Episode Thirty-Three: Dr. L. David Mech

It dawned on me as I was watching a family of wolves that, sure, here was this big male wolf, the parent male, the father of the pack. And I was referring to him as the alpha. And I thought, wait a minute, why are they calling him alpha? The way that animal got to be the dominant wolf in the pack is he just made it with another wolf. And they had offspring. And so they were automatically just like human parents. They were dominant to the rest of the pack. But that didn't mean they fought to get to the top or anything. They just made it and produced their own pups. And so that's when I published the paper indicating that, you know, use of the term alpha was pretty outdated and we should change that. And you know that this kind of open, a whole big kind of warms, even in the whole society, forget about the animal kingdom, but really even in social sciences, you know, like that whole idea of dominance and then it became a very, very controversial and everybody trying to kind of fool the rug their way. And as a doc trainer, one of the big problems for us because of that statement that you did. And I know that you tried to retract it so many times. I'm not to retract it, but to explain it. To explain exactly what you mean. 'Cause it really was taken out of context to where it's certain groups of even researchers and doc trainers and people as a group are stupid to do. - And they misunderstood. I didn't say there was no such thing as dominance. - Right. - But this, but a lot of the dog people thought that's what I was saying. (upbeat music) - Hello everybody. Today, very special guest, David Mitch, American Biology Specializing in the study of wolves, which he has done since 1958. It is pretty, pretty impressive. Spend at 25, 26 summers observing wolves on a El smear island. That's a way, way up north. David's a senior research scientist with the biological resources division, US Geological Survey. And a junk professor in the department of fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. You've written, I don't know, numerous articles, at least 10 or 11 books that I know of. And basically, really, I am shaking just just with the idea that I'm talking to you as the most recognized worldwide expert on wolves. So thank you for joining me on my podcast. - You're quite welcome. Glad to be here. - Okay, so I know we will be short on time and I have so many different questions. And hopefully we can touch on everything that I have in mind, but I guess really where I wanted to start with is like, what is anything recent, any recent discovery, is any something new with the wolves that we didn't quite know or understand so far. Well, when I began, it was a long time ago and we knew very little about wolves at that time. We hardly knew, we didn't really know what a wolf pack was. And so the things I've learned in the last 60 years, some of you have known for a long time because we made those findings known. But when I started, we didn't know just what a wolf pack was. It turns out it's a family of wolves basically, but we didn't know that at the time. And so it was that kind of information that we were gathering that began to add to science's knowledge about wolves. One of the first things I found was that wolves have a very hard time catching their prey. And they have a very low success rate. I think at that time, because wolves lived in packs with lots of animals in the group, people just kind of thought they could kill whatever they wanted to, just about whenever they wanted to. But I quickly learned that that's just not the case at all, that their success rate, I started my wolf studies with a population of wolves that were praying on moose and with that study, I learned that at least in winter their success rate was less than 10%. Yeah, so of all the moose they were trying to catch, they caught basically seven percent or so. Interesting. Of those ones that they did catch, those animals tended to be old or weak or in some other way debilitated. Now, I wasn't the first to say to find that. Eight off Mury found that in 1944 when he was studying moose that were chasing doll sheep, he found that they just took the oldest ones and those that had some disabilities. My work was a second on that, but I was able, as I said, to gain actual quantification of what percentage successful they were. Interesting. And a few years later, when we started putting radios on wolves, we started understanding then what a wolf pack was that it was a family of wolves. Right, right. And how did that change everything? I mean, like we all know in a nutshell, the story of the term alpha wolf and how in the '47, whatever the rodot shankyoy, and how they did, how he was just put bunch of wolves together and they of course had to fight for some status and being social species. It's normal just as with us to basically find out who is who in that kind of environment, that's very natural correct. But eventually, you and almost everybody had to kind of recharge from this alpha wolf term. And it's a little bit, it's interesting to me, but I will let you give your thoughts on this first. And then I will share some questions and ideas that I have. Yes, okay. Well, as you mentioned, the early behaviorist didn't understand what a wolf pack was. So when they wanted to study a wolf pack, they put a lot of unrelated wolves together and called it a pack. And of course, like if you do that with most animals unrelated and put them all together, you know, like we know about the pack order in chickens. So that's what they do. They make a dominance hierarchy and Shankle saw the wolves do that. And he called the top male wolf, the alpha male, the top female wolf, the alpha female. And so when I summarized the information available for my 1970 book, that's all we knew at the time. And so, you know, I just labeled those wolves like he did that the top ranking one was the alpha male and then the alpha female. And for so long, we continued, even after we realized that the wolf pack was a family, We continue to use those terms. And it wasn't until many years later, in the late 1990s, 1990s, that it dawned on me as I was watching a family of wolves that, sure, here was this big male wolf, the parent male, the father of the pack. And I thought, wait a minute, why am I calling him alpha? And I mean, it was in my mind for so long. So it took a lot to suddenly make me realize that, wait a minute, this isn't right. The way that animal got to be the dominant wolf in the pack is he just made it with another wolf and they had offspring. And so that's when I published the paper indicating that, you know, use to the term alpha was pretty outdated and we should change that. Yes, yes, very, very interesting. And you know that this kind of open a whole big kind of warms in even in the whole society, forget about the animal kingdom, but really even in social sciences, you know, like that whole idea of dominance and then it became a very, very controversial and everybody trying to kind of pull the rug their way and and sure everybody has a valid point in it. In as a doctrine or one of the big problems for us is that because of that statement that you did and I know that you try to retract it so many times like I've because I follow you and you try not to retract it but to explain it. Explain it. Explain exactly what you mean because it really was taken out of context to where you know, certain certain groups of even researchers and and doctors and people as a group to be misunderstood. Right. But a lot of the dog people thought that's what I was saying. Yes, because it kind of fits a certain narrative of a specific way of doctrine. But at the same time that it's not of course for once when you do good science, you you cannot just twist it because of a narrative that you're following. And but it's also dangerous and dominance we know from from everywhere that it's not a bad thing by means there is no horrible things that are happening daily. But at the same time, dominance is something that it's a it's a constant. Every day, every hour mom has to tell the puppy you're still the puppy. Ealing is trying to go to his dad and that that has to look at him tall and say, hey, you are still not not yet, not yet. And so dominance is a it's a must have because it keeps harmony. Everything is in peace because everybody knows they're placing the family. Yes. All I said is the term alpha was not the right term. That's all. I didn't say dominance wasn't the case. Yeah. And so I've been like since since that time I've been thinking about the alpha and I guess wouldn't be correct or incorrect to say we have the parents. We can call them the parents or the you know like the family the whatever and not not the parents right. And but we also could correctly say that this is just my take on it that the father is the alpha in the family. He didn't have to fight for that status but he is the most dominant in the family. Yes. Well, he and she because with Walt you know. Absolutely. Yeah. There's still a question as to I mean a lot of the workers in Yellowstone think the the female is maybe more of the leader than the male I disagree with that but but that's science. You know. Yes. Yes. Alpha implies more than dominance. And that's that that's what I was trying to get to make the distinction between. So it's certainly proper to call the parent both the the the breeding male or the father to call it the dominant male. And our leader at the same time. Right. Sorry. And we also can call it the leader of the family or the leader. Yes. So the leader of the group as long as you understand that the female may be the leader as well. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. The parents are the leaders of the group. They dominate the offspring. They are dominant to the offspring. My only concern was calling them alpha which implies that they fought to get to that position. There's nothing wrong with calling them dominant. Right. And but there are around there in and I'm looking from from docs. And from the little exposure to wolves that I've had in I grew up back in Eastern Europe. So there were a little bit different. And I was looking at wolves from the different side. I was with the with the shepherds and the big sheep dogs and and it still is a problem. But back then in in early 60s, 70s. This was a bigger problem with the with the wolves. But to my point, when we have within the family, there will be there will be testing. Even though we know who is who in the family, there still will be constant checkings. And and a little bit, you know, pushing the envelope to try to fight for a higher status in the family. Eventually, as they grow up, they have to choice as one is to to be to accept it as being subordinate. Or the other one would be to move out and find find the mate and create their own family. Correct. That's what wolves do. Yes. And so would you say is there any type of fighting, any type of aggression when enough of body pasture and constant body language is not enough to to subdue the the wolf that is trying to now assert himself? You understand what I mean? I think I do and I've seen cases of that in in captivity, where an offspring would challenge the parent. And there would be a fight. And then I actually saw the fight. That's in captivity. But in the wild, what happens is, you know, they can't keep fighting that just doesn't make sense in terms of. So what happens is one of them runs off. You know, and usually it's the offspring. I have seen a case where. And I don't know the details because I wasn't watching this, but I had the wolves radio collared. So I do what happened, but where I had the breeding female for several years and one of her daughter offspring became started breeding. Okay. It's complicated. In this pack, I had both the father and the mother radio collared and one of the daughters. And I had another male radio collared somewhere else. And the. One day. the mother wolf disappeared. We know she left, she didn't die because we had the we had her collared so we know she left the pack and the This was 50 years ago. No, I'm not my easy one that you can. I know the, the, the, a new male, I think, either killed the father or the father left and the new male that I had called her elsewhere moved in and bred with the female. Okay? All right. So now that animal was a stepfather. Well then that mother wolf left and the daughter bred with the stepfather. Okay? Yeah. So maybe in that case, maybe the daughter of female might have challenged her mother. I can't, I don't know that. Sure, sure. She has no mother left and I know the daughter became the breeder in that pack. Basically, the idea is that they don't stay in fight. They may not get along, but they, you know, and this is actually, you know, not to have different in a human family. Often breeding a young teenager doesn't get along with his folks and they leave and become, they go off on their own, that kind of thing. Correct. You said that is what happens with wolves, yes. And so they, I mean, yeah, like as you said, there is a huge difference between having enough space to choose to remove yourself. This is, we see this even because I also breed, I also breed, I also breed Belgian malin was and I've been doing this for since 1989. So it's like good 40 years or so. And even with the smallest puppies, as soon as they start to walk around and they are in that well-pinned box, all of a sudden, if they don't have enough room, they start to bump at each other a little bit too much to where you start to see the tension and they actually really start to become a little bit aggressive to our each other simply because there is not enough room. And throughout the years, I've kind of learned to really pay attention and there are certain times where you just keep expanding their space and they leave very peaceful is because of the reason that there is space and they can choose to walk away, which is so important. But nevertheless, there must be even with the wolf just like with the dogs, there can be some brief altercations to where it's like, hey, back to your place, you're not here yet. Instead of just a posture, right, that there can be some. Well, with the wolf pups, wolf pups, you know, in the wild, there is constant competition and there are times when one pup might seem to be dominant and then before you know it, a different one is dominant. And of course, they have enough room, like you say. So they don't, while they're in that situation, they don't form a dominant hierarchy. It's just that they keep battling each other. This is probably practice just, you know, to assert themselves, which is with wolves is very good to be aggressive and competitive and they do that. But they are still subordinate to the adults and even subordinate to their older siblings. Like there's usually one year old or two year old wolves with them. Yeah, those older wolves are dominant to those pups themselves. And that is not disputed. In other words, that's kind of forgiven. That hierarchy, you know, it stays pretty much that way. Yes. So, one of the things like almost everywhere that when you, especially at the moment, if somebody goes on YouTube or watches some of the animal channels on TV and we go into watching a wolf show, there is still this thing about that notion still somehow is trying to say that, okay, well, they are very wolves are in a way. They live in this peaceful harmony not because of the hierarchy and because of the dominance, but just because they are somehow have found a better way than we understood before. Which in my opinion, I give it a fallacy, it's like just this fairy tale of they cannot be like really every social animal on our planet. The only way there is harmonies when there is a very stable understanding of who belongs where within that social society. Otherwise it becomes very problematic. The other one is the how to wolves compare to dogs. There is always, like let me ask you in a different way. I know you are a de-expert of wolves, but you have had some interactions with dogs throughout your life for sure. How much, like if you didn't know dogs at all, but you see a few dogs interacting with each other. How much do you see and how much can you tell about the dogs from your experience with the wolves? Well, that is a problem actually more than you would think because with dogs, okay, let's start back with wolves. With wolves, the interactions that most biologists who study wolves see are the interactions within the pack itself. They are related. That hierarchy, as you said, that is established. That is one thing. When you see dogs interacting, the usual thing that I see is someone with a dog on the leash walking down the street and then somebody else with a different dog comes down. If that were wolves, they would be fighting. That doesn't happen with wolves. What happens when one sees the other unless they are in the position to mate, you know, if they are looking for a mate, but other than that, if one pack of wolves see comes upon another pack, well, there is a fight or one pack chases the other usually. So that is where it differs in the dogs. They don't just automatically try to kill each other. Sometimes they do fight. I have seen that of course. I guess that is going too much about the long. Not so much about the, but this is interesting, very, very interesting and important part. But I was thinking more of like the way dogs just how they communicate with each other. Not necessarily when they, you know, they do put their head on top of the other one. They do like in my opinion, there is abundance of similarities of how they interact in between each other using the same body language for the same reasons. Yes. Yes. On an individual basis, the problem comes in the context for the whole thing because the context is different when dogs meet up with each other. But they do go through the similar ways of sniffing each other and body language and all that is similar to what it is with wolves. It's just that because of this difference that I just described, interpreting what's going on is not necessary, is very difficult, would be very difficult for me, for example, thinking about wolves to interpret what's going on with the dogs. I would not know how to interpret that. is because of this. different, you see? Yeah, yeah. In other words, they're saying they're using the same language, but they might be probably are saying different things. Yes, this will be when I guess once dogs are, I mean, they're clearly in a very different position. They don't have space, they are put in a family and depending at what age that also is going to matter, how they will accept and how they also depending on what the rules in the house are. If it's more chaotic, just like with kids, there's going to be guaranteed some not so good outcomes eventually. I guess I spent like I grew up in Bulgaria and way back before in the communist times. And I used to spend a lot of times with the stray dogs. And they also lived very much in the same very much the same concept really to where it's like there is the family here. And these are the few blocks that are there blocks and all of a sudden a loner tries to come in. And this is a very bad idea for that dog. It doesn't matter how big that when you get outnumbered and it really matters to you because this is your home. And then we have problems. And so I was I guess talking more about these situations where you know more of a three-rowing kind of stray dogs or whatever we want to call them and wolves. And also if we have the male and a female with their puppies, which I have often, I find that you know it's just beautiful to watch how they are born and they're learning and it's almost it's almost a big question in my head. Do they really learn it from experience or how much genetically this comes to where they come ready to be subordinate to begin with at birth. And then as they're growing up they start to grow up also mentally and sexually mature and then they start to be like okay I I I am growing now. But as as a really young ones we never see a puppy dog to try to be aggressively biting mom so she can throw up food. I'm sure that's clearly a different program genetically mechanism to stimulate her in a very different way instead of stopping their food and demanding with aggression to get food. So they're already at birth programmed to be subordinate for for quite a bit of time. And it's almost the same with every every social creature. But there are times when two puppies can get into a little scruffle and it's not necessarily even that one now has the upper hand and that's lasting. It's just a moment of in time but there is this little yes for all the time and in their gaming a lot of experience from that when when like would the wolves before they so like let's say two parks two families. I I'm almost always confused what to call and family sparks parents like it just becoming very difficult but let's say two two families and the one out numbers the other and maybe the other couple are a little bit older so so they're really going to lose. Has there been a time when they would get in this like the the stronger family tries to push them away from so they can gain territory but has it doesn't happen often to wear the female from the one family gets to stay with the new family. You know what I'm saying. Yes I do. That's pretty rare. Yes. I mean ordinarily that wouldn't happen. If the pack is broken up because summer killed then that could happen but it wouldn't happen like when they meet. Right. It's a battle. Yes. It's a chase. Yeah. We have a paper on these battles. I don't know if you know that paper. Yes. I do. No. No. I've read that one and you got I mean they're interesting parties that then the the little the younger ones later on they may end up joining or one of them may join but certainly it doesn't happen during that confrontation of time. Right. Right. Yeah. So how much do you know about the like you know how they keep talking about this super box in Russia, in Siberia. Does that happen in the states or in Canada or anywhere else in the world and what is your thoughts on this because we're talking like 400. Yeah. I don't believe it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't believe it. I don't know how they would be. We don't have that. I mean, you know, when you see a lot of wolves together, it looks like more than there are. But the biggest pack I have ever seen and that I know of really is 37. I do know that from Yellowstone Park. I've seen that and there is another record of a 42 and I know how that happens. But beyond that, no, I just don't believe I believe that some journalist exaggeration or some rumor, not good evidence. That was I guess I'm going to have to go back and watch those videos again because there is quite a few videos and they show a lot of I mean, like a huge number of them. But who knows today you never know what you see on video. Oh, that is for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was this one. So, so, okay, that's very interesting because again, this kind of gaming some popularity and it's all over well, not not at the moment, but I think it was 2015 or 14 something back then and they were I think a bunch of kids got killed by the wolves in somewhere in Siberia and they were going to hunt them down and and then there is this other kind of legend, like probably also very questionable where the at the World War one, the Germans and the Russians stop fighting because they've been being attacked constantly and eaten by outnumbered basically by wolves. So, the story goes that they teamed up stop fighting. So, they can resolve that problem with the wolves and then continue to fight. But again, that's a yeah, there is no real grounds on that I guess. Right. Right. It really wouldn't make much sense to like it's an interesting idea because super packed but but to be able to communicate this is probably where humans we we can we can converse and we can instruct each other and we can we can make that big of a society and I mean that's why we have the village and the the tribalism I guess in humans and countries and so on. But wolves would be very hard to come to that kind of agreement on that big of a scale. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I don't know, I don't pretend to know a lot about humans, but what I think I do know is that those societies really didn't start until we had agriculture where there was some domestication and they were able to, you know, to grow enough food for a lot of people. When you're out hunting all the time, you know, then you're competing with other other groups or tribes or families or whatever. And you can't get too big because you are always competing. But if you grow your own crops or even your own herds of your own domestic animals, you can build your numbers too, you know. So, yeah. Another few more minutes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yellowstone. Yellowstone. So, how would they respond? Did they were they really oblivious or worse the genetics there and they knew that wolves are, you know, instinctually. You mean because they're, you mean because they're and wolves there for so long. Oh, they were being preyed on by coyotes, which are small wolves. They were being preyed on by coyotes and bears and cougars all the time, even if wolves weren't there. So they understood predators and wolf was just one more, you know. Okay. Now with the, how do you think the wolves, if humans were not so like like there, of course, there is like, especially now it's quite divided. There is people that all the little of them and there is people that still very, very, very, I'm about them. But if we were a little bit more as a whole moderate, do you think that wolves will end up coming closer and being more of a scavenger kind of like how the dogs find the easy way and eventually. Or they do that already when people are yes and it becomes problems for some villages and things will tend to do that. There's one wolf right now that's making news for us that I think it's in, oh, China, China. There's a wolf that's getting fed along the highway and it's in the news a lot and the people are, people like it because they can feed it. But then the authorities are saying, no, you shouldn't do this and so that happens. And it happens other places. It happens in Minnesota and but usually what happens is you know the wolf gets hit by a car or something somebody shoots them or something. So it doesn't last very long, you know, but if people were took more care, yes, they would get they would tend to get some of them would tend to get tamer and hang around people. Okay, the last one, what do you think of like how different because like we have so many different types of wolves are all over the globe. Do they breathing between yes, yes, there's only science only recognizes the gray wolf, canis, lupus, which is circumpolar. So that's all over Europe and Asia and North America they can interbreed. Some are small like the little ones in Israel. They may be only, there might be 15 kilograms, but way up in central Canada, some of those that would be 50 kilograms. Yeah, and but but they all can interbreed. Yes, now there are some animals that are called wolves that are not with the common name that are not wolves, main wolf in in South America, the main wolf. It's not a wolf. It's in the dog family, but it's not in the genus of wolves. And even the Ethiopian wolf is not really a wolf. There's also one in North America called the red wolf and science says that's a little different. So we recognize it as canis roofus rather than canis lupus. But other than that, there's subspecies of wolves, subspecies, but they all interbreed and people just science disagrees on which are the subspecies in North America. Until 1993, science recognized 24 subspecies in North America originally. Now in 1993, they lumped them all into five. So that gives you an idea that's very with subspecies is very subjective. Yeah, did you ever have this desire to help some of them? It helped meaning I mean, I'm sure you with this vast time that you have spent you you have seen at all you have seen them fighting with bears and protecting food and food being taken from them and getting injured. And now like have you ever had this desire to see a wolf that you you know when you see it that they need help, but would you help would you let nature take care of its course with my job. I have to just let nature help take its take its course. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I have had situations where one of my radio collared wolves was caught in somebody's illegal trap and I took it out of the trap and put it in a pen and fed it and turned it loose again. But it was a radio wolf I was studying I've done that but otherwise if I just found a wolf you know it would not be my position to try to save it somehow. Right right right. Well, they've really appreciate are you going to do anything with this at all. What do you mean with the podcast are you going to have a program with this at all or anything. Yes, yes, yes, we will. When we are done what we'll do is we can when we edit it and then we can send it to you or. Oh, okay, yeah, that would be good. And you know if you have questions during that process feel free to email me. Yeah, no, I will always try to answer you. Thank you so much. We worked so much grounded. I mean the most important one is dominance. It's ridiculous to try to pretend that it's kind of like saying that the artist flat at this point. Yeah, right. You know, please and then the super park that was very important for me. Right. Some very very interesting ones. So thank you so much and. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] [Music]