Thinking Like a Wolf

November 1, 2024
Longtime wolf biologist and former Yellowstone ranger sums up decades of observingCanis lupus. "Wolves, like humans, are thinking beings that are constantly making choices and decisions," writes McIntyre. One set of choices and decisions has to do with where and how to live: entering adulthood, wolves must position themselves in the pecking order, challenging the alpha or meekly accepting a role as beta; alternately, they disperse to find a new pack with better chances for advancement, a risky choice given that some wolves will kill an intruder. McIntyre has witnessed all these behaviors, as well as acts that, even recognizing the dangers of anthropomorphism, would have to be classed as heroic. Of one wolf known as 949--biologists do not name the wolves in order to avoid developing too much nonscientific attachment to them--McIntyre writes, he "had distemper, which is highly infectious. In his final days, he stayed away from the pack, stoically enduring his fate." Another had a broken jaw, likely earned from an elk kick, that must have meant excruciating pain; yet, McIntyre notes, the wolf lived on until dying while protecting his pack, unquestionably noble. Doffing scientific detachment, McIntyre writes with clear admiration of the great qualities and accomplishments of the Yellowstone packs, particularly of numerous elders that have lived several lifetimes beyond the average of three years in the wild. An especially affecting moment comes when he buries blood, taken from the body of an alpha female named 926, at the site where she had played as a pup: "That small amount of blood, her life force, along with moisture and nutrients from the soil, would be carried up through the tree trunk....That meant a little bit of 926 would abide in that tree." Fans of wolves in the wild will learn much from McIntyre's career-spanning account.

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September 2, 2024
The largely successful fifth installment in wolf behaviorist McIntyre’s Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series (after The Alpha Female Wolf) provides a panoramic portrait of packs, highlighting the four “life strategies” the author has observed in wolves. Noting that “dispersers” strike out on their own to form or join new packs, McIntyre describes how after an alpha male’s mate was killed by hunters, he started a new pack with a partner from a rival group, only for females from his previous pack to kill his new mate. “Rebels” attempt to become alphas by usurping pack leaders, McIntyre reveals, discussing how one wolf took her sister’s place as alpha female by bonding with her sister’s mate and then dominating her sister “when she was still recovering from giving birth.” Elsewhere, McIntyre discusses how “maverick” wolves drift between groups “without much interest in climbing the pack’s social hierarchy,” and how “biders” “accept a subordinate status in life... until an alpha position opens up.” The startling power plays are worthy of Game of Thrones, but the narrative falters the more McIntyre inserts himself into it, largely to recount his wolf-spotting expeditions (“On December 23, I set a personal record. I saw three wolf packs in the Tower Junction area, about six miles west of Slough Creek”). Though not without slow spots, this has enough Shakespearean drama to keep readers turning pages.