TIMBER WOLF FULL

Wolves in captivity require an enclosure which allows them to express their natural behaviours.

TIMBER WOLF FULL

Depending on the quality of habitat, the juveniles may leave the pack from as early as 12 months or as late as full maturity at roughly 22 months of age. Pups will remain in the den with their mother until they are 5 weeks of age, when they’ll be weaned by the mother and then reared by the entire wolf pack. The pups are born blind and deaf, gaining their sight and hearing within a week. An alpha female can have a litter of up to 11 pups (the average is 6), born in the den after a gestation of 63 days. When a female comes into estrus she will bleed for up to 14 days and the pair will mate 2 - 3 times a day. Wolves will generally reach sexual maturity around 2 – 3 years of age. All members of a pack will help to defend the territory, travelling together in single file along set routes at least once a month. This can increase depending on the number of individuals in the pack and the quality of habitat. Packs can ‘own’ territories of up to 5,200 square miles. When a female gives birth to a litter of pups, other females in the group bring food back to the den. A pack will look out for each individual, for the benefit of the whole pack, travelling miles in seach of food. A wolf pack can be up to 12 individual members, all controlled by the alpha male and female. They are social animals, communicating with other members of the pack with howls, barks, growls and whines.

Wolves will live, hunt and travel as a pack. Wolves have the ability to smell prey before they can see it, from more than a mile away if the wind is right. They use their sense of smell to locate prey. The wolf’s sense of smell is around 100 times better than that of a human. The last molars are used for grinding and pulverizing the food prior to digestion. The last premolars in the upper jaw and first molars in the lower jaw, also know as the carnassials are especially designed to slice and shear flesh. The premolars and molars are used for slicing and grinding meat. These are used to pierce into the flesh to hold their prey. The largest teeth are the canines, which can reach almost two and a quarter inches in length. The incisors at the front of the jaw are used to cut the flesh of their prey. Wolves have a total of 42 teeth, of which 40 of them will help secure their prey when hunting. Their underfur keeps the wolf warm in the cold months and is shed in summer. The guard hairs can be as long as four inches and works to help shed moisture like a raincoat. The wolf has a double coat of fur long guard hairs on top and a layer of soft insulating underfur. Males tend to be up to 20% bigger and heavier compared to females.ĭespite the name ‘grey wolf’ the timber wolf’s coat can actually range from white, brown, black to grey in colour.

Timber wolf