Order Of The Wolves

Wolf Families

Wolf Families

Wolves are very social animals. They live and hunt together in groups called packs. A wolf pack is really just another name for a family of wolves. A pack is usually made up of an adult male and female wolf and their offspring of various ages. Pack sizes range from three to twenty wolves.

A wolf pack has a definite social structure and rules of conduct. The pack leaders are the alpha male and female. These two animals are dominant over all the other wolves in the pack. The alpha male and female are the only wolves that breed and produce pups in the pack, and they also get to eat first at kills.

Wolf pups are born in the spring after a gestation period of around 63 days. A female can have anywhere between one and nine pups, but the average litter size is four pups. The pups are born with their eyes closed and are totally helpless. Pups weigh about one pound at birth. The female stays in the den nursing and caring for her pups while the other pack members hunt and bring back food for her to eat.

Wolf pups grow very quickly. By the time their eyes open, 15 days after birth, they weigh four pounds. At three weeks they begin to play inside the den. Two weeks later they weigh 13 pounds and have begun wandering outside the den under the watchful eye of their mom. This is when their mother starts to wean them from milk. She and the other adult pack members start the pups on solid food by regurgitating semi-digested meat directly into their mouths or by depositing this food on the ground in front of the pups. When the pups get big enough the adults bring pieces of meat from their kills for the pups to eat. Between the ages of two and three months the pups leave their den permanently. Soon after this they begin traveling and hunting with the pack.

The social structure of the wolf pack changes from year to year. Wolves in the pack move up and down in the "pecking order" or hierarchy. A wolf lower down in the pecking order may challenge an alpha wolf for pack leadership. If the alpha wolf loses this challenge, it will likely go off on its own, find another mate, and start a new pack. Wolves very low in the pecking order (that are constantly picked on by the other pack members) may also leave the pack. They become lone wolves until they either form their own pack or on rare occasions join an existing wolf pack. 

A pack is an extended family group comprised of a the breeding, or “alpha” male and female pair and some of their  subordinate offspring and current pups from one or more years. The alpha wolves decide when the pack will travel and hunt, and normally are the first to eat at a kill. The pair’s offspring normally disperse into adjacent or available territories at 2 to 3 years of age. For packs studied in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, the averagedispersal distance and subsequent new pack formation is about 65 miles. For highly cursorial and very mobile wolves, this is “next-door.” Recent satellite-collar tracking data, however has shown that some offspring and individual wolves have dispersed more than a thousand miles in three or four months!

Almost always, only the male and female alphas of the pack will mate. Wolf packs typically have one litter of pups per year.  Mating typically occurs between January and March.

Wolves begin breeding between 2 and 3 years of age and are believed to mate for life. Once sexually mature, most wolves leave their birth pack to search for a new territory or to join an existing pack. Dispersing wolves roam 40 to 70 miles on average, and sometimes more than 100 miles, depending on gender, available habitat, and presence of other packs.

Wolf pups are born blind and deaf in an underground den after a 63-day gestation period. Litter size averages 4 to 6 pups. During the first 3 weeks, pups nurse every 4 to 6 hours and need help regulating their body temperatures. The mother usually stays with her young in the den, eating food brought to her by other members of the pack.

Wolf pups are weaned at about 8 weeks of age once they have begun eating semi-solid food, regurgitated by the mother or others members of the pack. As pups begin eating more solids, they are moved to one or more “rendezvous sites,” where they spend the remainder of the summer learning proper pack behavior and etiquette. At 6 to 8 months, the pups begin to travel with the pack and join in hunts. Fewer than half of wolf pups born in the wild survive to adulthood. Survival rates are affected by disease, malnutrition and predation.

Few wolves live more than 5 years in the wild, but with ideal conditions can reach 15 years of age. Wolf populations are naturally regulated by prey density and territorial disputes among wolves. In many areas, numbers are mainly limited by human-related factors, including illegal killing, control efforts to address livestock depredation and car accidents. As wolves return to Washington and expand their range in Idaho, it is expected that pack sizes will be similar to those found in the Northern Rockies, which average 5 to 10 animals. In areas with abundant prey, packs can have 20 or more members