In the Field

Sucking Up to the Boss? Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

If you like watching dogs interact with each other after a separation, you'd just LOVE to watch wolves do the same thing when they re-unite! In this shot the male wolf on the right had just returned to the family (AKA pack) after a shoreline excursion. The wolf that is currently "licking up" to him (as this behaviour is usually referred to) was also away and returned to the group minutes after the adult male. As soon as they got together this "licking up" occurred.

So what's actually going on here? The "licking up" behaviour you're seeing here has its origins when a wolf is a pup - and then it normally is used when the pups are begging for food from an adult. If the wolf is carrying a belly full of food it can - and often does - trigger the adult to regurgitate its food (which the pups quickly "wolf down"). The wolf licking up here is NOT a pup of the year - it definitely was smaller than the adult male and I think it's likely to be a pup from the previous year. This wolf was also very playful and played with four pups of the year in front of us (further suggesting it was younger than the less playful adults).

So...was it simply doing the pup thing and begging for food? It's possible. But, this "licking up" behaviour is also thought to turn into a "signal of subordinance/submission" to older and more mature wolves. Note that these two motivations for the "licking up" behaviour (begging for food vs. signal subordinance) needn't be fully mutually exclusive - I personally have little doubt that if the adult male had regurgitated some food this young wolf wouldn't have hesitated to wolf it down! While we as humans like nice, tidy stories, nature tends to be more nuanced and wildlife tends to do what works at the time, rather than what textbooks say!

To complete the picture - who's the wolf on the left? It's an adult female and very likely the mate of the adult male who is staring directly at us in this image. And it's very likely the mom of the wolf performing the "licking up" display.

During our time with these wolves we saw a total of 7 individuals - 4 pups of the year, and the 3 adults shown here. I also spent a few days with these wolves 3 weeks later, and then we saw only 6 wolves - the same 3 adults plus 3 pups. While it's possible the 4th pup was simply out of view "doing something" behind a rock or in the forest, given the amount of quality time we spent with the wolves during our second encounter with them, I think it's more likely the 4th pup hadn't survived and the pack was down to 6. Hopefully I'm wrong!

Here's a larger version (4800 pixel) of wolfie threesome:

• Sucking Up to the Boss? Download 4800 pixel image (JPEG: 7.7 MB)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. These images - in all resolutions - are protected by copyright. I'm fine with personal uses of them (including use as desktop backgrounds or screensavers on your own computer), but unauthorized commercial use of the image is prohibited by law. Thanks in advance for respecting my copyright!

2. Like all photographs on this website, these images were captured following the strict ethical guidelines described in The Wildlife FIRST! Principles of Photographer Conduct. As such, no baiting or any form of attractant was used and, as always, we attempted to minimize our impact on the ongoing behaviour of the subjects. I strongly encourage all wildlife photographers to always put the welfare of their subjects above the value of their photographs.

3. This image was captured during my Summer in the Southern Great Bear Exploratory Photo Adventure in late August of 2024. Each year I offer trips into the Great Bear Rainforest as well as tours into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary (to photograph grizzlies, of course!). Details about these trips can be found on the Photo Tours page of this website.

Behind the Camera

Sucking Up to the Boss? Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

High Efficiency* Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 4000.

Nikon Z9 paired with Z Nikkor 800mm f6.3S. Hand-held from a floating Zodiac inflatable boat. VR on in Sport mode. 3D-tracking AF area mode with subject detection on "Birds" mode.

1/1250s @ f6.3; no compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Sucking Up to the Boss? Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

Initial noise reduction and capture sharpening on the .nef (raw) file using the DeepPRIME XD2S algorithm of DXO PhotoLab 8.1 Elite (using the appropriate lens/camera optical module).

Subsequent adjustments to the adjusted linear DNG file (exported from PhotoLab) and conversion to 16-bit TIFF file (and JPEG files for web use) - including all global and selective adjustments - made using Phase One's Capture One Pro (build 16.4.6). In the case of this image there were 3 global adjustments made: a slight tweak to overall contrast (using the Levels tool), a very slight reduction to the highlights, and a small bumping up of midtone exposure (brightness). Selective local adjustments performed using Capture One Pro's layers and masking tools. In this case numerous small adjustments and minor tweaks were made on 3 separate layers, with the tweaks being associated with "exposure balancing" and contrast adjustments (such as very minor and highly targeted adjustments to brightness, clarity, highlights, shadows, etc.).

Photoshop modifications included insertion of the watermark and/or text.

Conservation

Sucking Up to the Boss? Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

Species Status in Canada*: Only Eastern Wolf listed as species of "Special Concern" in May, 2001. Other populations not listed as Endangered or Threatened.

Probably no species alive today has suffered as much direct persecution from humans as has the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus). Once extremely widespread in North America, the Gray Wolf was virtually extirpated from the contiguous 48 states of America and now is regularly found within only a fraction of its historical range in Canada. While the Gray Wolf is currently listed as endangered in most of the 48 lower states of the United States and enjoys the privileges associated with such status (if lack of persecution and abuse can be thought of as a privilege), it is still official policy in much of Canada to rid the countryside of this magnificent keystone predator. As an example, in British Columbia, there is NO closed season on the wolf in most hunting jurisdictions and opportunistic slaughter is encouraged by policy (it is the ONLY fur-bearing species for which NO species hunting tag is required in British Columbia!). Conservation of wolves presents a puzzling paradox. Reduced to the most basic principles, wolf conservation is simplistic: we need only to stop persecuting this species in order for it to survive. Yet accomplishing this invariably proves incredibly difficult - it's as though wolf persecution has been institutionalized directly into government (and societal) bureaucracy.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada