All the adults help feed the female and pups until they are old enough to be weaned, around 5 to 6 weeks. Each wolf has usually fought for its rank within the pack, sometimes resulting with an outcast, who lives on the outskirts of the pack, surviving off of left over scraps. Occasionally, there will be a lone wolf, one who doesn't roam with a pack. There is usually a reason for this, sometimes an older wolf will leave its pack when it can no longer carry its weight for the pack, sometimes one will sicken or slowly go blind, sometimes a young adult male has left his pack to start one of his own. A wolf's life expectancy in the wild is usually around 8 years, in captivity it can increase to 15 years or more.
Wolves play a very valuable role in our ecology.
By preying on weaker, sick and injured animals the wolf helps balance the population growth of other animals as well. Just ask any farmer who has been overrun by rabbits or other rodents, his crops close to destroyed, you'll probably find that all the wolves and coyotes in the area have been killed off or close to it. My next page contains the web rings that I belong to, these pages are the works of many web masters who worked very hard to bring you some of the most beautiful sites I've ever seen. It is easy to praise the beauty and mystery of the wolf, but we are going to lose this magnificent animal if we allow it. Please click on this wolves image to see how you can help make the difference.