NATHAN WEBB of university of Alberta, Canada, used scats from one of our female wolves, Erin, when she was pregnant, as a control to help him study pregnancies of wild wolves. If pregnancies of wild wolves could be monitored, particularly without having to capture the females and examine them in the field, then information about reproductive success could be obtained with little stress to the wolves.

Dr. CHEPKO-SADE sent a student, BEULAH SHERWOOD, to Wolf Park to collect data and scats to monitor stress levels of captive wolves. She compared behaviors and stress chemicals in wolves socialized to humans with that of wolves who were raised primarily by their parents. Zoos trying to determine the best methods of raising animals in captivity may benefit from such research.

KATHERYN LORD did her Ph.D dissertation documenting the onset of dog pups’ and wolf pups’ ability to notice stimuli (as evidenced by a reaction) to a sight (laser dot), sounds (neutral/novel and non-neutral/familiar sounds), and scents (neutral/novel and non-neutral/familiar).

GWEN MURDOCH, University of Missouri, gathered data on our wolf – bison demonstrations in the mid-ish 1990s and presented a preliminary paper to the the Animal Behavior Society in 2003 at Indiana University.

1978 By Maura Stillson — a thesis giving “qualitative and quantitative accounts of the implementation of aggressive behavior by members of two packs of wolves.” Breeding season, when aggression levels are high, provided fertile ground for collecting a lot of data on aggression. Maura paid special attention to “individual differences, rank status and factors endogenous to the wolf and environmental factors, such as the erection of a fence between the two packs that blocked their view of one another. It was discovered that highly ritualized, low-level forms of aggression are favored as a communicative tool by all animals, regardless of their rank.  It was also discovered that all the animals used more intense forms of aggression, although to a more conservative degree. The difference in rank status was reflected in the fact that high-ranking wolves tend to be more aggressive overall, and to employ aggression primarily in an offensive rather than a defensive fashion. Fluctuations in the levels of aggressive behavior were affected by seasonal changes and the presence of the fence. However, the import of these factors depended on the individual animals as well as their rank status.” (pp viii and ix of the abstract)

1978 By Lin Silver — explores four hypotheses about rallying, or group greeting behavior. “The hypothesis that rallying behavior is regulated by dominance relations was supported by the data. Subordinate females were found to show a stronger orientation the same sex alpha than subordinate males, supporting the reports that the female hierarchy is more linear and involves ore intense agonistic behavior than the male hierarchy. One of the alternative hypotheses, that rallying and/or greeting behavior may reflect mate preference, was supported for some wolves but not for others.”

Lin used the data to make a testable “strategy” of when to rally, to which focal animal a wolf should rally and when and to whom to rally and how it should respond when it was the target of agonistic behavior during a rally. Orienting to the alpha wolf of the same sex was more important to females than it was to males in her study, but this orientation increased markedly during the breeding season for both males and females.

Being a target of ritualized aggression did not inhibit a wolf from initiating a rally or participating in one [initiated by a different wolf] and she also found that in some cases a wolf’s rallying behavior seemed to represent a strategy, as in the case of Cassie changing her rallying behavior while she nursed pups (99), while in others, such as Tornado, who had a high frequency of greeting, rallying, and initiating rallies without significant change before and after becoming the alpha male, rallying behavior seemed instead to reflect personality traits.

1973 by John Byron Brown — Master's thesis, written about Wolf Park's first four coyotes: Jeanine, Diana, Wellington, and Napoleon. At that time there were few long term studies of coyote behavior and John's lasted a year. In his abstract, he says "Likewise, few longitudinal data exist on social behavior in the coyote. The major focus of this thesis is to provide these data, by observing what dominant and subordinate coyotes do.” He notes that differences in social structure in wolves and coyotes "are in large part determined by differences in social behavior. In addition, there is evidence that pack structure in the wolf is reinforced by behavior associated with dominance and submission."

"Based on these data, a number of hypotheses are advanced to explain the differences in social structure between coyotes and wolves: (1) The relative lack of active submission as a response to aggression in coyotes. The predominant reactions to assertion of dominance in the coyotes in the litter in this study were defensive threat and flight. A number of behavior patterns associated with submission in wolves may serve primarily a protective function in coyotes..."

1979 by Alexandra Creel Bakarich — compared five dog pups with five wolf pups hand reared from 18 to 42 days and under continual observation. The study concentrated on morphological comparison of dates of tooth eruption, body weight, body length and length of extremities and behavior: food caching, digging, howling, baking, head shaking, play bowing, scent rolling and tug-of-war. …mean dates of first occurrences for each species were compared. When less than three individuals of either group failed to respond, descriptive statistics only were used in comparisons. The primary hypothesis was that wolves mature physically faster than dogs and, therefore, mature faster behaviorally…. Behaviorally, wolves responded statistically earlier in digging and tug-of-war while dogs showed an earlier barking response. Other behavioral differences discussed were prey killing, feeding, and general play behavior. The effects of a surrogate mother [were] also discussed.” One of several conclusions was that “wolves and dogs show similar behaviors with different emphasis.”.

1997 by Gabrielle Grunart — a thesis for a masters degree in biology. University of Bonn, Germany. Overseen by Prof. Anne Rasa, Institute of Zoology, University of Bonn and Prof. Wolfgang Böhme, Research Institute and Museum Alexander König, University of Bonn. The study focused on behaviors bison use to protect themselves and their calves from wolves. A possible application of the research was to identify behaviors that could be selected for in domestic cattle to make them better able to protect themselves against predators. If cattle were less easy prey this might help conservation of wolves.

The dominant male bison in a herd had an active and passive part in the interactions with wolves. Among the cows, the more dominant cows were more involved in calf protection, although younger cows did show some protective behavior, possibly indicating that relatedness within the herd is important. Wolves tend to target calves, especially in summer. The calves' self–protective behavior involves running back to their mother, or the herd in general. In this way even orphan calves can find protection.

The herd showed both the “Wagenburg Formation” and “Stampede”, defensive behaviors which have been discussed in the literature. They also began active protection behavior as soon as the wolves were closer than 5 meters. If the wolves were farther away the bison simply kept an eye on the wolves. Some bison showed individual protection behavior but none seemed “assigned” a position as guard.

1977 by Sara Cairns — This study looked at play as a way for social bonds among pack members to be developed and maintained, and to prepare wolf pups for various social situations including competition for social rank. The thesis focused on “a qualitative and quantitative description of changes in play behavior in a litter of 4 wolf pups before and after reaching maturity.” Cairns did not see frequent aggression within play bouts until the wolves reached sexual maturity. Weather had a minimal effect on their playfulness, but quality of food — i.e., when they were fed dog kibble for a while, rather than carcasses — was apparently important. While fed dog food, the wolves almost stopped play completely for a three month period. Sara concluded that while play may improve the wolves’ physical condition, her observations supported the idea that play served a social function – teaching young wolves to accurately judge a conspecific’s strength and skill. As adults they might use play bouts to “keep informed” on their pack members’ condition and disposition.

1978 by Patricia Goodmann — Tested the hypothesis that rolling in strong odors, a behavior found quite annoying in pet dogs, could serve a useful function as a type of non-insightful communication among wolves. For a behavior to be useful in transmitting information it must be readily available. Could the wolves' willingness to scent roll be temporarily exhausted, sending them into a refractory period? Testing this possibility involved presenting the wolves with scents, over and over and over and over and over. It was nearly impossible to induce a clear refractory period, except briefly to particular scents. If they stopped or greatly decreased their response to one scent, as soon as they were presented with another novel odor, the wolves resumed scent rolling. This implied the behavior is nearly always available for communication both about odors the wolves often encountered in nature as well as novel odors which they would probably encounter rarely and by chance.

2005/06 By Becky Davis — This thesis was done by comparing video shot during Wolf Park's wolf–bison demonstrations and video shot by Lu Carbyn of wild bison and wolves in Wood Buffalo National Park. The hunting behavior of the captive and the wild wolves was compared as was the defensive behavior of the wild bison and the herd living at Wolf Park. Becky found “some aspects of bison defensive behavior not mentioned in scientific literature, vocalization and spatial organization.” She “contends that grunting and gathering as a herd in the presence of wolves intending on hunting bison are two behaviors preparatory for defense against the wolves.