Chased from the world I once shared with man
Now I must seek asylum wherever I can
Blamed for so many things I've never done
They point and say "there, he's the one".
Once like the buffalo my numbers were great
But now for some company I constantly wait
My sleep is filled with dreams of days gone by
and each morning I awake with a tear in my eye.
They call me a predator, they don't understand
I'm simply a hunter with no gun in hand
I desire no trophy to hang on my wall
But just a full belly when night starts to fall.
Envious of my dog cousins and his master's love
And howling with loneliness to the Heaven's above
Though I long for a touch or a pat on the head
By nature's decision I'll have freedom instead.
Married for life to such a beautiful mate
Until last winter when a bullet decided her fate
The pups are all grown and gone from the den
And I'm too old and tired to start over again.
Now I'm truly a loner the legend is true
But forever searching for a friend like you
It's so hard to express but I'll try if I can
In your own words "hey I love you man".
As your world grows and buildings get taller
My little hiding place keeps getting smaller
If you don't come to your senses sometime soon
Then who will be left to howl at the moon?
Ask anyone about wolf vocalizations
and the howl invariably springs to mind.
Even though wolves bark, woof, whine,
whimper, yelp, growl, snarl and moan
a lot more often than they howl,
it is howling that defines the wolf,
and fascinates us.
So why do wolves howl?
The center of a wolf's universe is its pack,
and howling is the glue that keeps
the pack together.
Some have speculated that howling
strengthens the social bonds between packmates;
the pack that howls together, stays together.
That may be so, but chorus howls can
also end with nasty quarrels between
packmates. Some members, usually the
lowest-ranking,
may actually be "punished" for joining
in the chorus. Whether howling
together actually strengthens social bonds,
or just reaffirms them, is unknown.
We do know, however, that howling keeps
packmates together, physically.
Because wolves range over vast areas to
find food, they are often separated
from one another. Of all their calls,
howling is the only one that works
over great distances. Its low pitch and
long duration
are well suited for transmission in
forest and across tundra, and unique
features
of each individual's howl allow wolves
to identify each other. Howling is a
long distance contact and reunion call;
separate a wolf from its pack,
and very soon it will begin howling,
and howling, and howling...
A "Lonesome" Howl
When a wolf howls, not only can
its packmates
hear it, but so can any other wolf
within range.
These other wolves may be members of
hostile
adjacent packs that are competitors
for territory
and prey. Howl too close to these
strangers,
and they may seek you out, chase you,
and kill you. In northern Minnesota,
where wolves are protected from humans,
the primary cause of death for adult
wolves is being killed by wolves from
other packs. So howling has its costs
(running into the opposition) as well
as its benefits (getting back with
the pack). Consequently, wolves are
careful about
where and when they howl, and to whom
they howl.
For example, a wolf that is separated
from its pack may return to an
abandoned summer rendezvous site and
howl for hours,
even in response to a stranger nearby.
It was accustomed to howling at that
site
and probably feels relatively confident
and secure there. But that same wolf,
away from the old home site, will be
much more reserved, and if a stranger
howls nearby, it may silently and
quickly retreat. Younger wolves, however,
act differently.
Pups, especially those under four months
of age, love to howl and will usually
reply to any howling they hear, even
that of total strangers. This is
understandable,
since pups haven't yet learned how to
identify their older packmates.
A Pup Howl
Indiscriminate howling is usually not
a dangerous proposition for young
pups, since they tend to be stuck at
a rendezvous site that is relatively
far from the neighbors,
who likely have pups of their own to
raise.
More importantly, replying to an adult
that howls often leads to a meal,
since packmates returning with food
frequently howl as they near the home
site.
But as summer gives way to fall,
the benefits of indiscriminate howling
decrease.
Once pups start to travel with the pack,
they begin to enter less secure
surroundings.
Their neighbors are also traveling more.
Distant howls may belong to strangers,
so the risks of howling increase.
Besides, by now they have had ample
time to learn the voices of their own
packmates and are able discriminate
friend from foe. By six months of age,
pups have become as selective as adult
wolves about where, when and to whom
they howl.
There is one member of the pack who
will
tend to howl more boldly: the alpha
male.
The alpha male is the dominant male
of the pack,
and father of the pups. He is most
likely to
howl to, and even approach, a stranger --
often with confrontation on his mind.
One sign of this aggressiveness can be
heard in his voice; his howls become
lower-pitched and coarser in tone
as he
approaches a stranger. Lowering the
pitch
of a vocalization is a nearly universal
sign of increasing aggressiveness in
mammals,
and in wolves it can sound quite
impressive.
A Confrontational Howl
This behavior points to the second
main
purpose of howling: helping to maintain
spacing between rival packs. When
one pack
howls, others nearby may reply. Very
quickly,
all the wolves know each other's
location.
By advertising their presence,
packs can
keep their neighbors at bay and
avoid
accidentally running into them.
But the use of howling in spacing is
fraught with difficulties. If one
pack howls,
all its neighbors (within range,
of course)
now know its location. What if they
choose
to keep quiet, sneak up, and attack
the howlers? Deliberate attacks by
one pack on another
have been seen, so there are costs
to
advertising your location. These
risks have
to be balanced with benefits. An
example of
this trade-off is sometimes seen
during winter,
when packs are traveling nomadically
within
(or even outside) their territories.
A pack
sitting on a fresh prey kill is very
likely
to stake its claim and howl,
particularly
if a stranger howls nearby. As time
passes
and the kill is consumed, the wolves
become
less invested in the site and are less
likely
to reply. Eventually, they may respond
to
a stranger's howling by silently
moving away.
When two packs do meet, their relative
size usually decides the outcome.
Thus small
packs are often quite reluctant to
howl
and draw attention to themselves,
whereas
large packs howl readily. But packs
can
fib to one another about their size.
When animals compete, they often
engage in
behaviors designed to exaggerate
their size.
Wolves stand tall, raise their hackles,
ears and tails, and produce low,
menacing howls, all to convince their
opponent that a retreat from
this "big, bad wolf" is the best
option.
Thus most confrontations involve a
lot of
bluff and very little bloodshed.
Similarly,
packs that are able to exaggerate
their
numbers are more likely to keep
their
neighbors at bay. The structure of
a pack or
chorus howl is well suited to this
kind of deception.
A Chorus Howl
Rather than using howls with a single
pure tone, wolves howling in a chorus
use
wavering or modulated howls. The
rapid
changes in pitch make it difficult
to follow
one individual's howls if several
others are
howling simultaneously. In addition,
as the
sound travels through the environment,
trees,
ridges, rock cliffs and valleys reflect
and
scatter it. As a result, competing
packs hear
a very complex mix of both direct
sound and
echoes. If the howls are modulated
rapidly
enough, two wolves may sound like
four or more. Indeed, during the
Civil War, General
Ulysses S. Grant reported hearing
what he
took to be a pack of "not more than
20 wolves"
while traveling. A short time later
he reached
the pair of wolves that had been
making all
the noise! This phenomenon, called
the Beau
Geste Effect, may introduce enough
uncertainty
to make size estimates not only
unreliable, but potentially lethal,
if a pack underestimates
the size of its rival and approaches.
So wolves howl to find their companions
and
keep their neighbors at bay. Popular
imagination has long held that they also
howl
at the moon, but there is no evidence
that
this is so. Wolves may be more active
on moonlit nights, when they can see
better, or we may
hear them more often on such nights,
because
we feel more comfortable tramping
about in
the light of a full moon, but a wolf
howling
at the moon would be wasting its
breath.
"Dances With Wolves"
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