but to, to be able to communicate, this is probably where humans, we, we can, we can converse and we can instruct each other. And we can, we can make that big of a, a society and, and I mean, that's why we have the village and the, the tribalism, I guess, in, in humans and countries and so on. But wolves would be very hard to, to come to that kind of agreement on that big of a scale. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I think, and I don't know, I don't pretend to know a lot about humans, but what I think I do know is that those societies really didn't start until, until we had agriculture where there was some domestication and they were able to, you know, to, to, to grow enough food for a lot of people. When you're out hunting all the time, you know, then you're competing with, with other, other groups or tribes or families or whatever. And you can't get too big because you are always competing. But if you grow your own crops or even your own, um, herds of your own domestic animals, you, you can build your numbers too, you know? True. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and another, we have a few more minutes. So I, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Another one of the kind of interesting questions that been lingers in my mind always in, in, uh, um, uh, now the, the word came out, not Yosemite, the, um, Yellowstone. Yeah. So when, when it was 95, I remember it because I, uh, it was so interesting when this was happening. It was all over. It was very easy to, to pay attention to. There was that question and concern about the deer at the time that they have for generations now not been chased and killed by wolves. So how would they respond?

Did they, were they really oblivious or was the genetics there and they knew that, uh, wolves are, uh, you know, uh, instinctually. Oh, oh, you mean, you mean, you mean, because they hadn't been wolves there for so long? Oh, but they were being preyed on by coyotes, which are small wolves. Uh, they were being preyed on by coyotes and bears and cougars all the time, even if wolves weren't there. Um, so they understood predators and wolf was just one more, you know? Okay. Okay. Now with the, with the, how do you think the wolves, if, if humans were not so like, like the, of course there is like, especially now it's quite divided. There is people that totally love them. for some villages and things. The wolves will tend to do that. There's one wolf right now that's making news. Where is it? I think it's in, oh, China. In China, there's a wolf that's getting fed along the highway and it's in the news a lot. And the people are, people like it because they can feed it, but then the authorities are saying, no, you shouldn't do this. And so that happens. And it happens other places. It happens in Minnesota. But usually what happens is the wolf gets hit by a car or something, somebody shoots him or something. So it doesn't last very long. But if people took more care, yes, they would tend to get, some of them would tend to get tamer and hang around people. Yeah. Okay. The last one. What do you think of, like, how different, because, like, we have so many different types of wolves all over the globe. Do they breed in between? Yes. Yes. There's only, science only recognizes the gray wolf, Canis lupus, which is circumpolar. So that's all over Europe and Asia and North America. They can interbreed. Some are small, like the little ones in Israel. They may be only, they might be 15 kilograms. But way up in central Canada, some of those would be 50 kilograms. Yes. Yeah. And, but, but they all can interbreed. Yes. Now, there are some animals that are called wolves that are not, with the common name, that are not wolves. Maned wolf in, in South America, the maned wolf. It's not a wolf. It's in the dog family, but it's not in the genus of wolves. And even the Ethiopian wolf is not really a wolf. There's also one in North America called the red wolf. And science says that's a little different. So we recognize it as Canis rufus rather than Canis lupus.

But other than that, there's subspecies of wolves, subspecies, but they all interbreed and people, science disagrees on which are the subspecies. In North America, originally until 1993, science recognized 24 subspecies in North America originally. Now in 1993, they lumped them all into five. So that gives you an idea. It's very, with subspecies, it's very subjective. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever have this desire to help some of them? Help meaning, I mean, I'm sure you, with this vast time that you have spent, you have seen it all. You have seen them fighting with bears and protecting food and food being taken from them and getting injured. And how, like, have you ever had this desire to see a wolf that you knew and you see it that it needs help? But would you help or would you let nature take care of its course? Well, with my job, I have to just let nature help, take its course. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, I have had situations where one of my radio collared wolves was caught in somebody's illegal trap and I took it out of the trap and put it in a pen and fed it and turned it loose again. But it was a radioed wolf I was studying. I've done that. But otherwise, if I just found a wolf, you know, it would not be my position to try to save it somehow. Right, right, right. Well, Dave, I really appreciate it. Are you going to do anything with this at all? What do you mean with the podcast? Well, are you going to have a program with this at all or anything? Yes, yes, yes. We will. When we are done, what we'll do is we can, when we edit it, then we can send it to you. Oh, okay. Yeah, that would be good. Okay. And, you know, if you have questions during that process, feel free to email me. Yeah. No, I will always try to answer you. Thank you so much. We've got so much ground. I mean, the most important one is dominance. It's ridiculous to try to pretend that. It's kind of like saying that the earth is flat at this point. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, please. And then the super part, that was very important for me. Right, right. Some very, very interesting ones. So thank you so much. And I'll be in touch with the questions. Thank you, Dave. Thank you.

Thank you.