In our observation, one female eliminated the competition, placing herself, for all intents and purposes, as the only choice for the alpha male to make. To say that the alpha male chooses his mate is really an over-simplification. The males are comparatively laid back, sorting out their status through threats and bluff. It is a brutal competition for the right to pass on one’s genes. Unfortunately, the competition for the alpha female is not one of those things. There are plenty of wonderful things to say about wolves, about the way they communicate and care for each other. It was as if Chemukh knew that the stakes were high and that she had to improve her status as quickly as possible. Even Amani, whose dominance over Lakota was most severe, never behaved in this way. She would throw herself in to the middle of the fray, grab hold of Lakota’s thigh and shake her head violently. Chemukh suddenly began to push her way into the act and changed all that. There was always a lot of growling and flashing of fangs. Chemukh, on the other hand, was dead serious. Wyakin seemed completely confused by Chemukh’s sudden aggression, for although she had been the more dominant of the two, her overall disposition was really quite sweet and gentle. Her competitive instinct kicked into high gear, and she decided that it was time to assert herself. In the first few weeks of 1996, she was still a timid little wolf, the last to eat and the first to be picked on.Īs January came to a close, things changed abruptly, as though a switch had been flipped inside Chemukh’s head. In fact, Chemukh was so shy and submissive and was having such a difficult time assimilating into the pack that we thought she would more than likely assume the omega female position. As a pup, she had always dominated Chemukh and continued to do so into the winter of their second year. Jamie and I had always believed that Wyakin, Chemukh’s littermate, was a shoo-in for alpha female. After about five minutes, her name was simplified to Chemukh. Thus Chemukh-Chemukh Ayet was the closest thing to Black Lassie we could come up with. Colors in the Nez Perce language are repeated, thus the word for black is chemukh-chemukh. Our small crew began calling her “Black Lassie.” It was not the kind of name that stirred the imagination, but we did our best to accommodate them. Most of the names came easily, based on behavior or appearance, but there was a little black female that was a bit more difficult to name. Of course, we never made any attempt to teach the wolves their names we used them only as a means to tell them apart amongst ourselves.
0 kommentar(er)
