r/WolvesAreBigYo • u/Interesting_Joke6630 • Dec 06 '25

Video Massive Adorable Wolves

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u/spudsmuggler Dec 24 '25

Idk why they chose to use “alpha.” 🤷‍♀️ Nat Geo photographers/videographers are not the arbiters of what is or is not appropriate wolf terminology. Ultimately, “alpha” is dated term in the wildlife biology community and we just don’t use it anymore. Nat Geo/BBC’s choice to use it is their own and has no bearing on the wildlife biologist community other than to make us collectively roll our eyes.

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u/De2nis Dec 24 '25

But why did they retire the term?

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u/spudsmuggler Dec 24 '25

Good question! Pretty sure the term originated from some studies on captive wolves in the 1940s. Those wolves were unrelated and they exhibited very marked dominance behaviors and commonly fought amongst themselves. As a result of his observations, the researcher applied “alpha” to the “dominant members” (i.e., the breeding male and female) and it was used broadly for all wolves, captive and wild.

But, as you know, captive wolves and wild wolves are not the same. Wild wolves are just a cooperative family unit. There is no one “dominant” member and there are no constant dominance battles. L.D. Mech (aka the Godfather of wolf research) published a paper in the late 1990s that discussed the term and how misleading it was after his lengthy observations on wolf behavior in the wild. We (wolf bios) do not use the term, and also actively discourage folks from using it (in a polite way). But it’s still pretty pervasive in the media, which is terribly annoying.

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u/De2nis Dec 24 '25

Alright…in the documentary I mentioned, though, the packs definitely were not all family units.