Radioactive Rabbit wrote:La Striata wrote:Radioactive Rabbit wrote:There are many rumors of children being raised by wild wolves, along with paintings. If you show the correct body language, it is possible. You can speak a language without words, as long as you submit to an alpha male and female. Do not treat them as your pets. They are wild. Don't beg for food, you'd have to find your own. Don't ever be caught with blood or meat, as an omega will definitely overpower you if he took a jump for it. And if you fought another wolf that the alpha cares for, say a pup, Then you're over.
Do NOT attempt this. I'm only saying it's possible. So if wolves had a comfortable shelter to stay in, then yes. I would, if I was stranded or something.
You may want to check this thread out:
http://www.wolfquest.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=75572
The notion of a wolf pack being a hierarchical society lead by alphas is inaccurate.
The hierarchy of a wolf pack is very much alike from human families. Packs consist of the parents and the pups, Alphas simply stated as the parents. Say you came into some stranger's house and started acting like the boss. What would happen? They'd kick you out or worse. By "Submit to the alpha male and female" I am merely saying that you should not challenge such a wolf when in the company of so. If you were to live with wolves you would have to follow by their rule, as if you were their child. Basically what that article states is that Alphas did not fight their way to the top, and I agree with that. But you shouldn't disrespect an animal that is much more powerful than you. Would you punch your old man? And by "don't beg for food" I mean like this. You are a completely different species, and especially one they can eat.
But there's really no need to use the term "alpha," though. If you can acknowledge them as parents, then there's no need to specifically refer to them as "alphas." Your initial claim suggests a strict hierarchy, which is inaccurate and is why
La Striata provided that link. It may help you if you try not to humanize wolves -- wolves are still very different from humans, and do not think or act like humans.
"Alpha" connotes top ranking in some kind of hierarchy, so an alpha wolf is by definition the top-ranking wolf. Because among wolves in captivity the hierarchies are gender-based, there are an alpha male and an alpha female (Schenkel 1947).
The way in which alpha status has been viewed historically can be seen in studies in which an attempt is made to distinguish future alphas in litters of captive wolf pups. For example, it was hypothesized that "the emotional reactivity of the dominant cub, the potential alpha animal (emphasis mine) of the pack, might be measurably different from the subordinate individuals," and that "it might then be possible to pick out the temperament characteristics or emotional reactivity of potential alpha or leader wolves (emphasis mine), and of subordinates" (Fox 1971b, p.299). Furthermore, "Under normal field conditions, it seems improbable that timid, low ranking wolves would breed" (Fox 1971a, p.307). This view implies that rank is innate or formed early, and that some wolves are destined to rule the pack, while others are not.
Contrary to this view, I propose that all young wolves are potential breeders and that when they do breed they automatically become alphas (Mech 1970). Even in captive packs, individuals gain or lose alpha status (Zimen 1976), so individual wolves do not have an inherent permanent social status, even though captive pups show physiological and behavioral differences related to current social rank (Fox 1971b; Fox and Andrews 1973). Secondly, wolves in captivity breed readily, and I know of no mature captive individuals that failed to breed when paired apart from a group, as would be the case if there were inherently low-ranking, nonbreeders . . . Labeling a high-ranking wolf alpha emphasizes its rank in a dominance hierarchy. However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none.
Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so "alpha" adds no information. Why not refer to an alpha female as the female parent, the breeding female, the matriarch, or simply the mother? Such a designation emphasizes not the animal's dominant status, which is trivial information, but its role as pack progenitor, which is critical information.
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mamm ... /alpst.htm
In regards to your statement about the possibility of "being raised by wolves," rumors are rumors and I personally wouldn't use a rumor to justify the false ease of
living with an entirely separate species. This has been brought up on this forum multiple times. While anecdotal "evidence" exists, such "evidence" is not the same as concrete data relating to the matter and is therefore not wholly reliable. There have been rumors indeed, but they've either proven to be unreliable due to the source's reputation or have gone on unproved. Understand that there is a difference between a
rumor and an
actual, legitimate and well-documented event or experiment. I was digging through the forum's archives and found this thread which seems to cover the topic adequately, and, to my knowledge, there hasn't been any proven "raised by wolves" stories since.
http://www.wolfquest.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41873
With all of that being said, I certainly wouldn't want to live with wolves even if I had the chance. Unlike how some have made it out to be, I do not think it would be easy nor practical. I am personally content with my own diet, as well, and am not willing to convert to such a diet.