Wolf Eating Habits

Wolves are infamous for their eating habits. They live and hunt in their packs, always working together. The pups depend on their parents, who regurgitate the meat into the pup’s mouths. The alphas lead the hunts, eat first, and exclude whom ever they want from the meal. The pack hunts within the borders of its territory, which is large enough to contain all the food the pack needs (and if the pack grows, they increase their territory). Sometimes the wolves spend as much as eight hours a day (moving at five miles per hour) in search of food, and the majority of their prey escapes them. Regardless of the fact that wolves spend most of their time walking and sleeping instead of savaging large prey animals, they still have gained the reputation of vicious killers.

Wolves hunt as a group and are very good judges of what they can handle – which is a lot! They capture and kill, with nothing more than their teeth, animals that are 10 times their size! Wolves purposefully attack the vulnerable nose and rump of their prey, trying to hang on and injure them so that they slow down and can be brought to the ground (usually, once down, the animals die from shock or blood loss) and feeding can begin. They are carnivores, eating mostly meat, but they will eat other foods too. They eat varying types of game, from elf and moose to earthworms and grasshoppers; they will also eat different types of berries, fish, birds, and mice.

Wolves have amazing stomachs, able to digest almost anything. They eat quickly (so as to avoid their food being stolen or being attacked by other predators) and can consume everything, about 80%-100% of each kill, but the large bones and some hair (the bones they cannot digest are wrapped up in hair in their stomachs and so they do not injure their insides). The wolves are not wasteful at all, and will come back to finish off a meal after hiding it. After they eat they sprawl out on the ground and sleep, regaining the massive amounts of energy lost on the hunt and kill. They can eat every 5-6 hours if the food is available, but are able to go 2 weeks without food if need be.

The most common misconception about wolves is that they are a danger to humans (by hunting people and eating their livestock). This is not true at all though. Wolves do not eat humans and are not a threat to us, they are actually very shy around people and, like any wild animal, will only attack if threatened. They are helpful to the environment because they try to save energy by attacking the weakest member of a group, which allows natural selection to strengthen that species. They also have been observed practicing some kind of herd maintenance, in which they hunt from one herd and then travel to others before returning so as not to decimate a population. In reality, wolves are very helpful and important to the ecology of our environment.

Come back soon for some more awesome info on wolves!

Sources:

http://isleroyalewolf.org/overview/overview/wolves.html

http://www.wolfweb.com/diet.html

 http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2011/08/whole-truth-about-wolfs-eating-habits.html

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/516962.html