Early in the morning, wolves travel through the valley. The leader is the alpha (alpha) wolf, the highest-ranking wolf in the pack, followed by the other members. At the back of the team was the lowest-level ω (Omega) wolf. It kept a distance from the former wolf and did not dare to surpass it, for fear that the alpha wolf would reprimand or bite the low-level guy.
When you think of such a scene, do you think there is something wrong with it?
Who goes in the middle?
This whole picture is wrong. The real scene that took place in Lamar Valley is this:
12 wolves walk through the valley, and the young and middle-aged wolves are at the forefront. Help the alpha wolf couple behind them to save energy; behind the alpha wolf are the “girls”, they walk leisurely, just like shopping; and at the end of the line are the young wolves, who slowly follow In the back, for a while, I sniffed and sniffed, and for a while I was beckoning rabbits and mice. Suddenly, the wolves stopped and looked in one direction as if they had been ordered. The wolves clearly found something potentially dangerous. Because they bumped into the big brother who stopped in a hurry, even the little guys at the back of the team could feel that something was wrong, and there was a tense atmosphere in the air. The member who was in charge of leading the way in front stepped aside at this time, and the alpha wolf couple came to the front of the team without hesitation under everyone’s attention, and led the wolves to move on. The members followed behind, and even the little guys became serious at this moment, no longer free and loose.
This is the real picture I see. There is no quarrel, evasion, or the fact that the minority obeys the majority. There is only the absolute authority and responsibility of the alpha wolf.
People are accustomed to calling the wolf with the highest rank “Alpha Wolf”, and some people pay a lot of money to apply for training courses to learn “the leadership art of wolf”. They go to the wolf den over the weekend to see how the Alpha Wolf leads his pack. This is ridiculous, because even wolves take a lifetime to learn how to lead a pack.
The Wolf’s Responsibility
Studying in a wolf den is not a good option. If you really want to feel the art of wolf management, you should go out into nature and observe real wolves. You’ll see that it’s often not the biggest, strongest, or bravest wolves that lead the pack, but those with distinct personalities. On some special occasions, a member of the wolf pack will become the substitute leader of the wolf pack by virtue of his own strengths. In the local area, sometimes even some young guys lead everyone’s life, and the alpha wolf will not be so The face feels damaged.
In wolves, leadership is never achieved by violence. The wolf is not like a human, who is constantly boasting or defiant for fear of losing his power, which in fact proves that this person has no leadership skills.
Leading a pack of wolves is all about experience. When a special situation occurs, an experienced wolf will make a decision, and the entire wolf pack must accept it unconditionally. For example, when the wolf pack encounters danger, it will be the alpha wolf couple who make the decision, because their life experience is more Rich.
The leaders of the pack are the most stressed, and research has shown that their feces contain residues of glucocorticoids, the hormones that are secreted in excess when the body is under chronic stress. In modern parlance, the greater the responsibility, the greater the pressure and the longer it will last. This will lead to a decline in the body’s immunity, weakened reproductive capacity, and shortened life expectancy. Therefore, even out of self-interest, mature alpha wolves are committed to maintaining harmony within the wolf pack. Clear rules, the establishment of right and wrong standards, the practice of ritual activities, and accurate behavioral norms are all essential within the wolf pack.
She-wolf can hold up half the sky
Another thing that seems to be unexpected about the leadership of the wolf pack is that the female alpha wolf has the right to decide. This does not refer to women’s voting rights, but to the fact that, in principle, major decisions are made jointly by the alpha male couple, but the female alpha wolf has the final say. Even if there are doubts in the wolf pack, including the male alpha wolf, it must be accepted.
Most of the alpha wolf couples stay together for life, and unless one of them dies first, a successor will fill the vacancy. The reason why the successor can be affirmed by the entire wolf pack is often because of its excellent social skills. So, the killings that people see for leadership are usually in wolf dens, and are extremely rare in wild wolves.
Unity is the most important
The wolf pack attaches great importance to internal harmony. The most basic one of the leadership principles of the alpha wolf is to refuse separation and maintain the unity of the family. No matter what era, tyrants are unpopular.
Previously, people did not have the conditions to observe wolves in the wild as they are now. Researchers even once believed that wolves only occasionally formed packs in winter to facilitate hunting of large animals. In order to better study wolves, people put wolves in zoos into wolf dens.
The wolves were brought together in captivity at random, and the result was a fight between them. And the wolves have thus formed a dominance-dominated hierarchy, like the pecking order of chickens. The researchers even settled on the term “alpha wolf” for this, and the term and its meaning were later spread. The term was not corrected until the last 20 years, when the internal relationships of wolves were re-examined.
The change in terminology reflects our renewed understanding of wolves’ social behavior. Today, we already know that the behavior of wolves in captivity in wolf dens is not typical of wolves. Like prisoners in prison, they have to live together no matter what. Therefore, their behavior is different from that of wolves living freely in the wild. They can’t get out of the wolf house, not even hunting. If members of a group can only vent against each other, then the final situation must be the formation of a typical dominance-dominated hierarchy in prisons, ranging from “α” that dominates and oppresses others to those who are beaten in everything. Unlucky egg “ω”.
