#404： What Men Can Learn From Wolves
Episode Stats
Summary
Between 1991 and 1996, Jim and Jaimie Dutcher lived with and filmed a pack of wolves in Idaho. From this intensive fieldwork came the award-winning documentary, Wolves at Our Door. The husband and wife team are out with a new book that highlights some of the things they learned on living a flourishing life from the wolf pack they were embedded within. It s called The Wisdom of Wolves.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast between 1991 and
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1996 jim and jamie dutcher lived with and filmed a pack of wolves in idaho from this intensive
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fieldwork came the award-winning documentary wolves at our door the husband wife team are
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out with a new book that highlights some of the things they learned on living a flourishing life
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from the wolf pack they were embedded within it's called the wisdom of wolves jim and jamie share
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what wolves can teach us about family respecting your elders play the importance of belonging to
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a group leadership and what it really means to be an alpha wolf tune in for a fascinating
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conversation on a fascinating creature that has much to teach us humans after the show's over
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check out the show notes at aom.is wisdom of wolves and jim and jamie join me now via skype
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jim and jamie dutcher welcome to the show well thank you so much for having us brett yes thank
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you very much so youtube recently published a book the wisdom of wolves and this is based on
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a project you all did back in the 90s you filmed from 1991 to 1996 a pack of wolves and it's called
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the sawtooth pack let's start for the background of that like what was the impetus behind the project
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of filming a pack of wolves for such a long time too well i've been a filmmaker that specializes in
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animals that you just don't get to see in the wild mountain lions beavers undersea subjects and
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after finishing a successful film on mountain lions we put together a proposal with abc television
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to do a special on wolves and but you just can't go out and find a pack of wolves and film them
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in a meaningful way i mean you can but they're so far away they're so intelligent that they change
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their behavior and run away we wanted to be able to get into their lives into their social lives
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so we set this project up with puppies bottle feed them from the moment they opened their eyes
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and camped with them for six years afterwards but we gained their trust by being with them
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from the moment they realized they were here on this planet and where did you all get the wolf pups
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from the initial wolf pups well there was a woman up in montana that inherited or
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tried to just took over a pack of wolves that was they were being experimented with and they were in
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alaska and she she said if you give me the pack i'll take care of them please don't euthanize them
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uh they were the project was finished and they were going to put them all to sleep so she had also seen
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the mountain lion film and thought we could do a lot of good for wolves as she gave us puppies
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so we started the sawtooth pack with a pack of puppies four of them and so you know wolves are
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they're they're we'll talk about this later on but they're they explore right and their territories
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can be large and they'll move from territory to territory how did you keep them contained within
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a certain area so you could film them well we had they were an enclosed situation and we actually had
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the largest wolf enclosure in the world it was 25 acres and it's important to note that you know
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all behavior studies that have been done on wolves have to be done in captivity because you can't get
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close enough to them but most of these studies have been in very small enclosures of one to three acres
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so you know we had the largest enclosure in the world 25 acres and this you know it's true that wolves do
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have huge territories but since the the the pack basically grew up in this area they were pretty
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they were very content they didn't uh they didn't pace the fence you could lose a wolf for days in
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this area we had a very mixed terrain we were at the foot of the sawtooth mountains we had alpine
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meadow we had forest we had streams it was quite varied and they they were very comfortable in that
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location because of course their family was there so as you just mentioned you know a lot of previous
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studies on wolves were done on captive wolves and in a really small area how did those studies
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maybe mislead us about you know what are some of the things that we maybe got wrong about wolves by
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studying captive wolves and and putting in such a small area well i you know i don't want to speak for
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for every study but i i know that there's some researchers that would enter enclosures and would
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would dominate the wolves or you know and by by doing that by making the wolves submit you've
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changed their behavior you know you've you've just altered things going on and i think also being in a
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in a smaller situation can lead towards um maybe some unnecessary aggression we we made sure that you
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know even though we bottle fed these wolves from pups just as if they were opening their eyes
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so they would trust us we never treated them as pets we never and we never tried to dominate
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or be submissive to them we were very very neutral and i think that allowed us access to this intimate
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behavior without really affecting the way they lived their lives you know we would have our our film
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gear and our sound gear and we would be out with the pack and you know they just we wouldn't miss a
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beat because we were basically like the furniture they wouldn't just stop and go oh who's here
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you know so i i think it also having this this larger area gave us an opportunity to really see
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these wolves lives unfold for us and you know they revealed to us how compassionate and caring
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they are for one another and you know even though you know the great apes are are more closely
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related to us dna wise dogs i mean and you know wolves are also you know descendants of created the
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dog wolves social behavior is really so much like our own you know you can watch wolves and you can
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you can see you know your colleagues at work you could see uh kids on the school playground it was a
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really wonderful way to uh to observe them and learn a lot more what one other reason for
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approaching this project the way we did and with captive wolves if you go out into the wild and
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you obituate a pack of wolves and gain their trust wolves are hunted in the three western states
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where they mostly live montana wyoming and idaho and if you gain the wolf's trust that may be the next
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time a wolf sees someone it may not be a camera being pointed at them it'll be a gun and so we didn't
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want that to happen so this that was the reason we approached the project the way we did okay so
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you know jamie you just talked about the social lives of wolves wolves are famous for their social
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hierarchies right there's an alpha wolf a beta wolf but i think there's a lot of misconceptions about how
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wolf hierarchies work what do you think are i mean what do you all think are the main misconceptions
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about wolf's social hierarchies that people might have well i i think one of the biggest misconceptions
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is is the term alpha and alpha seems to be falling out of favor with a lot of people but we still use
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it to describe you know the the leader of the pack the alpha is uh is generally the the father of the pack
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the alpha male and female are the parents of the pack generally and so they would be you know the the
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parents in your own family and they're the ones that really determine how the day-to-day operations
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of the family works and i think a lot of people have this idea oh the alpha must be this you know
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tough strong aggressive you know we use it in a very negative way nowadays we're really the alpha
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our alpha was a very benevolent leader he led with kindness he was a very caring leader and and father of
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the pack and it it really showed us that there's more to being an alpha than just strength that
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really they they take care of the family they uh they decide who's going to eat first and last it's um
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it's a very sensitive caring thing another interesting point that they've been discovering
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actually in yellowstone since the wolf reintroduction is that you know it was always thought that uh you
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know it must be the alpha male that leads the pack there have been sightings where people have been
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watching the wolves and the alpha male will get up and stretch and get ready to go somewhere and the
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rest of the pack doesn't pay attention but if the alpha female gets up everyone stands to attention
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they want they know something's going on they're going someplace yeah we're going someplace we need to
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be ready so um you know the female has a lot to do with it as well so i think that's the mate one of
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the major misconceptions is that this alpha is this tough you know lead with an iron fist kind of
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leader and and it really isn't that way i mean you know wolves are all they're individuals and all
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families are different but generally they they don't need to lead with an iron fist brett another
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misconception is that the pack that it's just this mob that got together in the forest and went out to
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make a killing it really isn't it's it's a family it's mother father aunts and uncles grandchildren
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grandparents they may adopt another wolf another wolf could join them sometimes not some but um
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by and large it's a family yeah i think that's i i learned that just recently i thought you know
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wolves just got together and they sort of you know fought it out to see who was the alpha wolf
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and then that was it but no it's like it's a family and it's the the mom and the dad they're the leaders
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boy meets girl and uh you know they they have a family and then it all goes from there another
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misconception is the lone wolf uh that's a disperser that's a wolf that wants to go out
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and find another wolf it's a very temporary situation they they perhaps the wolf sort of
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outgrew the family it was in well had aspirations of being the leader and yet there was a strong leader
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so he or she goes off and looks for a mate another disperser and they form another pack but they have
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to do this pretty quickly because it's very difficult for a wolf in the winter time to feed itself because
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the the the smaller animals are under the snow and you know hibernating but elk and the deer and the
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animals that they feed upon you need teamwork to bring them down yeah and this misconception of
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you know people saying oh you know i'm a lone wolf i don't need anybody well you know wolves need each
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other they need to need a family and they need to belong so it's a very temporary situation in which
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a wolf doesn't want to be in for a very long time right so there's some wisdom right there we can get
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right there just on leadership right so i think you know if we all look at the leaders that inspired us
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the most they weren't domineering they weren't aggressive they weren't loud and they could be if they
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needed to be but mostly they were just calmly leading the leading the group and sure yeah lead
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with kindness right and then with the lone wolf thing like we you know in order for humans to
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survive and thrive like we need each other as well we need a group absolutely absolutely so we talked
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about alpha wolves there are omega wolves so they're sort of like the low like the the low man on the
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totem pole but despite that the way you describe the omega in this pack like he the wolves treated him
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you know with you know they they kind of bullied him sometimes but they also saw that he had a role
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as well so what is the role of an omega wolf in a wolf pack well in in our pack the omegas seem to be
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the instigators of play using play to diffuse pack tension and you know they could always you know get
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get the rest of the wolves in a light-hearted mood you know for a great game of tag but you know like
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you had mentioned there they are also the focus of of pack aggression they're the low man or woman on
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the totem pole and they do get picked on they they generally are forced to eat last they have to wait
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till everyone else is finished but they really have an important role to play within the pack for instance
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when we were just talking about dispersing wolves an omega wolf has a has a definite position so
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uh the omega wouldn't be a wouldn't generally be a disperser his he you know he's got a really
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definite spot in the pack and and knows what that spot is but all the same you know the wolves still
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really cared for him and in our pack there was a point where the omega seemed to be allowed to retire
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from the position and the other rest of the wolves stopped picking on him and unfortunately they found
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another one to pick on a little bit and what was really great is that lakota the omega the old omega
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never picked on this new omega it's like he knew where you know he he knew what had happened and and
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just wasn't going to to pitch in on that but one really touching story with the omega had to do with
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another wolf in the pack which is the beta wolf who or second in command generally and we started
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noticing when we would slow down our film and watch it in slow motion that mozzi the beta wolf would if
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there were there was a dispute going on with the omega he would actually run into the fray of the
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wolves and the dispute going on and break it up so the omega could get away and after watching this more
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and more we started to notice that the two of them hung out together they would sleep together the beta wolf
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would would let the omega wolf jump on his back which another wolf would never let happen and they
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really had an incredible friendship and this this beta wolf just the only way you could say it is
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really took him under his wing and just made things didn't made sure things didn't get out of hand which
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was quite sweet and and the way that we should be taking care of our weaker members of our family and
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community how are omegas determined is it just personality they're just timid and how does that
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shake out yeah generally it seems to be their personality lakota was a very shy wolf although
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interestingly he was bigger than the alpha the alpha was actually his brother but he was bigger than
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the alpha wolf so it seems more to do with with personality than it than it does just you know physical
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weakness so going back to this idea of wolves and family being so important one of the one of the
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things i liked that really was touching right was how much all the wolves were invested in the pups
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of a pack and not just the parents like what did the other adult wolves do to help rear these wolf pups
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well and we as i said we started with puppies but we had other pups given to us as the years went on
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until finally our alpha pair she she dug a den and we had puppies of our own but all along the way
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you could see these unrelated wolves caring for pups and we would keep them separate for a while
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just so we could bond with them and nurture them and feed them we've used milk bottles and around the
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clock and as it got older we would play with them a lot just being with them so they were fenced off
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and the other wolves would sometimes bring presents and slip them through the chain-link fence for the
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younger wolves i always thought that was so sweet little pieces of hide and bone it was pretty
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pretty cute yeah but it's it's really kind of it's all all the members of the pack take care of the
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pups you know they're they're born to the generally born to the alpha pair but you'll have one wolf that
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will step up to be the puppy sitter you'll have others that will help become teachers and then there
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there are others that are just generally playmates and nothing more than than clowns for the the pups
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but they all uh it's really interesting how you know wolves just love pups whether whether related
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or unrelated they really take care of them yeah i think you made the point that biologists have noted
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in wolves when pups are born into a pack the the non-parent adult wolves kind of enter another like a
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second pup phase and then become very yearlings right right and uh it to me it reminded me just
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like you know goofy uncles like that's like the job of like a human uncle right that's like you're
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there to like play with your nieces and nephews do the things that your parents like the kids parents
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would be like no don't do that it's not safe like no aunts and uncles they're like no we're gonna do
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some crazy stuff i gotta teach you how to to have fun oh absolutely and we we absolutely had had the
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goofy uncle one of the mid-ranking wolves amani was totally a complete clown and and he just he had no
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interest in teaching the pups or nurturing them he just wanted to play and they loved him so in our
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book we have other stories of other wolves we have come to know and uh one of them is from the wolf
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watchers out in yellowstone watching a similar type of wolf of a goofy uncle that went off on its own
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probably looking for gophers and ground squirrels and such and must have come upon the carcass of a
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huge bison and thought i don't know whatever he thought he picked up the the skull the monstrous skull
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and carted it back which would have probably been 10 or 15 minutes back to the robin rendezvous spot
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where the pups were his um his younger brothers and sisters and he gave that to them yeah it took
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him hours to get it took him hours to do this and he had to put it down and lift it up and it would
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just but why he did that he and he just seemed to care about the younger pups no i love that that
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was some of my favorite stories from the book well you know speaking of play like yeah you highlight in
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book that wolves they play all the time i mean so what role why do they play do do by all just know
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like why wolves play so much well i think you know it's it's not so different than uh than humans really
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i mean you know we all play and we play to hone uh different skills i mean you know for for wolves
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you know play helps them that reinforce their bonds with each other but it also helps teach them
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you know hunting techniques stalking you know just all kinds of different skills testing where
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they're where they're strong and where they might be a little little uh little weak and and so it it
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plays a is a vital part of learning and and becoming a stronger wolf but also for the sheer joy of it
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you know we you know wolves can be seen on sides of mountains just running like crazy and chasing each
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other's tails and and they just they do it for the sheer joy of it but there is also the education
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factor involved and it does seem to that play somehow it it can flatten the social hierarchy
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temporarily because you talk about how you know lakota was the omega kamats was the alpha their brothers
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um and lakota would instigate play and kamats would play with lakota but he would let lakota win
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which was interesting because lakota is the omega yeah you know the role reversals and and where lakota
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the omega would actually chase the the alpha and the alpha would just um let them catch them and it was
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just it was it was really touching to see so you have to think about this so that that wolf the alpha
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must have perceived what he meant to his brother to let him do that so the perception of of just being
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the leader but also being a friend um i thought that was really touching yeah i think it's very similar
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to humans in rough housing you know that's right yeah yeah and they pass on on knowledge that this is
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something that a wolf pack that they learn certain techniques um in alaska there was a pack of wolves
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that specialized in feeding on dow sheep on on a mountain face and if they climbed up the cliffs of
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the mountain to try to get to the sheep well the sheep would just climb higher and get out of the way but
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they learned a technique of going around the backside and coming down from above and they were very
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successful at doing this but sadly there's if the wolves wander out of the national parks they get
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trapped and hunted and these wolves lost their alphas and the younger wolves never learned how to hunt
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sheep that way so this culture of learning was broken up yeah so these these wolves never went back to
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hunting doll sheep that way it was quite sad yeah and we have hunting here in idaho and wyoming and
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montana and they hunt wolves and they break up packs and when you break up a pack you know a good size
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pack would be of maybe a dozen wolves and if you start hunting them and you know the the younger ones
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are usually the ones that get shot but also the the leaders they stand up to the perceived danger and
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if you kill this knowledge then the the wolves that are left are broken up into smaller packs of twos and
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threes and they're dramatically affected by this and they they are desperate for food and so they go
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after what is easy and that's sometimes um livestock so hunting wolves actually makes it worse for ranchers
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so i mean and i think you also highlighted a story too where there was a pack that had developed a
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culture of i mean we call it culture it's kind of what it is passing on a culture of hunting bison
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together as a team i think yes yeah right and then they they killed the older wolves and then that
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culture stopped they stopped hunting bison right same thing yeah like in yellowstone national park you
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know bison it's very specialized most of the uh the wolf packs hunt uh deer and elk and but there was
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one pack that really had honed its skills at hunting bison they were much bigger pack and they really
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worked as a team to bring them down and you know losing that that culture that knowledge really uh
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devastates the family and i think this is again the wisdom of wolves like there's a role for elderly
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people right the elderly people in our own communities yes because they have knowledge that's
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vital that can help uh you know a family or a community thrive yes it's very true there's uh
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there's a gal kara cassidy who's been doing research in in yellowstone and she works with us and she
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had she was studying the effect of older wolves on packs on their packs and it turns out that a wolf
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pack is two and a half times more successful when older wolves are in the pack than not so you can have
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a smaller pack with older wolves and then a larger pack with no older wolves and the smaller pack with
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older wolves will do better and that's because these wolves as in human culture they're the carriers of
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the knowledge they're the carriers of the history they know where to cross the rivers if they get into a
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dispute with another pack over let's say territory those older wolves have probably come across the other
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wolves before so they know the strategies they know what works and what doesn't work they may not
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take place in in the actual dispute or the the disagreement the argument the fighting but but
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they're the ones that really guide the younger wolves on on how to uh how to act and how to conduct
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themselves it's it's really important and you know it's in today's culture we tend to marginalize our
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elders and when we really have so much to learn from them so a wolf howling at the moon is sort of like
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this archetypal image um and you all filmed these and they don't just do it alone like they do it in
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unison which i think is interesting do they know like do bailers know why wolves just howl at them
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just howl together in unison oh gosh you know i i did all the sound recording and i like to say that
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wolves howl for more reasons than we will ever know you know they they howl when they when they're just
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happy when they feel good they'll howl after a meal they'll howl to search for each other there's a
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thing called a pack a pack rally where generally the alpha will start howling and then all the other
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wolves will come in and and it's this big kind of jazzy soulful uh hysterical howl and uh and you know
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then just all of a sudden it'll it'll start break into play and then it'll die off and so it you know
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it it really serves a huge purpose wolves will also howl by themselves kind of we find like to
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check in on each other in the middle of the night you might get one wolf that'll howl and it's almost
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like he's saying hey i'm here i'm fine and then another wolf will howl off in the distance and it's
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like okay i'm over here so it's uh it's pretty spectacular but their their array of communication
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is so varied that we've got howls growls whines barks these sounds that i like to call
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chewbacca sounds because it sounds actually like the uh the stars work star war character
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chewbacca kind of a uh it's it's really it's really a lot of fun the way we had our camp set up we were
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living in their territory and we built a platform for a year and had a wall tent but we circled the
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whole thing with chain link and so when we go to sleep at night our heads on our cots were very
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close to the canvas wall which was close to the chain link and so and there was a wolf that always
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liked to hang out there and he uh well hots would have this little bed right there i don't know during
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the day he seemed to be a little bit shy and aloof but uh at night maybe our muffled sound and
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reminded him of being bottle fed as a youngster but he would just stay right there and the other
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wolves would start to howl off in the distance and he would howl and just launch us out of bed
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it was such a surprise in the middle of the night right so i mean it sounds like howling it's sort of a
00:26:58.020
social thing right sort of yeah sort of like how we sing together i think i think they've done studies
00:27:03.420
on humans like when you sing together with other people it does all this like stuff to your brain
00:27:07.900
makes you feel good connected etc yeah it really does and and you know there's a story in the book
00:27:15.280
where we talk about we were doing a presentation at a school in connecticut and as we walked into
00:27:21.400
the auditorium and we took the stage in unison all the kids got up 600 600 and started howling at us
00:27:30.180
and we found out later that this was not planned they all just did it and you know you could just tell
00:27:36.520
what a great time they were having howling just it was so social and it took it took a bit to uh to
00:27:42.060
get them calmed down but it you could tell that they loved it just as much as wolves do right right
00:27:46.920
so maybe the tip like howl tonight with your family exactly before you go to bed or at least sing a song
00:27:52.560
together yeah we can do that i know you all didn't film this or maybe maybe you did and it just
00:27:57.840
wasn't the book but like do we know what happens when a wolf pack encounters another wolf pack
00:28:03.020
is there a conflict do they kind of mediate that conflict somehow do we know what goes on there
00:28:08.200
well um we've we've not filmed it but uh it's been observed in uh in yellowstone and a lot of
00:28:14.660
different things can happen and it depends upon the circumstances if you have you know sometimes
00:28:20.260
wolves will try to avoid each other in each other's territory but there's times when when wolves will
00:28:26.020
have to move through another wolf's territory and if they come upon the uh the other pack then there
00:28:33.480
can be a pretty big dispute a pretty big fight but you have to realize a lot of these packs in
00:28:39.360
yellowstone they follow the care uh the um elk out of the park and they get killed and so they they have
00:28:47.500
to sort of stay in the park or they run the gauntlet of um hunters outside the park and they're pretty
00:28:54.820
effective yeah so there's you know uh so they do cross through each other's territory quite a bit
00:28:59.660
you know it's not often that that they're serious problems but there can be conflicts you know and
00:29:04.780
that's really not unlike early you know human cultures yeah i thought one of the interesting
00:29:10.720
points you highlight too was that unlike other animal species where say a wolf pack will take out all
00:29:19.220
the adults they won't do that to the pups and they'll actually adopt the pups because that's interesting
00:29:24.360
like i think gorillas like if they kill those kill all the baby gorillas and then lions do the same
00:29:30.540
adult or male lions do the same thing to lion cubs yeah yeah and i think chimpanzees and and it's it's
00:29:36.120
really interesting i mean you know certainly you know a young wolf or a pup could get caught up in
00:29:41.280
the dispute and something could happen but but generally if uh if if one wolf pack takes over another
00:29:48.220
pack after dispute they will not kill the pups those pups are immediately taken into the
00:29:54.120
family and if you have a pregnant female she'll give birth and those pups are immediately taken in
00:29:59.700
it's it's really a very a very culturally unique thing that i that i that i think we share you know
00:30:06.340
we uh we we adopt other people you know other offspring and and uh it's it's a really uh moving
00:30:13.620
thing to see it's why why wolves are dogs or canines and humans get along so well exactly crazy
00:30:20.160
the other super fascinating sort of tidbit in the book you guys highlight was uh the relationship
00:30:25.720
between wolves and ravens oh yeah what was going on there what happens between these two
00:30:31.700
well the the ravens were would sort of tease certain members of the pack and fly real close or hop along
00:30:39.720
on the ground and come up behind them and pull their tails but ravens and wolves they they they need each
00:30:46.160
other symbolically in the wild often ravens will lead wolves to a winter kill and and they do this
00:30:55.380
probably for a selfish reason because they can't open the kill with their beaks and the wolves can so
00:31:01.840
they they they benefit from each other yeah so you know wolves will follow ravens to uh a winter kill
00:31:08.980
and and ravens will follow wolves on on their hunt and there's always you know little bits and scraps
00:31:14.940
left over and it was really you know fun to see that the ravens around us they were scared to death
00:31:20.460
of us we could never get close to them but they would hang out with the wolves and as jim said would
00:31:25.700
pull their tails and try to get them to play and the wolves would sort of haphazardly snap at them and
00:31:31.040
not really caring very much until they got irritated and walked away but they it was really as if the
00:31:36.180
ravens were just kind of instigating some play like come get me come get me it was it was really great
00:31:40.980
to see but there was one time where we found a dead raven and it probably was killed by the wolf
00:31:47.320
and jamie picked it up and kind of tossed it toward the wolves and and the reaction was strange because
00:31:56.220
they they would normally kill if they killed a a bird or a brown rabbit something like that they would
00:32:03.940
they would consume it or play with it and then eat it but this they when jamie threw the carcass to
00:32:10.520
uh mozzi the beta wolf he kind of looked at it like so sad and walked away yeah it's like like it was
00:32:18.680
a mistake yeah like a tragic mistake right that was really i thought that was really interesting and
00:32:23.720
funny too like the idea the picture of a raven picking up a wolf's tail i don't know i thought
00:32:29.560
was funny so what happened to the sawtooth pack you were filming them for from 1991 to 1996 what
00:32:35.440
happened to them after that well we moved them to the nezperce reservation uh our permits were the
00:32:40.940
forest service in the area that we lived in under the sawtooth mountains about an hour from our home
00:32:47.640
here that permit expired and we renewed it as many times as we could but we eventually had to find a
00:32:55.140
permanent home so they we moved them up to winchester idaho to the nezperce reservation and they lived
00:33:01.560
out their lives there um one of them lived to be about 17 years old yeah so they were in a similar
00:33:07.700
situation because the one thing you know we could not let them go free they lost the one thing they
00:33:12.980
needed to survive in the wild which of course was fear of humans but that was you know never the plan
00:33:18.040
we'd sort of hope that by the time we the sawtooth pack no longer existed that there wouldn't be a
00:33:23.580
need for captive packs anymore so you know they lived out their their lives as ambassadors there
00:33:29.080
i'd like to mention one thing one sort of a breakout moment for me in the project came in the very first
00:33:36.600
year of the project when we had a another omega a black female that we called mataki and um she would
00:33:45.960
take and go off by herself because she'd get picked on all the time so she just would be by herself
00:33:53.420
someplace in the territory and a mountain lion spotted her and climbed the fence and killed her
00:33:59.580
but what was so amazing and changed me is when i watched how the wolves reacted to her death they
00:34:07.580
they stopped playing they you know as we've talked about playing it happens all the time we didn't see
00:34:14.600
play for six weeks they and they were very affected by being in the area where we found the
00:34:21.420
carcass of this wolf and we found fur way up in a tree and claw marks of a cougar up up in the tree
00:34:29.040
but at the base of the tree we found claw marks of the wolves like they try to chase this lion up the
00:34:35.580
tree and and then i guess she escaped somehow but they also howled differently they as we talked about
00:34:42.980
pack rallies they would gather together and celebrate the solidarity of their pack and
00:34:48.240
they stopped howling that way they would howl separately and look and their howls were very
00:34:54.300
searching as if they were trying to call mataki back and she you know when they would walk through
00:35:00.260
the area where she'd been killed you know their heads would go down their ears would go back they
00:35:05.200
were you know they were clearly visibly upset they were they were you know the only way to say it is
00:35:09.720
that they were clearly mourning they clearly missed her and um and were grieving her loss and we've heard
00:35:16.900
stories like this of wolves and like in alaska uh there there was a famous pair that was being
00:35:24.360
researched by gordon haber and uh the female the alpha female stepped in a trap and the pack and his
00:35:32.800
her mate um stayed in the vicinity for a couple of weeks these traps don't kill the wolves so they just
00:35:40.960
linger there until they starve to death or perhaps a hunter comes along and finishes the job but the
00:35:48.300
the hunter finally showed up two weeks later wolf was still alive he shot the wolf and the alpha male
00:35:54.940
ran back into the park and it was still winter and he went back to the den site and he dug up the den
00:36:02.900
and cleared it all out for a litter that he would never father and then after he finished that he ran back
00:36:10.320
again to the trapping site and when gordon left him he was howling on a ridge over and over in the
00:36:17.920
direction of the trapping site so he was totally confused with what happened to his mate yeah that's
00:36:24.060
really sad when when did the the last of the wolves die of the sawtooth pack i think it was 14 2014
00:36:32.200
not too long ago yeah yeah we got the ripe old age of 17 yeah i think we got 98 000 emails we have a
00:36:42.760
non-profit organization that we tried to educate people about wolves and people got to know about
00:36:49.960
this wolf pipe and so many stories and it was very touching well jim and jamie this has been a great
00:36:58.280
conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and the rest of your work well thanks
00:37:02.520
brett we yeah we invite everybody to to visit our website livingwithwolves.org there you can find a
00:37:08.700
lot of information and you know about wolves and our and our non-profit we're also living with wolves
00:37:14.380
is also on facebook and twitter and we also we just put out a an interactive exhibit on our website
00:37:22.680
which is a great educational tool for adults and kids to navigate and learn more about wolves
00:37:29.100
fantastic well jim and jamie dutcher thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure
00:37:32.680
thank you so much brett my guests they were jim and jamie dutcher they're the author of the book
00:37:36.840
the wisdom of wolves available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also find out more
00:37:40.960
information about their work at livingwithwolves.org and check out our show notes at aom.is
00:37:45.560
wisdom of wolves where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic
00:37:49.520
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:38:05.700
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy
00:38:09.260
the show if you got something out of it i'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give
00:38:12.060
us a review on itunes or stitcher it helps out a lot as always thank you for your continued support
00:38:15.900
until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly