27 Facts About Wolves

Wolves are territorial and fights over territory are among the principal causes of wolf mortality.

Wolves have a long history of interactions with humans, having been despised and hunted in most pastoral communities because of their attacks on livestock, while conversely being respected in some agrarian and hunter-gatherer societies.

Wolves classified the domestic dog as Canis familiaris, and the wolf as Canis lupus.

Wolves usually have some hairs that are white, brown, gray and black.

Wolves kill red, Arctic and corsac foxes, usually in disputes over carcasses, sometimes eating them.

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Wolves eat the brown bears they kill, while brown bears seem to eat only young wolves.

Wolves have been recorded on numerous occasions actively seeking out American black bears in their dens and killing them without eating them.

Wolves are territorial and generally establish territories far larger than they require to survive assuring a steady supply of prey.

Wolves communicate using vocalizations, body postures, scent, touch, and taste.

Wolves do not bark as loudly or continuously as dogs do in confrontations, rather barking a few times and then retreating from a perceived danger.

Wolves are monogamous, mated pairs usually remaining together for life.

Wolves move around their territory when hunting, using the same trails for extended periods.

Wolves have been killed while attempting to bring down bison, elk, moose, muskoxen, and even by one of their smallest hoofed prey, the white-tailed deer.

Wolves are a major host for rabies in Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and India.

Wolves living near farms are more vulnerable to the disease than those living in the wilderness, probably because of prolonged contact with infected domestic animal waste.

Wolves carry ectoparasites and endoparasites; those in the former Soviet Union have been recorded to carry at least 50 species.

Wolves can spread them to dogs, which in turn can carry the parasites to humans.

Wolves are often infested with a variety of arthropod exoparasites, including fleas, ticks, lice, and mites.

Wolves can carry over 30 roundworm species, though most roundworm infections appear benign, depending on the number of worms and the age of the host.

Wolves probably become infected with Trichinella spiralis by eating infected ungulates.

Wolves were given protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and have since returned to parts of their former range thanks to both natural recolonizations and reintroductions in Yellowstone and Idaho.

Wolves have been persecuted in Europe for centuries, having been exterminated in Great Britain by 1684, in Ireland by 1770, in Central Europe by 1899, in France by the 1930s, and in much of Scandinavia by the early 1970s.

Wolves have been historically persecuted in China but have been legally protected since 1998.

Wolves are among the central characters of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

Wolves kill dogs on occasion, and some wolf populations rely on dogs as an important food source.

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Wolves apparently develop the "furious" phase of rabies to a very high degree.

Wolves'storic methods included killing of spring-born litters in their dens, coursing with dogs, poisoning with strychnine, and trapping.