Wolf Articles

We would love to host a full library of wolf articles here, but copyright and disk space issues prevent us. Here is just a small sampling of the huge amount of data currently available about wolves.

Full Text Available Online:

• Expression Studies on Wolves by Rudolph Schenkel
  The original 1947 study on wolf behavior, available as an English-language PDF file. This is the landmark study which gave rise to the persistent, yet now known to be outdated, notion of "alpha" wolves. Article hosted by L. David Mech. Many more of his publications are available here.
• Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs by L. David Mech
  A new (1999) and currently commonly accepted perspective on the function and appearance of rank order in natural, free-living wolf packs. PDF hosted by the International Wolf Center. Search their bibliography here.
• Wolf Field Report 2010 from the Isle Royale Project
  The isolated populations of wolves and moose on Isle Royale have been under intense study for years, as a tiny, closed ecosystem. Past annual reports are available here. More publications from Isle Royale, John Vucetich, and Rolf Petersen are available here.
• Top dogs: wolf domestication and wealth by Driscoll and Macdonald
  A phylogeographic analysis of gene sequences important in determining body size in dogs, recently published in BMC Biology, traces the appearance of small body size to the Neolithic Middle East. This finding strengthens the association of this event with the development of sedentary societies, and perhaps even has implications for the inception of human social inequality. Hosted by the Journal of Biology. A related article is available here, hosted by BioMed Central.
  

Abstracts:

• Submission: Its Features and Function in the Wolf and Dog by Rudolph Schenkel
  1967 article exploring submission in domestic and wild canid packs. Some of the concepts are a little outdated now, but it is still interesting to see where we were looking when we just began observing canid behavior.
• Molecular and Evolutionary History of Melanism in North American Gray Wolves by Anderson et al
  Wolves are most commonly tan or agouti, but a percentage of them are black, or melanistic, variants. An interesting look at where black wolves may have originated.

Bibliographies:

• Technical Journal Articles from The Searching Wolf
  Also available: Michael Knee's Wolves: A Bibliography and Guide to the Literature, and Dr. Henryk Okarma's Bibliography of European Wolf Literature.

Written by Wolf Park:

These articles were written by authors affiliated with Wolf Park, intended for various publications, and are available in full text PDF format. Click on an article title to expand.

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Photography provided by Monty Sloan unless otherwise indicated.
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