An Autistic Girl’s Guide to Wolves
Synopsis: A nature article detailing my visit to a wildlife park, interspersed with facts about Grey Wolves and a discussion on the misinformation around their pack structure.
Article length: 2000 words
Fun fact: This article was written for a university assessment centred around nature writing. It was the first non-fiction piece I had ever written and it has since been improved on for publication here as my writing skills have developed.
My favourite animal has always been the wolf. I could never really explain why, but the obsession with werewolves – and the constant fantasising about transforming into a wolf and running away from all my meaningless teenage problems – probably had something to do with it. That and the fact that they’re dogs you can’t pet. They look so soft, and yet you can't cuddle them. It's torture.
A common sentiment shared by everyone who knows me is that my death will come from trying to cuddle something that under no circumstances should ever be cuddled, under the impression that I think it’s cute. I have no reason to fight this assumption – it’s entirely true, and if it were to happen with any animal, it would one hundred percent happen with a wolf. (Well, it would also occur with dragons, but they, to my endless sadness, don’t exist.)
Despite all this love for the animal, for the first twenty years of my life, I have never seen one in real life. That is, until today; as part of a week-long trip to Southampton with my best friend, we’re going to a wildlife park that has, you guessed it, wolves. Our initial wander around the park is mostly uneventful – we see some cute otters, some lizards and even some boar and bison – but when we approach a large enclosure near the back of the space, we spot a sign showing the main event: the animal I have travelled all this way to see.
Traditionally, grey wolves (Canis lupus) can be found in Canada, Alaska, North America, Europe, and Asia. But if you, like us, don’t live in any of those places, your best bet is a zoo or wildlife park. Adult wolves can stand up to 32 inches tall, though that’s difficult to see when they insist on hanging out as far back in their enclosure as they can get, creeping around the shrubbery like four-legged shadows. In the wild, they’re known as ‘keystone predators’ because they keep the numbers of herd animals in check by killing off the weak. The only numbers these captive wolves are controlling, however, are the guests entering the park, as this is by far the most popular enclosure. A multicoloured sea of figures gathers around the wooden fence separating them from the metal wire of the enclosure walls, and upon realising just how many there are, my heart kicks into a higher gear. Large crowds have always made me uneasy (blame the autism), but the pure excitement I feel over just the possibility of seeing wolves takes the anxiety and shoves it to the back of my mind. I feel my friend's gaze on me and meet his concerned expression with a smile.
“Are you gonna be okay with this?” he asks.
“Yeah! Honestly, I’m more concerned about whether we’ll actually see wolves than the number of people.”
“I guess we’ll get an answer soon.”
We inch towards the enclosure, trying our best to weave through the crowd. I spot children hanging over the fence, yelling to their parents that they can’t see anything. When we find a comfortable spot close to the front, I squint, searching, but see nothing. The environment has clearly been designed to handle these animals, with dense bushes and trees to simulate a forest and a small pond in the middle for drinking or bathing, but the sheer density of the flora makes it difficult to spot any movement.
Despite the common phrase “lone wolf” being used to describe people who prefer to be alone, wolves by their nature are social creatures with cooperative personalities. They live in groups known as ‘packs’, usually with about 12-15 animals in each, led by an ‘Alpha Male’ and ‘Alpha Female’ (commonly known as the ‘alpha pair’), with a Beta (or second in command), Subordinates (the remaining adults) and the Omega (the lowest in the hierarchy and group punching bag) below them.
At least, that’s what most people believe to be the case.
In truth, wolf packs operate like any other family of animals, with a mating male and female and their litter of pups. In a 2008 essay on the use of the term ‘Alpha Wolf’, L. David Mech writes: “Rather than viewing a wolf pack as a group of animals organised with a “top dog” that fought its way to the top, or a male-female pair of such aggressive wolves, science has come to understand that most wolf packs are merely family groups formed exactly the same way as human families are formed. That is, maturing male and female wolves from different packs disperse, travel around until they find each other and an area vacant of other wolves but with adequate prey, court, mate and produce their own litter of pups.”
The confusion over the structure of wolf packs appears to have come from the study of captive wolves, detailed in books such as L. David Mech’s ‘The Wolf: Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species’. In this report, Mech not only focuses on his own studies of captive wolves but also draws on the work of another researcher, Rudolf Schenkel, who studied wolves in the Basel Zoo in Switzerland that were not genetically related and wrote about the changing social structure. Both men were/are prolific wolf researchers, so their word was taken as gospel and the myth about the social structure of wolf packs has been perpetuated ever since. In the words of Barbara Zimmermann, a professor at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences who studies wolves: “David Mech, the world's most profiled wolf researcher, used the terminology alpha animals in his early research. But by the time he realized that this was a mistake, the term had already taken root in the literature. He is now struggling to get this changed.”
Since we can’t see any wolves wandering this enclosure right now, I decide to look at the nearby sign. Under some general wolf facts, it mentions that the park houses two male wolves named Rocky and Chaser, as well as three females called Aspen, Cedar and Idaho; it also notes that all of them are from the same litter and were born in 2010 at Colchester Zoo. Before I can keep reading, a ripple of noise runs through the crowd. The children around us squeal that they can see something, and I crane my neck to find what they’re talking about. I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to my friend, who points to a gap in the bushes to the right.
“There’s one over there, see?”
I lean forward, trying to follow his finger and peer through the greenery. Then, I spot it. The bushes rustle as a black figure trots behind them. I catch a glimpse of a pair of ears peeking over the bush before they disappear again, morphing back into the shadows. Then, to the left, another figure moves, with lighter grey fur than the other one. The excitement of the crowd is palpable.
“Excuse me, coming through!” A voice can be heard over the murmuring of the public, and when I look to find the source, I see a young woman and two girls making their way towards the fence. The young woman wears a green t-shirt with the park logo on the chest, as well as a microphone that reaches across her cheek. The two girls carry a metal bucket each, and as they pass me, the stench of raw meat follows. The trio pass by and climbs over the wooden fence before placing the buckets down on the grass.
“Looks like it’s feeding time,” my friend mumbles.
The wolves are moving faster now – left, right, left, right – back and forth across the enclosure, though keeping their distance from the still-growing group of people in front of them. They can smell the meat and are getting impatient. The keeper begins to instruct the girls, who I realise must be taking part in some kind of paid experience, on how best to throw the food over the metal fence, and once they have the hang of it, she turns to the crowd and starts to talk. She gives information on the wolves: their names, some fun facts, their backstory, and all the usual zookeeper stuff. I'm only half listening, with my attention fixed on the creatures that are now, finally, coming closer. Their need for food is overpowering their fear of people. I can see them. The excitement is too much; I can’t stop myself from bouncing up and down to let out the overwhelming happy energy. My backpack bounces up and down with me, rattling its contents, but I don’t care. There are real-life wolves right there! I hear my friend chuckle beside me.
The first wolf I see is the large black one I spotted earlier. It appears to be the biggest, and I hear the keeper explain that this is one of the males. He's bulkier than the others who creep out of the foliage after him; these look more dog-like in size, like huskies without the mass of fur. They’re also a lighter colour than him, with splashes of white on their bellies and silver-grey fur on top – they’re the spitting image of what a regular person would think of when you say ‘wolf’. As I spot a skinny little one dart forward and snatch some of the meat, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for the creatures. The sign said that these wolves were born in 2010, meaning they have lived in captivity for over ten years. Enclosures like this are all they have known, and as captive wolves live for about 15 years (longer than the typical 8-13 years of a wild wolf) this is all they will ever know. But they seem to have everything they could need – food, company, shelter, etc – and from the brief glimpse I’m getting now, they seem content.
As the small wolf scurries away with her share, I watch the others lay down to rip apart the chunks of meat they selected. Two fight over a larger portion, and after a brief altercation full of low growls, the larger one wins and runs away with his new feast. Wolves are some of the most expressive animals in the animal kingdom; the only group that compares to them is primates. They have an intricate language of howls, barks, yips, growls, snorts, whines and grunts, each with its own meaning, and wolves from different parts of the world even have different dialects. This language, as well as a deep emotional bond with their family members, helps to keep the pack in order and continue the survival of the species.
The keeper ends her talk by thanking everyone for coming and directing the crowd to move on so the wolves can settle. I watch parents struggle to drag their children away from the fence and haul them to the next group of animals, then decide to stay a little longer. A huge, dumb grin sits on my face as I lean on the fence and watch in silence; I hear the creak of the wood as my friend settles next to me. We stay there for a long moment, sharing the newfound quiet and watching these great creatures tear into their meals. When we’re ready to move on, I keep my eyes trained on the animals as we walk. I only look away once I physically can’t see them anymore and make a mental note to check for wolf plushies in the gift shop.