How Do Wolves Survive a Failed Hunt?
If you’re interested in wolves at all, you probably know that only a small percent of all wolf hunts result in a kill. According to the latest research, between three and 14 percent of hunts are successful. This might sound abysmally low, but most other predators, including big cats, don’t fare much better. If this weren’t a manageable kill rate, however, we wouldn’t have wolves today. So what do they do when there aren’t enough big animals around?
Hunting Small Mammals Instead
In the middle of the last century, a biologist named Farley Mowat wrote a book called Never Cry Wolf. In it, he describes the months he spent in Northern Canada documenting the behavior of a pack of wild wolves. While he does his utmost to follow the animals everywhere they go, he finds them far too adept at traveling long distances. Instead, he tracks them as far as his feeble human legs can take him, encountering them only after they’ve begun hunting.
In one encounter, Mowat finds the pack chasing mice and other rodents through the snow. This is the first time a western scientist has recorded this behavior, and he is justifiably excited. For weeks, he hasn’t seen a single caribou, yet the wolves have somehow managed to prosper. For weeks, he has wondered how this is possible, and now he has his answer.
Hungry wolves are opportunist predators and they do take mice, voles, rats, and many other small rodent species when times are tough. Today, however, scientists are certain that Farley Mowat must have missed at least one major kill that must have happened during one of those times he couldn’t catch up with the pack. Meager rodents are unlikely to feed a whole pack, pups included, for long.
Scavenging Vegetable Matter
When rodents, hares, and other easy prey are scarce, wolves opt for easier food items. Wild canids are known to eat blueberries, blackberries, pumpkins, grass, and even alfalfa. Though vegetable matter provides little protein, it can supplement carnivores’ diets, giving them an energy and immune system boost. If you struggle to even imagine what this might look like, a recent video shows us for the first time how pack members take advantage of a blueberry season in Minnesota:
Stocking Up
Just like other large mammals, wolves can increase their fat stores during times of abundance. For most North American subspecies, the best times to make a kill are during winter in deep snow. This is because canine pads are much better suited than ungulate hooves to running over the topmost layer of snow. If you’ve ever wondered why your dog seems to love snow days so much, it may be because he or she evolved to love them.
In the Northernmost reaches of Canada, the ground remains cold for much of the year. After a series of successful kills, wolves are happy to bury chunks of meat to refrigerate them for later. Though they can gorge on more than 20 pounds of meat at a time, sometimes there’s simply too much food available. They have to be careful when storing food for later, however, as rival packs and scavengers are always looking for easy meals.
The Future For Wolves in America
The remaining wild packs of North America have a lot of challenges ahead of them. Finding food is tough when humans occupy the vast majority of available land. Different states often have very different policies on wolf hunting, and wolves are unlikely to recognize the dangers of crossing manmade borders.
If you’ve been worried about the plight of wild canids, you may feel powerless, but there are positive steps you can take. Perhaps the most meaningful is to write your local representative and tell them to oppose hunting seasons on a dwindling species.
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