An average of six pups are born 63 days later. The pups are born blind and helpless, usually in a sheltered place such as a hole, rock crevice, hollow log, or overturned stump. The teeth of a wolf are designed to tear and cut large chunks of meat and to crush and crack bone. As predators , it is usually the young, old, sick, injured, and crippled animals that wolves remove from the surrounding animal populations. The removal of these animals increases the amount of food, space, and cover for the remaining animals.
Wolves communicate with each other in a great variety of ways.
They position themselves in various poses to indicate aggression or subservience. They whimper, growl, and make other sounds in response to pleasure, fear, or pain. The ears may be erect or flattened against the head and the tail wagged or held stiff depending on the wolf's mood or specific situation. Howling is the most commonly recognized wolf sound. Wolves howl for many reasons like to assemble the pack before and after a hunt, to advertising territory or to identify individuals, and, perhaps, to just howl.