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Gray wolf field guide

Field Guide

Common nameGray wolf
Scientific nameCanis lupus
FamilyCanidae (Dog family)
SizeMales 5 to 6.5 ft long nose to tail tip, females 4.5 to 6 ft; 26 to 32 in at the shoulderU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)
WeightMales 70 to 115 lb, females 60 to 100 lb; Alaska males occasionally 145 lbU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)
LifespanUp to 13 years in the wild, 15 in captivity; Yellowstone average 4-5 yearsU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park
DietMainly medium and large hoofed mammals. Midwest: mainly white-tailed deer, also moose, beaver and snowshoe hare; Rocky Mountains: elk, deer, moose, bison and beaverU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Active whenMainly nocturnal; movements are usually at night and cover long distancesNatureServe Explorer · Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan
RangeLower 48: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and northern Washington's Cascades; tens of thousands in Canada and AlaskaU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · NatureServe Explorer
Conservation statusNatureServe global rank G5. US Endangered Species Act: threatened in Minnesota, endangered in most other lower-48 states; Northern Rocky Mountain population delistedNatureServe Explorer

Field Marks

Habitat

Behavior

Winter

Questions

How big is a gray wolf?

Adult males average 70 to 115 pounds and stand 26 to 32 inches at the shoulder. Yellowstone males average 110 pounds and females 90 pounds.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park

Is a wolf dangerous to people?

Aggressive behavior by wild wolves toward people is extremely rare; in Alaska and Canada there were 16 cases of non-rabid wolves biting people since 1970. Risk rises when wolves are habituated, for example by being fed.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

What should I do if I meet a wolf?

If a wolf comes close without fear or acts aggressively, do not run; raise and wave your arms to look larger and back away slowly without turning your back. Shout, make noise and throw objects at it.International Wolf Center

What does a wolf eat?

Mostly hoofed animals such as white-tailed deer, elk, moose and bison, plus beaver and snowshoe hare. A wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single meal, and may not eat for a week or more.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

How can I tell a wolf from a coyote?

A wolf is about twice a coyote's size, with short rounded ears and a broad, blocky muzzle. Its track is about 4.5 inches long; a coyote's is about 2.5 inches.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · International Wolf Center

Why do wolves howl?

Howling has many uses, including communication within the pack, advertising territory and coordinating social activities. Wolves howl to locate and rally pack members and to keep strangers away from territory, pups and kills.National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park · International Wolf Center

Why does a wolf urinate on stumps and snowbanks?

It is scent-marking: urine and scats tell outside wolves an area is occupied. Dominant wolves raise a leg and may mark every two minutes.International Wolf Center

Where do wolves have their pups?

Usually in a den dug into well-drained soil, sometimes a hollow log, cave or old beaver lodge. By mid- to late summer, at six to eight weeks old, pups are usually moved to rendezvous sites, usually near water.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)

Do wolves attack dogs?

In some situations, yes: wolves treat dogs straying into their territory as interlopers and may attack and kill them, especially near pups. Keep pets within sight, under voice control or on a leash in wolf country.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · International Wolf Center

How long do wolves live?

Wolves are known to live up to 13 years in the wild and 15 in captivity. In Yellowstone the average is 4-5 years, and the oldest wolf known there was 12.5.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks) · National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park

Clips

A gray wolf with a gray and cream face and amber eye bites the top of an orange pumpkin, one pale forepaw on the fruit, with grass and fallen leaves around it.Silas the gray wolf dismantles a pumpkinA dark-coated gray wolf with a pale eye and snow flecks in its fur stands in snow close to the lens, head turned aside and enlarged by the wide angle, with snowy conifers behind and patterned purple border bands above and below.Gray wolf fills a 360 lens in Yellowstone snowA dark gray wolf with a pale muzzle and throat lies in thin snow with his chest raised and forepaws out in front, head thrown back and mouth open in a howl beneath low branches.Snow falls on a dark gray wolf in full howlA dark wolf with a pale chest patch and frost on its muzzle stands facing the camera on a snow-packed road at night, eyes shining, a plowed snowbank to its right.Gray wolf faces the light on a Yellowstone roadA gray wolf with a dark grizzled back sniffs a brown scrap of bone or hide on the snow, a second wolf in the left foreground and a third wolf with a green ear tag peering from behind.Gray wolf pack stops to sniff the snowA grizzled gray wolf stands in profile with its mouth open as a white wolf lies beneath it on bark mulch, muzzle raised and mouth open, green and yellow trees behind.Two gray wolves howl together on an autumn dayA reddish-tan gray wolf grizzled with gray and black walks left across open snow with its head low, a stick lying in the snow ahead of it, a line of conifers behind, light snow falling and the flank of a second wolf at the left edge.Canadian gray wolves deep in rival territoryA grizzled gray-brown wolf stands side-on on a snowy shore with its nose pushed into the snow, water skimmed with new ice and snowy conifers behind, the flank of a second wolf at the right edge.Cranberry Bay gray wolves on a freezing shoreClose-up of a gray wolf from head to forelegs, dark grizzled face with upright ears and a black nose, turned slightly right against snow and bare saplings.Gray wolf noses a trail camera in Minnesota snowA black wolf with a small white chest patch stands side-on in green grass with its head turned to the camera, a spruce and red, orange and yellow fall brush behind it.Black wolf pauses amid Minnesota fall colorsClose-up of a nearly white gray wolf in profile facing right, one amber eye showing, snow clumped in the thick fur of its neck, with part of a black headline cut off at the right edge.Nearly white gray wolf claims Hayden ValleyA dark gray wolf stretches its open muzzle up to the gloved hand of a woman in a green knit hat, black vest over a tan hooded jacket and jeans, the hindquarters of a paler wolf in the left foreground, on snowy ground among pale tree trunks, with part of a website address across the bottom.Gray wolf reaches up to its keeper in fresh snowA tawny gray wolf with a blood-stained muzzle, cheeks and throat and a small blue tag in one ear stands on snow with its head lowered, dry grass and conifers behind it.Blood-faced gray wolf sniffs snow after a killA pale wolf stands with its head thrown back, howling, at the edge of conifers above a snowy slope with fallen logs, a dark brown wolf walking at the left.Pale gray wolf howls at dawn in YellowstoneClose-up of a gray wolf's face at the camera lens, amber eyes and dark nose, snow on its brow and muzzle, with snowy ground and bare trees behind.Snow-dusted gray wolf stares into a trail cameraA gray wolf with snow on its head and back lies in the snow, muzzle pointed at the sky and jaws open mid-howl, in front of bare winter brush.Snow-dusted gray wolf tips his head back to howlA fuzzy gray-brown wolf pup on dead leaves among bare trunks and a few young conifers tips its head back, eyes half shut and mouth open in a howl.Gray wolf pup tries out its first howlsA gray wolf with snow on its muzzle steps toward the camera through deep snow, one forepaw reaching forward in a spray of powder.Gray wolf wading through deep Yellowstone snowA tawny, gray-backed wolf lunges head-down through deep snow at a small dark beaver, its snow-caked tail straight out behind, with snow-dusted bare trees and young conifers beyond and the words Captures Beaver! printed across the frame above.Gray wolf catches a beaver in deep snowA grizzled gray and tan wolf lies curled in deep sunlit snow with her head up, eyes half closed, ears raised and one front paw showing at the lower left.Mexican gray wolf curled up in a snow nestA tawny-gray wolf faces the camera on patchy snow and dry grass, head lowered and front legs splayed wide with one forepaw lifted, its eyes fixed on the lens, conifers behind.Gray wolves play-bow and leap at trail cameras

Ambassador wolf Silas lies in the grass at the Wolf Conservation Center with his jaws clamped on a scraped orange pumpkin, a fall treat, and broken pieces in front of him.

In snowy Greater Yellowstone, wolves walk right up to a 360 camera, look it over, then set about gnawing it.

Zephyr, a captive-born black wolf in South Salem, New York, lies in falling snow and howls up through the low branches while at least one other wolf joins in.

A lone gray wolf stands on the snowy edge of a Yellowstone road at night and stares straight back into the light.

The Cranberry Bay Pack, seven strong in early December 2021, stops nose-down in the snow in front of a trail camera in Voyageurs.

On a clear autumn day at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York, ambassador wolves Silas and Nikai howl together, Nikai lying down and Silas standing over the white wolf.

On New Year's Day the mostly Canadian Blackstone Pack crosses open snow deep inside the Listening Point Pack's territory on the Kabetogama Peninsula, one of seven documented excursions into the study area that fall and winter.

At freeze-up in a remote part of Voyageurs National Park, the entire Cranberry Bay Pack, tagged breeding pair and this year's pups, passes one trail camera together.

On a snowy trail in northern Minnesota, the Blackstone Pack, the largest pack in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem in the winter of 2025-26, files past a trail camera and stops to nibble it.

In the Windsong Pack's territory in northern Minnesota, a black wolf with a white chest blaze, almost certainly a lone wolf, stops in daylight among the fall colors.

In Yellowstone's Hayden Valley, a nearly white female gray wolf and her pale gray mate howl into silence, find no rival pack and raise one of their own.

At the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, a dark gray wolf reaches up to its keeper's gloved hand in fresh snow while a paler wolf pads past.

A Bowman Bay Pack gray wolf, its face red from a fresh deer kill, noses the snow at a remote camera in northern Minnesota while the pack's breeding pair rests behind.

A pale gray wolf of the Wapiti Pack throws its head back and howls on a snowy Yellowstone hillside at dawn, a dark packmate behind it.

Wolves of the Blackstone Pack take turns at a winter trail camera, sniffing and licking the lens until the frame is mostly fur and snow.

Zephyr, a captive-born ambassador wolf in South Salem, New York, howls from the snow while a second wolf answers out of sight.

A four-week-old gray wolf pup in the Minnesota Northwoods stands in the leaf litter and belts out some of its first howls, loud enough to overwhelm the microphone.

In winter 2018 a snow-frosted gray wolf wades a deep Yellowstone drift, and spotters with scopes pick out a pack of six blacks, a white and at least one gray on a ridge two miles off.

On an open snowbound flat below winter woods, a gray wolf lunges through deep powder by daylight and catches a small beaver in front of a trail camera.

Jean, a Mexican gray wolf at the Wolf Conservation Center, lies curled in a snow hollow on a winter day until a crow's call lifts her head.

Wolves in snowy northern Minnesota play-bow, hop and leap at the Voyageurs Wolf Project's trail cameras, and some step in close to sniff the lens.

Sources

  1. Canis lupus (gray wolf), Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan
  2. YS 24-1 Yellowstone Wolf Facts, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park
  3. Wolf Ecology, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park
  4. Gray Wolf (Canis lupus), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
  5. Canis lupus, Gray Wolf, NatureServe Explorer
  6. Gray Wolf Biology Questions and Answers (Nov 2006), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks)
  7. How do wolves communicate?, International Wolf Center
  8. Living with Wolves, International Wolf Center
  9. Wolf Families, International Wolf Center
  10. Was that a wolf?, International Wolf Center
  11. Wild Kids, Spring 2019: Paws and Effect, International Wolf Center
  12. Denali: Just Chilling (Wolf Log), International Wolf Center
  13. Winter Wolves, Voyageurs Wolf Project, University of Minnesota
  14. About the Project, Voyageurs Wolf Project, University of Minnesota
  15. Gray wolves, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources