Another important responsibility of top ranking animals (both males and females) is maintaining the pack's hunting territory. As a Russian proverb observes, "The wolf is kept fed by his feet." But this does not mean that the animals travel aimlessly across the countryside. Instead, most packs restrict their journeys to the familiar trails and terrain of a large tract of land. Just how large depends on the size of the pack and the density of prey that is available. On northeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, for example, where the black-tailed deer are abundant, a pack of ten wolves was found to occupy an area of only about 60 square kilometres (25 square miles). In Michigan, by contrast, where food is less plentiful, a group of four required 650 square kilometres (250 square miles), and in Alberta, Canada, a pack of eight ranged over more than 1,300 square kilometres (500 square miles). Just as a statistically average person, with its 1.3 mates and 1.6 offspring, is an improbable
fiction, so is a numerically average wolf territory. A territory might be as small as 50 or as large as 1500 square kilometres (20 to 600 square miles)- a thirtyfold variability. What's more, territorial boundaries are dynamic, as the animals expand and contract their range in response to changes is their food supply. This extraordinary capacity to adapt to current conditions is one of the reasons that wolves were formerly so widespread and are now so resilient.
Whatever the size of the territory, that area is the pack's home ground and more-or-less exclusive domain. The resident animals are sometimes tolerant of outsiders and allow them to cross their land (and even to hunt) without harassment. But often intruders will receive a rough reception. Adolph Murie tells of a spring morning in Alaska when he watched a pack of wolves laze around their den. As the younger animals dozed in the pale sunshine, the leading male fidgeted uneasily and then moved to a lookout just above the others. What was upsetting him? "Shortly after noon the four wolves at the den joined [him] and they all bunched up, wagging tails and expressing much friendliness." That was when Murie noticed a sixth wolf,
a small gray animal, about 50 yards from the others. All the [resident] wolves trotted to
the stranger and practically surrounded it, and for a few moments I thought that they
would be friendly toward it for there was just the suggestion of tail wagging by some of
them. But something tipped the scaled the other way for the wolves began to bite at the
stranger. It rolled over on its back, begging quarter. The attack continued, however, so
it scrambled to its feet and with difficulty emerged from the snapping wolves. Twice it
was knocked over it ran down the slope with the five wolves in hot pursuit.
Four of the wolves soon abandoned the chase, but the leading male drove on, giving the intruder no option but flight. Says Murie, "The unfortunate stranger's hip and base of tail were soaked with blood. It was completely discouraged in its attempt to join the group, for it was not seen again." Had it persisted, it might have been killed.
For the most part, wolves avoid this kind of bloodshed by keeping out of foreign territories. Each pack's holdings are throughly posted with No Trespassing signs in the form of "scent posts." These are simply conspicuous objects-stumps, logs, rocks, chunks of ice, and so on-along trails, at crossroads and, especially, near the edges of the territory, which with the wolves mark by urinating on them. This medium of communication may not be very elegant by human standards, but it works. Most of the marking is done by the dominant male and female, who dole out their urine in dribbles every few hundred metres. This explains why it can take so long to wolk th dog! Sometimes a whole line of wolves will wait patiently for a turn to leave their mark on a scent post. Perhaps this another way of demonstrating group solidarity for, as researcher Russ Rothman once observed, "Wolves that pee together stay together."