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1. Confident and courageous
For a wolf leader, confidence in the ability to succeed and courage in making decisions are considered the deciding factors for whether he is a wolf leader or a wolf member.
The leader must be able to give orders, when to act and when to lie still and wait for the “golden opportunity”. To lead a brave army, he must carry the responsibility of assessing the hunt as either a success – or a failure, a mission of survival.
Because their prey mostly possess the ability to run faster and be smarter thanks to adapting to living conditions (such as elk, rabbits, bison, mice…), therefore, the deciding factor of success or failure depends on the leader’s ability to assess the situation.
2. Resilient and powerful
To survive in the cold snowy mountains, wolves are forced to adapt to survive and become brave hunters.
Nature and harsh living conditions have trained wolves to become the most courageous and resilient hunters in the wild. On average, in each hunt, wolves can chase their prey continuously for 3 hours, at a speed of 65km/h.
For this wild animal, discovering prey and targeting them as a meal for the whole pack often means that the prey’s fate has been decided.
Therefore, to become the leader of the wolf pack, it must be the strongest, most persistent and bravest.
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3. Sharp senses
Nature seems to have endowed wolves with all the weapons to become master predators in the steppe. Not only do they run fast, are flexible and have claws that dig into the flesh of their prey, wolves are also equipped with sharp senses.
To detect prey from afar, wolves generally use a set of “super-sensitive sensory weapons”: First is the long nose, which can smell the scent of prey and the scent of blood hundreds of times better than humans, at a distance of 2,500m.
Next is extremely sensitive hearing, which can hear sounds at higher frequencies than humans. And the eyes have very long-range vision, although they can only see in black and white.
These senses are powerful tools to support the leader in detecting and evaluating prey. The remaining hunting of prey depends on the wild endurance and instinct to capture prey of the leader and members.
4. Howling, the command to call the pack
For the leader wolf, its endurance must be maintained continuously throughout the hunt. Not only does it hunt prey, it also has to howl to call the pack. Their howls can be heard 10km away.
The leader wolf’s howl to call the pack is like the brave command of the commander when charging into battle. It is a “language” that just by hearing it, the member wolves will increase their ability to fight to the end.
In addition, the leader’s howl can also contribute to ending the hunt. The louder the howl, the more terrified the prey will be and the easier it will be to fall.
5. Clever tactics
Wolves are famous for knowing their own strength. If in a hunt with a hare, a top sprinter, a pack of about 3 wolves often show off their “speedy” ability to defeat their prey, then…
In a hunt with a fierce and tall bison, they often show off their endurance. Wolves usually gather in groups of about 10. And there must be 2 pack leaders, one male and one female.
Wolves are not foolish enough to attack large and fierce adult bison, the pack leaders will use their sharp eyes to select potential candidates: Those are young animals or the weakest cows in the pack to attack. This is when the pack leader shows his “courage and confidence” in the hunt of the whole pack.
If the leader gives the command to run, the whole pack starts running to separate the young/weak prey from the pack. That is when the hunt begins.
The wolf pack can run to hunt bison for a distance of 5km. At this time, they do not use the strategy of running fast and using endurance to hunt prey.
6. Persistence
For wolves, living in harsh environments (cold snow, vast grasslands with little food), in addition to a body that can withstand hunger and cold, they also have to calculate their livelihood.
When the food area around them gradually runs out, the wolf pack is forced to go far away. They can hunt 160km away from their home in just one day.
When finding prey, the leader will have to analyze the situation. Being impatient in attacking can cause the whole wolf pack to return empty-handed. Seizing the opportunity is probably one of the secrets to success of this fast-loving and cunning animal.
LESSONS FOR US ON CHOOSING WOLVES OR SHEEPS
Surely, the story of wolves and their leader is somewhat related to us humans. In life, there are many factors that determine success-failure or happiness-suffering.
“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. No matter which path you take, whether you are a sheep or a wolf, you have to consider carefully.”, the saying of Hugh MacLeod – an American cartoonist, can it “awaken” the potential in you?
No matter what choice you make, I hope you are happy with the path you have chosen and are taking!
Wish you success!
History of the story of the title “alpha wolf”
The concept of the brave alpha wolf was developed by scientist Rudolph Schenkel of the University of Basel (Switzerland) after studying a pack of wolves living in a zoo in the 1940s.
Since then, researchers have believed that from separate individuals in the wild, they gather together to become a pack of wolves to hunt in the cold winter.
However, only later did research show that hunting wolves often have two types: small wolf packs and large wolf packs.
In which, small wolf packs are usually family members, including males, females and young. Large wolf packs are healthy wolves, gathered from wolves living in a territory equivalent to the area of New York City (USA).
