What a contrast is this image of the wolf with that of common legend and myth. Few of us left childhood behind without hearing the tales of Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs, with the malicious and conniving wolf menacing the innocent little girl and fearful swine. But we also heard of the Roman twins, Romulus and Remus, who, the story goes, were adopted and reared by wolves. Even today, conflicting feelings abound when the gray wolf (Canis lupus), also called the timber or tundra wolf, is mentioned. To understand this creature requires a willingness to part with legend and prejudice and open our minds to evidence and new ideas.

To many of us, the wolf’s most endearing feature is its resemblance to our pet dogs, which are descendants of domesticated wolves. This taming of wolves for domestic use is believed to have happened at least 12,000 years ago in the Near East. Dogs have been in North America for over 10,000 years.

Domestic dogs have been selectively bred to almost every imaginable shape and size, while wolves have evolved in form and society to become one of the predominant northern predators of large mammals. Their physiological adaptations for a meat-eating lifestyle are many. Canine teeth are perfect for puncturing and slashing flesh, molars and premolars aid in tearing and shearing meat, with rear molars capable of cracking and crushing bones. Wolves have large, simple stomachs, less important for food digestion than for food storage. To take advantage of unpredictable meals, a wolf’s stomach may allow the animal to eat as much as 20 pounds of meat in one feeding. A wolf has a relatively large liver, where secreted bile lubricates food and begins digesting fats. The wolf’s real digestion workhorse is the small intestine, up to 18 feet long, where all but the prey’s hair, hide, teeth, and heavy bones are absorbed. Digestion takes but a few hours, allowing the wolf to feast several times daily. During contrasting times of famine, wolves may endure a forced fast up to two weeks while traveling in search of likely prey.

The most common wolf prey are white-tailed and mule deer, moose, caribou, elk, Dall and bighorn sheep, and beaver, although in selected areas wolves also take on bison and musk-ox. Nearly all prey items are large and well capable of self-preservation when healthy. The wolf occupies its niche as one of nature’s premiere predators because of its size, its habit of living and hunting in packs, and its ability to quickly consume and digest a lot of food. The gray wolf is the largest member of the canine family. Males average 95 to 100 pounds, females 80 to 85. The heaviest wolf ever recorded was an animal from east-central Alaska that weighed 175 pounds. Females are 4 1/2 to 6 feet long; male body length ranges from 5 to 6 1/2 feet, figures comparable to human height. A wolf’s long legs aid in deep snow travels. Wolves can maintain a chase for as long as 20 minutes at a pace of 25 miles per hour, although many prey animals are "tested" with short chases.

Wolf packs have long intrigued us. Lengthy studies by David Mech and others have unraveled some of the mysteries of this complex and efficient society. Males and females within a pack are governed by separate pecking orders. Social status can be established when wolves are as young as 30 days of age. The alpha male is the pack’s leader. Typically the largest male, he governs such activities as hunting, resting, and waking and takes responsibility for guarding the pack. Both females and most males within a pack are dominated by the alpha female, who is usually the pack’s only mated female.

Another fascinating and mysterious facet of wolf behavior is howling. Howling's main function is believed to be to reassemble the pack, such as after chasing prey. Howling and loneliness may be related, since captive wolf pups with little company tend to howl at an early age. A pack may howl together for one to two minutes, followed by a twenty-minute period when they do not howl. The waiting period may allow packs to listen for other wolves howlings to learn their locations.

A pack’s hierarchy is established and maintained with a complex set of subtle and overt displays. Submissive acts are frequently shown by all but the alpha male and female. This constant affirmation of pack society lends stability and harmony to the group. A well-established pack, which usually numbers seven animal or less, is generally stable until the alpha male dies or is weakened by age, illness, or injury.

Studies of wolf social development have underscored the critical nature of pack formation. A female gives birth to four to seven pups in an underground den, a cave, or a hollow tree base near water, an important need for the nursing mother. From the time the pups are about three weeks of age, the female and her pups have daily contact with other pack members, a bonding that builds and maintains strong emotional ties. At four weeks, pups are eating regurgitated food, which is thought to be supplied by all pack members. By twelve weeks, the pups have lost much of their ability to form new social bonds, reinforcing emotional ties and unity within the pack. Pups begin traveling with the pack at about seven months of age, by which time they have almost no capability of forming new emotional bonds, not only further unifying the pack but making this group separate and distinct from other packs and lone wolves.

A unified pack is critical when hunting prey as large as elk and caribou and as fleet of foot as mulies and whitetails. Studies have reinforced the assertion that wolves prey most heavily on inferior or vulnerable prey. Vulnerable animals include the newborn, wounded, old or crippled; animals with inferior senses; and animals caught off-guard. Wolves are constantly alert for a chance at their next kill, located by scenting and tracking prey or by a chance meeting. After stalking selected prey comes the encounter, where the quarry typically stands its ground or flees. A critical component of the hunt's success is rushing the prey, followed by the chase. Most chases end soon after they begin, since wolves won't waste energy in pursuit of able-bodied prey. Once wolves catch up to an animal, the prey is approached carefully, since even weak anaimals can deliver deadly blows with their hoofs. Wolves don't hamstring prey, as some believe, but typically attack the rump, flanks, shoulders, neck, or nose.

Wolves waste little if any meat from a kill, which is visited until consumed. Scavenging foxes, coyotes, crows, jays, and eagles benefit from wolf kills. Ravens not only follow wolves by sight, but also track them to find kill remains. No time is wasted before wolves begin searching for their next prey, since vulnerable animals are scarce and the pack strives to remain well-fed and healthy.

Besides killing individual animals, what else results from wolf predation? All wild animal populations are limited by their available habitat and affected by the health of their breeders. Wolves take wild prey animals that are inferior in some way and older animals that have low reproductive value, both of which contribute to a healthier prey population. If prey populations are too abundant, reduction by wolves can help the prey's habitat recover, also contributing to a healthier prey population.

During the one to two million years wolves have ranged over the Northern Hemisphere, their predation has influenced prey species to evolve attributes that help them avoid being killed by wolves. Many wildlife researchers believe that such characteristics as the musk-ox rump-to-rump defensive formation, the swiftness of deer, and the agility of mountain sheep were selectively favored as these species survived and evolved in the face of wolf predation.

In contrast to wild animals, domestic animals such as livestock have mostly lost such predator-avoidance attributes as vigilance and speed, since they have been selectively bred for traits that enhance production. As North America was settled, wolf extermination began, presumably to make the way safe for people and livestock. The extermination campaign, frequently waged by federal trappers with snares, steel traps, poisons, and aerial hunting, was so successful the gray wolf was reduced from ranging throughout most of the continent to remain only in Canada, Alaska, and a few scattered sites in the United States.

Wolves were considered common and widespread on the Great Plains and in the Black Hills. In fact, as long as wolves occupied the Black Hills, coyotes did not expand into the region. A combination of the loss of bison as a food source, trapping, and poisoning eliminated the wolf as a member of South Dakota's fauna. By the early 1920s, few wolves remained. Among the survivors was the infamous "Custer Wolf", which roamed a 40- to 60-mile area around Custer for 7 years, despite a $500 bounty for its scalp. Wolf bounties have been paid for 2700 years worldwide; since 1630 in the U.S. Although politically popular, bounties are considered wasteful and ineffective at controlling predator populations, since bounties usually simply replace natural mortality factors.

Do wolves pose a direct threat to people? Despite many claims to the contrary, the answer is no. Several investigators have tried to verify reports of wolf attacks on people. Virtually all such reports have been found to be untrue or to involve rabid wolves. North America, for example, has only one documented case of an attack on a human. The attack occurred in Canada and, based on the animal's behavior, the wolf is believed to have been rabid. The human risk from rabid wolves can be put in perspective when considering that we do not advocate eliminating domestic dogs because of the few that are rabid. A specific example of a prime site for wolf-human interaction is Algonquin National Park in Ontario. This park hosts one of the world's largest wolf populations and receives extensive recreational use, yet the park has never had a wolf attack.

Attitudes have changed about the importance of maintaining all of nature's parts, rather than only those that provide easily-obtained human benefits. The wolf has profited from this attitude evolution. The gray wolf is now protected throughout the lower 48 states as an endangered species, except in Minnesota, where is has a threatened status. The wolf is also protected in South Dakota by a state law that prohibits hunting, killing, and capturing wolves unless an animal poses a public health or safety threat. Wolves have slowly trickled into the state in recent years from Minnesota. According to records of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, five wolves have been confirmed in South Dakota in the past decade - confirmed because all five were shot after being mistaken for coyotes.

To allay fears that endangered wolves will destroy South Dakota livestock at will, three government agencies - the Game, Fish and Parks Department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture - have developed a plan to responsibly deal with wolves that kill livestock. Wolves are still protected by both state and federal law in South Dakota, but the wolf contingency plan will hopefully relieve landowner fears that wolves will pose a threat to their livelihood.