Wolves Suffer Mid-Life Crisis Too

At first, when I saw this headline, I thought it was a metaphor for human males. Alas, no, my sense of humor wasn't appeased, the article actually is about wolves.

Apparently wolves physical ability decreases with age. Shocking, to be sure.

But what really shocked me was when Dan MacNulty, "post-doctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota" (which means Dr. MacNulty holds a PhD in something but is not ready to get a real job; post-docs are basically PhD students who refuse to quit their research phase of life) said "wolves are like 100 meter sprinters."

Forgive me, but when I was younger, and I loved biology and animals, I learned that wolves are high-endurance predators that rely on their endurance to run down their prey. In fact, peer-reviewed research on the very wolves Dan MacNulty is discussing in this article has shown that wolves are better predators against running prey than they are against prey that is stationary...a bison who stands its ground typically fares better than one that flees. Wolves feet are designed to help them stay up in snow, while caribou and elk cannot do so, often the wolves will literally run the caribou or elk or moose or other ungulate until the poor animal overheats and goes into lactic acid shock, then the wolves kill and feed. Videos can be seen on youtube, including a beautiful high-definition aerial shot of a wolf chasing a caribou infant for nearly a mile before the prey finally tripped and collapsed.
Other peer-reviewed research has shown that wolves who have not eaten for 14 days showed no outward muscle fatigue upon hunting. The same research discussed a wolf that chased its prey for 36 kilometers without pause.

And while most wolf hunting behavior involves sprints of 200 yards or less, this does not reflect the wolf anatomy, but rather the wolf hunting behavior. Dr. MacNulty, I deeply respect you for getting your PhD, but next time you analogize the physical performance of 2-3 year old wolves, use "marathon runners" instead of sprinters.


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