Attacked by Wolves!

[CalMeacham]

A few years ago I saw a film showing wolves attacking a moose.

I know what you’re thinking – it’s like that scene in Beauty and the Beast when the Beasy jumps between Belle and the wolves and fights them off. The pack of lean, mean, yellow-eyed killers, all moving in coordinated purpose, fearlessly leaping upon a larger enemy without fear because they know that their superior numbers will wear him down. That’s what I thought of, too.

Boy, was I wrong.
The pack of wolves looked like a collection of suburban house dogs that had been kidnapped from their back yards and told that, if they brought down this one moose, they’d bet sent back home. They looked sad and forlorn, ears and tails down, sodden in the rain.

The Moose was standing in a stream, safely away from the miserable gathering of wolves, who were sort of huddled together atop the nearby bank, all looking at the Moose as if maybe they could will it into submission. They kept crowding each other towards the edge of the bank, and every now and then one wolf would lose his balance, and topple into the river. With nothing left to lose, he’d right himself, run over to the Moose, and try to nip at its leg before the Moose kicked or bit the wolf. Then he’d run back up the bank and get at the end of the line, trying to push another wolf over the edge so that he would try to deliver another attempt to nip the Moose.

At that rate, it looked as if it would take hours for the wolves to get in one successful bite. It looked as if the Moose could walk or swim away, unimpeded, at any time. The narrator said, though, that the pack successfully brought down the moose. I find it easier to believe that they took up a collection and paid off the narrator.

If this is what hunting is like in the wild, I can understand Wile E. Coyote’s affinity for Acme products. And I find the assertion, in Farley Mowat’s book (and the subsequent movie) Never Cry Wolf that wolves predominantly eat mice and voles over megafauna like deer and moose a lot more believable.

[Phlosphr]

Cal - Do you remember Wild America, with Marty Stowfer, it came on right before Dr. Who back in the early 80’s. He held a belief very similar to this, that wolves would will large prey by circling it, thus elevating it’s heartbeat, so when - after a few hours - the animal was vertually exhausted. Then the wolves would move in for an easy kill.

Farley Mowat - who I believe was discredited to some degree about his ramblings in Northern Canada - had a wonderful theory (the one you stated) that I personally do believe. Not being Canadian I am not in the know about what the actual gripe was with Mowat. I think it had to do with the length of time he actually spent up there. I find some of his writing to be very informative and fun to read. If you like Mowat, I’d check out one of his latest books The Farfarers: Before the Norse. .

[gbrohman]

A few years ago while in the twin city’s, We explored the Minnesota Museum of Science. What a wonderful place for young & old to go.
The “Big Screen” movie playing that week was “Arctic Wolves”. My grandchildren were as are most of the population of this country “naive”(lacing background) when it comes to the real wolf. After the presentation i Booed and Booed the show. Of course i was alone doing this. My brother in law asked me later why i did that, and him being a subscriber to National Geographic Magazine, and has a shelf in the den with years of past issues, I showed him why I Booed the presentation.
The show featured a pack of Arctic Wolves preying upon a small herd of Musk Ox. There were some interesting segments in the show about how the native Hunters(true predators) would disguise themselves as wolves to get close enough to a herd of Buffalo to kill as many as they could. the wolf was more or less a scavenger, not needing to “Work” to eat…
Anyway the Arctic wolves were trying(working) to get a bite eat. The show jumped back and forward with the Arctic wolves working the Musk Ox heard that were in there defensive circle around their calves. Never really focusing on the fact the wolves were after the six or so calves in the herd. at the end the wolves were still hungry, the herd still circled, nature doing its thing, only with mans Little slant(not showing nature as it is).
In the Magazine Dated January 1992 the feature article was “Arctic Wolves”. The author traveled with the Musk Ox herd and kept a daily log of the wolf activity. At the end of the NGS story all six calves were eaten by the pack. Not one adult Ox was eaten. The story was “Nature” That is the origin of the word Natural. Not meant to shock or scare, It was only meant to report what was. What happened, What happens. No slant, No cover-up to make nature more appealing to those whose background with nature is only artificial.

[DocCathode]

@CalMeacham

They looked sad and forlorn, ears and tails down, sodden in the rain.

Ears and tails down how exactly? A wolf’s tail, down and curled forward (something of a fish hook shape) is a sign of hostility and possible attack. As, IIRC are certain ear positions.

IANA veterinarian, zoologist, or any similar expert on animals. But, it was my understanding that pack of wolves circles its prey, and then harries it. One wolf charges the prey forcing it to run. The other wolves keep pace with the prey and continue to surround it. Occassionally, the wolves will herd the prey in a new direction. Only when the prey is thoroughly exhausted and unable to defend itself do they close in and kill.

Surrounded or not, attempting to bring down a healthy adult moose would resullt in dead and injured wolves, and may result in an escaped moose.

The wolves you saw were either attempting to force the moose to run, so that they could harry it, or testing to see if the moose was weak enough to close in and kill it. The individual attacks you saw don’t seem like a good way to kill a moose because they aren’t meant to kill.

[CalMeacham]

The individual attacks you saw don’t seem like a good way to kill a moose because they aren’t meant to kill.

I know that – my point is that it looked like a singularly inefficient way to harry the moose as well.

If you’ll read my OP, you’ll see tha there is no way they could have done a “classic attack”. You can’t circle an animal standing in a river. Yet the wolves persisted in harrying (in that ineffectual-looking way) the moose. Maybe they were desperate. They certainly weren’t perky ears-up tails-up wolves. They looked like wolves doing overtime without overtime pay.