Monts de Gueret Animal Park
The wolf pack howls on average for 85 seconds. It is usually started by a single wolf, after which other wolves may join in. The pack leader, the alpha wolf, usually uses a lower-pitched howl and howls more frequently than wolves standing on the lower rungs of the pack's hierarchy. Although some functions of the howling are still unknown by scientists, they believe that wolves may howl to scare off other wolf packs from their territory and to gather their own pack, as wolves possess perfect hearing and their howling can be heard for up to in the forest and in open space. Researchers have found a relationship between the number of times a wolf howls and the strength of their relationship with other pack members. According to Friederike Range, co-director of the University of Vienna's Wolf Science Center, "the strength of the relationship between wolves predicted how many times a wolf howled."
Wolf
Large wolf populations limit the numbers of small to medium-sized felines. Wolves encounter cougars along portions of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent mountain ranges. Wolves and cougars typically avoid encountering each other by hunting on different elevations. In winter, however, when snow accumulation forces their prey into valleys, interactions between the two species become more likely. Wolves in packs usually dominate cougars and can steal kills. They have been reported killing mothers and their kittens. Wolves hunt steppe cats, and may scavenge from snow leopard kills. Wolves may also reduce Eurasian lynx populations. Wolves may kill lynxes by running them down, or killing them before they can escape into trees. Similar reports of encounters between wolves and bobcats have been documented.