Territorial Tunes
Why Howl?
Wolf 1273M
(photo by Taylor Rabe)
Rick McIntyre, who’s watched wolves more than anyone since the ice age and likely beyond, once shared a story with me. The Druid pack was split up, one group up on Specimen Ridge and the other group half a mile below in Lamar Valley. They howled to each other, then both groups moved to close the gap—one heading up, the other down. But through the thick forest, they passed each other without knowing, like ships in the night. When each reached the other's starting point, they realized their error. It’s a simple tale, but it suggests the howls said nothing more than “Here we are.” If the message had been “You come here, we’ll wait,” they might’ve saved themselves the wasted effort. [1]
One way to start unraveling the tough question of “Why howl?” is through social network analysis (SNA). SNA is a computational tool used to map and make sense of how entities, like people or wolves, connect and interact within a group or community (see Lee Alan Dugatkin's The Well-Connected Animal, 2024). It might sound dull, but SNA, for better or worse, is at the core of our human craving for online social networks. Admit it—you’ve tried one.
The networks human and non-human animals use to survive include, for example, power networks, food networks, travel networks, safety networks, and of course communication networks. In this theory, individuals are represented as nodes (or vertices), and the connections between them, such as friendships, professional relationships, or family ties, are represented as edges (or links). For example, in a high school class, each student would be a node, and if two students are friends, an edge would connect their nodes. The network can reveal various insights, such as the most connected individuals (those with the most edges), groups or cliques, and overall network structure.
There are countless ways to examine networks, but the story I’m about to share shows how the safety, power, food, and travel networks of wolves both shape and are shaped by how they communicate with one another.
By the summer of 2024, the Rescue Creek pack in Yellowstone was thriving, with twenty-one wolves roaming the rugged landscape. Most of them wore the black coats that marked their lineage, seventeen in all, while just four carried the classic gray. It was a season of renewal, with seven new, black-coated pups adding their small voices to the pack's chorus. The pack moved through their territory with the confidence that comes from numbers.
That year, the Rescue Creek pack included two GPS-collared black males, 1273M and 1393M. The collars tracked their every move, unseen observers to the wolves' hidden lives. These two males, marked by the weight of human technology, carried on with the pack, unaware of the data points trailing them. They moved with the pack’s ebb and flow, through sun and snow, their collars a silent witness to the ancient rhythms that had been playing out in these wilds long before humans decided to take notice.
1273M came into the world in 2019 as a member of the Junction Butte pack, growing up near the Slough Wagon Road trail where human presence was almost as familiar as the howl of his own kind. He got too comfortable with it, though, and by that first winter, he was bold enough to steal a photographer's tripod. During the quiet of the COVID shutdown in 2020, his antics escalated, giving the Park Service no small amount of grief. They threw everything at him—paintballs, bean bags, cracker shells, horns, shouts, and even a face full of bear spray, all in the hope of breaking his bad habits. It nearly came to a lethal end for him, but whether by force or by age, he finally straightened out. And it was a good thing he did, because by the next winter, he became one of the founding wolves of the Rescue Creek pack. Today, he's a vital part of the pack’s fabric, no longer drawn to the human world that almost cost him his life. It’s a rare success story in the long dance between wolves and people. 1273M was recollared in February 2024, still wearing the lessons of his past and the marks of a life hard-won in the wilds of Yellowstone.
His packmate 1393M was another son of the Junction Butte pack. He followed a similar path, joining the early days of the Rescue Creek pack in 2021. For the first few years, he lived in the shadow of others, taking a subordinate role until the fall of last year when the gray alpha male died. With the leader gone, 1393M stepped up and took the helm as the new alpha male. He, too, was recollared this February, marking his rise in the pack—a story of quiet persistence and the turning tides of wolf hierarchy.
These two wolves stand as the pack's leading figures, pushing their endurance to the limit, covering long distances each day to ensure their family is fed. It's a hard life, especially in the summer when prey is scarce and elk move up into the high country. On June 1st, an acoustic recorder caught the pack's chorus howls at 8:16 pm, 8:57 pm, and 9:12 pm, all coming from the den area. Nearly the whole pack joined in, even the month-old pups, adding their tiny high-pitched voices to the mix. The alpha male, 1393M, was there too. But 1273M was off, almost four miles away since 8:00 am, near a second audio recorder. Despite the howls from his packmates at 8:00 pm, he stayed put. It was the 9:12 pm chorus howl that stirred him. He turned and started the trek back to the den. Here’s a spectrogram playback of the first ten seconds of the chorus howl that drew 1273M's attention back home.
When 1273M heard the full chorus howl, he didn’t rush. He crossed the road that lay between him and his packmates and made his way back to the den where the pups waited. It was a journey he could have made in ten minutes if he’d set his mind to it, but instead he took his time. He trotted along, purposeful yet unhurried, stopping here and there as if savoring the connection pulling him home. The pace wasn’t frantic, but steady—just a wolf heading back to his own, taking the long way with the steady rhythm of one who knows the landscape well. He did it in the pace I would hike it.
Interestingly, 1393M, who had been at the den when he and the others began their chorus howl, took off southward, roughly in the direction of 1273M, who was making his way back. They passed each other like ships in the night, missing by about a mile. By the time 1273M reached the den, 1393M was in the area where 1273M had been. But 1393M wasn’t alone. At 11:04 p.m., a little less than two hours after the howl that had set everyone in motion, 1393M, along with a larger group of packmates who had been with him at the den, let out another chorus howl. They moved even closer to where 1273M had been and, thirty minutes later, at 11:30 p.m., they let out yet another chorus howl. This is how a portion of it sounded.
But after the group howl, most of his packmates, eventually returned to the den. They joined 1273M in a group chorus howl at 7 p.m., with 1393M already far beyond earshot. By then 1393M and perhaps a few of his packmates had journeyed 11 miles over to the Tower Falls area, where he lingered for two days before making his way back to the den.
There are more questions than answers here. At the very least, it seems likely that 1273M knew packmates' chorus howl and therefore returned to their location at the den. But was there something in the signal of that chorus that told him they were about to leave together on a hunt, and that he needed to return to watch over the puppies and the alpha female while 1393M, the alpha male, was away? And why did the pack give a second chorus howl at 11 p.m.? Was it simply to signal their location to 1273M back at the den? Mysteries abound.
We know that all wolf packs make chorus howls. When a wolf—whether from the pack or not—hears a chorus howl, how might we expect it to respond? In the case of 1273M, he recognized the signature of his packmates. He knew these voices belonged to close allies, thanks to the social bonds he had built within the pack. But as we'll see in another example involving these two wolves, they not also knew when not to travel to a chorus howl, demonstrating the nuanced understanding wolves have of their social landscape and the signals that guide them.
Roughly two months before the previous example and just before the Rescue Creek pack pups were due, 1273M, 1393M, and much of the pack were together near the eventual den site. About 2.5 miles away, were the rival Junction Butte pack. At 3 a.m., they let out a chorus howl, staking their claim to their territory but not knowing the other pack's location. Later that day at 5:49 p.m., earlier than the usual time for chorus howls in Yellowstone at this time of year, the Junction Butte pack gave out their own seemingly chaotic chorus howl. Nearby, at the confluence of Hellroaring Creek, an acoustic recorder was listening. The first ten seconds of their two-minute chant of wolves and a cacophony of red-winged blackbirds.
1273M and 1393M along with a group of the Rescue Creek pack would depart to the location of their rival's chorus howl. I believe the Junction Butte pack had at least caught wind—if not sight—of their rivals edging closer to their territory. They were not pleased. 1273M and 1393M stood side by side at the shore of a kettle lake, gazing across the Yellowstone river at Junction Butte pack. There they remained late in to the night when at 3am the next morning they collectively chorus howled. Lingering for the next four hours, the Rescue Creek pack turned and head home. They had made their point. Maybe that’s the purpose of allowing rivals to howl at each other rather than clash. Language, even if it’s just a lot of noise like a political rally, can sometimes be the bridge that keeps us from crossing into outright conflict.
Our social safety networks, and those of other animals, are crucial to survival. The way we communicate often mirrors these intricate social ties, reflecting the alliances, hierarchies, and rivalries that shape our lives.
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Junction Butte pack wolf cornered by Rescue Creek pack wolves that ended amicably (Summer 2023)
photo courtesy of Jeremy Sunderaj
Not surprisingly, another tie that binds us socially is food. The same is true of wolves.
Months had passed since the previous standoff, and the Rescue Creek pups were now about four months old. It was August 19th, 2024, when a bison, no doubt worn down by the brutal battles of the rut, had finally given in. By this time, the pups had been moved from their den to a rendezvous site nearby. It was there, in the long days of summer, that they were raised and fed, learning what it meant to be a wolf in Yellowstone.
For the next seven days, an acoustic recorder captured the sounds of the Rescue Creek pack gathered around the bison carcass. Sniffing, bones cracking, whines, moans, and all manner of growls filled the air. The kind of growls you'd hear if you approached a dog gnawing on a marrow-rich bone—deep, low-pitched, and full of warning. And every so often, amid the feast, the wolves would pause, lift their heads, and let loose a howl.
Why howl? Were they staking their claim on the carcass? Declaring their dominance? No, it was something else. They were answering the call of their packmates back at the rendezvous, who were sending up a chorus howl. The bison carcass lay just two miles from the rendezvous site, where the four-month-old pups and a few nurturing adults were waiting.
As shown in the spectrogram from the recorder near the carcass, the faint chorus howl originating two miles away is sandwiched between the brighter howls of the wolves at the carcass. Two wolves, especially one of them, and sometimes more, would always respond to the pack’s chorus howls. If you listen closely to the previous recording, you’ll notice one of them cracking its voice mid-howl. Was this last year’s pup still mastering its howl? Or was its mouth full of meat?
Back and forth they went, trading howls like letters from home. Just staying in touch.
And what about 1273M and 1393M? When the bison died, 1273M was seven miles east in Buffalo Ford (ironically), while 1393M had found the carcass on his return from the west to the rendezvous site. Around midnight on the 18th, 1273M heard a solo howl and turned back east, bypassing the rendezvous site and making straight for the carcass. This was the call that pulled him home.
After eating his fill, he headed east a couple of miles to the rendezvous site, where he might have regurgitated fresh meat for the pups. A wolf can hold up to 20 pounds of meat in its stomach, allowing them to gorge at a kill and later bring back sustenance for those who didn’t join the hunt. He then returned to the carcass to feed once more, only to make his way back to the rendezvous site again—perhaps to regurgitate more meat or at least to check on his packmates and the pups. With his duty done, he made another pass at the carcass before heading fifteen miles southeast, straight to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, not far from another place where I’ve cast flies since my youth. He was out scouting for his close social network’s next meal, always tending to the delicate balance of survival.
For now, 1393M holds the mantle of alpha male. But as Kira Cassidy of the Yellowstone Wolf Project told me, the average reign at the top of the pack hierarchy these days is just 2-3 years. Power in wolf packs, much like in human social networks, is a fleeting thing, always shifting with time and circumstance. Maybe one day, 1273M will get his turn. He’s come a long way from the reckless pup he once was, and if the past is any guide, he’s not one to shy away from a challenge.
Jeff T Reed
09.11.2024
[1] How well dogs (and even less so, wolves) can localize an incoming sound is not well understood. See A. L. A. Barber, A. Wilkinson, F. Montealegre-Z, V. F. Ratcliffe, K. Guo, and D. S. Mills, “A comparison of hearing and auditory functioning between dogs and humans,” Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, vol. 15, January 2020, p 83. In straight up comparisons to humans, dogs cannot localize as well as we can. But there are no studies of dogs as a proxy as to whether or not wolves’ muscular, flexible pinna can be positioned to help them localize sound. If it doesn’t improve their localization, we might expect them to also use their keen scent to find packmates who have howled to them at long distances. If you need me to find you, yell my name, but make sure you are wearing cologne…is one way to think about long-distance howling.