Fighting logistic questions

[Frodo1]

Hey,
I'm not quite sure where to put this... lol. So if this is in the wrong place, sorry!

I know wolves avoid fighting if at all possible, and I have seen some topics about fighting in specific circumstances, but none of them really get into the details of fighting. How do wolves fight? Are there specific strategies that they use (i.e. what vital points do they target, do they try to get an advantageous position, etc.). If anyone has good reference videos or photos of wolves fighting, that would be extremely helpful! (dominance skirmishes are okay, but footage of wolves engaged in actual serious fights would be even better)

I ask because I'm preparing to start an animation for a college class, and part of the animation centers around a fight between two wolves. So I really need to know the nitty-gritty of how wolves fight in the rare event that they actually do get into a serious skirmish. The "why" of the fight isn't important in the situation because I already know it (it's not totally realistic but I plan on putting a note about that if I ever post it anywhere ) but when it comes down to the actual fight and the actual moves that are used and suchnot, I want it to be as realistic as absolutely possible. And fyi this is a serious battle, not just a dominance struggle, and one wolf is the aggressor while the other is fighting for his life. If that helps any.

I did search for threads but couldn't narrow the results down very well and I think my search is spazzing at the moment too, so sorry if this is a duplicate thread...

Thanks in advance!

[La Striata]

Fragment from http://www.wolfsongnews.org/news/Alaska ... _3015.html

The latest brawl occurred in October between the Clear Creek Butte and Tatlanika packs. Judging from what he can piece together from his tracking flights, the Tatlanika Pack traveled more than 40 miles out of its territory to end up where it did.

The alpha male and female in the Clear Creek Butte Pack, both of which were wearing radio collars, were killed in the fight, Gardner said. While it's impossible to say how many wolves were killed in the fight, it appeared both packs suffered significant losses. There are six wolves unaccounted for in the Tatlanika Pack, Gardner said.

"All we know is they left with 15 wolves three or four days before the fight and they came home with nine," Gardner said of the Tatlanika Pack.

The Clear Creek Butte pack, meanwhile, had decreased from 13 to nine wolves, he said.

"It looks like a bomb went off in both of them," the biologist said. "I've never seen it where it looked like a hockey fight. It looked like they all just dropped their gloves and went at it."

Bite to kill

More often than not, it's the alpha males or females that are killed "because they're the ones out front doing the fighting," Meier said.

Danny Grangaard, a former wildlife technician for the Department of Fish and Game in Tok who is considered one of the state's most expert wolf trappers, agreed.

"You rarely see anything but the dominant male or female dead," he said.

Big wolf packs pick fights more than smaller packs, too, Grangaard said.

"When you get a big pack they're a lot more aggressive than a small pack," he said.

Big packs have more big wolves and it's typically the big males that do much of the fighting, Grangaard said.

"If you've got a small pack, you won't have two big males," he said. "But if you get a pack of 16 or 17, there's going to be two or three 120- or 130-pound males."

Typically, wolves that are killed in fights are not torn to shreds.

"They're not all ripped apart, but if you skin them there's all kinds of hemorrhaging (from bite marks)," Meier said.

Both Meier and Grangaard have found dead wolves with teeth holes in their skulls as a result of fights. Nearly all the male wolves Grangaard has found dead from fights have holes in their skulls from canine teeth.

"It's always just one bite in the head and a skull fracture," he said. "There ain't no bite marks on the necks or shoulders.

"Their intention is to kill, not get in a fight," Grangaard said. "When they bite, it's some place that's going to do damage."

Grangaard has come across the aftermath of several wolf fights over the years, both while trapping wolves and tracking them for the Department of Fish and Game. The fights don't appear to last long, he said.

"You look at the tracks in snow and I'll bet that fight lasts two minutes," Grangaard said. "There's very few tracks and a wolf laying there dead."

Also, check out this video at around 1:20


The aggressor is clearly trying to bite its victim's head.

[Frodo1]

Thanks, La Striata! This will be very helpful

Still wanna keep this open in case anyone else has more videos or whatever to contribute, but this is definitely a good start