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in october 2016 shortly before the u.s presidential election the washington post
released a video secretly recorded in 2005 of a private conversation between donald trump
and access hollywood host billy bush in a now infamous exchange trump explains to bush how
as a rich famous man women simply let him grab him by the in the face of the ensuing media frenzy
donald trump jr was quick to dismiss these words as merely locker room talk and two alpha guys in a
thing the idea of the alpha male is a pervasive one in modern society evoking a domineering
individual who fends off rivals and maintains their dominant position through aggression and
maneuvering the term is of course derived from the behavior of wolves whose packs are defined by a
strict hierarchy with the dominant breeding alphas at the top betas and gammas in the middle and
omegas at the bottom only no they aren't contrary to popular belief there is in fact no such thing
as an alpha wolf this idea being based on flawed observations of wolf behavior made over 50 years
ago since then researchers have discovered that wolf society is far more simple and peaceful than
previously believed but old ideas die hard and the concept of the alpha remains firmly lodged
in our popular consciousness despite a concerted effort by the man who popularized the term to set
the record straight many of the misconceptions regarding wolf behavior stem from the fact that
for much of recent history wild wolves have actually been relatively scarce having been
hunted to near extinction in much of western europe and north america as a result most early
research was performed on animals in captivity among the first to study wolf's society in detail
was the german behaviorist rudolf schenkel who observed a group of ten wolves in the basel
zoological garden in switzerland between 1934 and 1942. in his landmark paper expression studies in
wolves published in 1947 schenkel coined the term alpha to describe the breeding pair of wolves
that he observed dominating the rest of the pack according to schenkel by continuously controlling
and suppressing all types of competition within the same sex both alpha animals defend their
social position this position however was not fixed and could under certain circumstances
be taken over by other wolves in the pack who then became the new alphas meanwhile the other wolves
were denied breeding privileges and observed a strict hierarchy of dominance and submission
ranging from baiters who acted as deputies to the alphas down to lowly omegas who were often the
victim of bullying by the rest of the pack in 1970 american biologist david meck built upon shenkel's
ideas in his best-selling book the wolf ecology and behavior of an endangered species which was
largely responsible for cementing the term alpha wolf in the popular consciousness but in the
years since that book's publication researchers including mech himself have discovered that the
behavior evolves in captivity bears little resemblance to that of wolves in the wild in
hindsight this is hardly surprising given that the pack observed by schenkel was kept in an enclosure
barely 200 meters square and was composed of random individuals placed together with no means
of escape in the wild by contrast wolf packs are composed not of multiple adult wolves but rather a
breeding male and female and their offspring the younger wolves remain with the pack for one to
three years before heading off on their own in search of a mate these new breeding pairs then
form their own packs starting the process anew the structure of the group is not one of alphas and
betas constantly struggling for dominance but of two parents and their pups as david mack explains
thus calling a wolf at alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or
doe deer as an alpha any parent is dominant to its young offspring so alpha adds no information
why not refer to an alpha female as the female parent the breeding female the matriarch or
simply the mother such a designation emphasizes not the animal's dominant status which is trivial
information but its role as a pack progenitor which is critical information indeed the breeding
pair largely use their dominant positions for the benefit of the entire pack for example when the
adults kill a prey animal they will ensure that the youngest pups are fed first and contrary to
the popular image of the entire pack hunting as a unit in most cases it is the breeding pair who do
most of the hunting according to barbara zimmerman of the inland norway university of applied science
quote the pups are usually not involved the pups are not good at hunting themselves either so
they are pampered by the adults they probably learn a bit from watching their parents and they
may sometimes be on some hunts but it seems like they are very bad at hunting when they leave the
pack intergroup aggression when it occurs at all is mostly related to parents attempting to tame or
teach their unruly pups while non-violent displays of dominance and submission are
typically the cases of younger wolves begging food from older wolves in fact after studying a pack of
wolves on canada's azmere ireland for more than a decade david mack reported that dominance fights
with other wolves are rare if they exist at all during my 13 summers where i observed the pack
i saw none therefore the hierarchy of wild wolf packs hardly ever changes for the breeding pair
remain together for life while the older breeding age offspring can simply leave to form their
own packs all of this was suspected as far back as 1947 with rudolf schenkel speculating that wild
wolf packs consisted of a monogamous breeding pair and their pups but these ideas were ignored for at
the time conventional wisdom held that wolf packs were composed of assorted lone wolves who came
together in the winter to increase their hunting efficiency this is why groups of captive wolves
like the one studied by schenkel were considered representative of their wild brethren further
reinforcing the notion of alpha wolves and pack hierarchies was the phenomenon of pecking orders
among chickens first described in the 1920s by norwegian zoologist thor leaf shielderup
abba chairper observed that hens maintain social relations via packing and form strict hierarchies
where each hen will only act aggressively towards those below them in the pecking order according to
ann mueller gabrielson senior research librarian at the norwegian university of science and
technology quote the concept of the pecking order became very popular it had great influence on the
whole view of science at that time at least in research that had to do with living organisms
it was seen as an underlying dominance principle that structures society and behavior indeed the
pecking order behavior was often misattributed to roosters rather than hens reflecting the
dominant male-centric nature read in tooth and claw thinking of the biologists of the
time ironically while studies of captive wolves in the 1930s formed the basis for the traditional
alpha hierarchy model more recent observations in the 1960s and 1970s revealed that even these
groups do not behave as the theory would suggest according to david neck quote this view implies
that rank is innate or formed early and that some wolves are destined to rule the pack while others
are not contrary to this view i propose that all young wolves are potential breeders
and that when they do breed they automatically become alphas even in captive packs individuals
gain or lose alpha status so individual wolves do not have an inherent permanent social status
even though captive pups show physiological and behavioral differences related to current social
rank secondly wolves in captivity breed readily and i know of no mature captive individuals that
failed to breed when paired apart from a group as would be the case if there were inherently
low-ranking non-breeders however there is one place where wolves do behave somewhat according to
conventional alpha models but yellowstone national park wolves were reintroduced to yellowstone in
1995 after an absence of 65 years and consequently their social structures more closely resemble that
of captive animals than their wild european cousins unlike european wolves yellow stone
wolves hunt in large packs composed of multiple family groups with the breeding pairs observing an
alpha beta-style hierarchy however this hierarchy is nowhere near as rigid as the traditional model
would suggest and changes in leadership when they do occur are typically carried out peacefully for
example when one of the parents dies another may take its place and add its own pups to the group
in such cases a daughter from the new partner will sometimes take over for the original lead female
and breed with her stepfather certain pacts may temporarily adopt lone male wolves while
in larger packs where both the lead and younger females produce litters the younger females remain
subordinate to the lead female but retain control over their own pups such behavior is virtually
unknown in european wolf packs who typically chase away all unrelated outsiders in light of
these revelations david mack has worked tirelessly to overturn the misconceptions popularized by his
previous work writing numerous articles and trying to prevent the republication of his influential
1970 book unfortunately he was unsuccessful and the book remains in print to this day and despite
his and others efforts to set the record straight the notion of alpha wolves remains popular with
mack estimating that it will be another 20 years before the narrative begins to shift still there
has been some progress one area deeply influenced by the alpha wolf theories of schenkel and mech
was the field of dog training which originated in the military according to anne moller gabrielson
quote once the concept of the wolf and its strict hierarchy was established trainers were
more likely to use punishment it wasn't just that the dog was punished when it did something wrong
you had to show the dog that you were the alpha wolf all the time but most of what has been
published in books since 2000 is so-called positive training which is reward-based dog
training that uses the least possible punishment and no physical punishment so there has been a
very big change so in conclusion wolves are far more sophisticated and peaceful creatures than
many give them credit for and anyone who persists in referring to themselves as an alpha well i
direct you to the words of the great poet ingio montoya you keep using that word i do not think
it means what you think it means so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did
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