Kirjahaku

A stunningly illustrated exploration of the lives of wolves around the world Hunted to near extinction, wolves evoke a sense of our planet’s dwindling wildernesses. Rather than fear them, we should better understand the crucial role they play in ecosystems throughout the world. This engaging, fact-filled book shares insights into the family histories, relationships, and significant life challenges of wolves while linking them to broader questions about wildlife conservation and management. Written by a world-renowned expert in wolf behavior and reintroduction, Wolf: The Illustrated Biography offers a unique perspective on these charismatic animals, charting the life stories of wolves in all their diversity and complexity. Profiles wolves from North America, Europe, and Asia, describing their key characteristics, habitats, distinguishing features, common prey, and distinctive behaviors Discusses evolutionary history, biology, ecology, taxonomy, and past and current geographical distribution Covers key stages in the lives of wolves, from pregnancy and den building to birth and adolescence, play fights and learning to hunt, traveling with and leaving the pack, social hierarchy and bonds within packs, communication, territoriality, and more Emphasizes the leadership role of alpha females in the everyday life of the pack Explores the complex relationship between wolves and humans throughout history Considers the prospects for wolf populations in an age of accelerating environmental degradation

The interactions between apex predators and their prey are some of the most awesome and meaningful in nature - displays of strength, endurance, and a deep coevolutionary history. And there is perhaps no apex predator more impressive and important in its hunting - or more infamous, more misjudged - than the wolf. Because of wolves' habitat, speed, and general success at evading humans, researchers have faced great obstacles in studying their natural hunting behaviors. The first book to focus explicitly on wolf hunting of wild prey, Wolves on the Hunt seeks to remedy these gaps in our knowledge and understanding. Combining behavioral data, thousands of hours of original field observations, research in the literature, a wealth of illustrations, and - in the e-book edition and online - video segments, the authors create a compelling and complex picture of these hunters. The wolf is indeed an adept killer, able to take down prey much larger than itself. While adapted to hunt primarily hoofed animals, a wolf - or especially a pack of wolves - can kill individuals of just about any species. But even as wolves help drive the underlying rhythms of the ecosystems they inhabit, their evolutionary prowess comes at a cost: wolves spend one third of their time hunting - the most time-consuming of all wolf activities - and success at the hunt only comes through traveling long distances, persisting in the face of regular failure, detecting and taking advantage of deficiencies in the physical condition of individual prey, and through ceaseless trial and error, all while risking injury or death. By describing and analyzing the behaviors wolves use to hunt and kill various wild prey - including deer, moose, caribou, elk, Dall sheep, mountain goats, bison, muskoxen, arctic hares, beavers, and others - Wolves on the Hunt provides a revelatory portrait of one of nature's greatest hunters.