Exploring Property Rights *Wolves*
Abstract:
The purpose of this article is thus to detail property and territorial disputes within the wolf species as well as document the system of order that it yields. Wolves possess a complex system of territory and ownership that exists both within the pack and within pack-to-pack relations. Even within the often categorized pack-hierarchy, subordinate wolves possess levels of territorial ownership that are normally only maintained by their higher ranking pack members.
Introduction:
This author cannot imagine a more poetic way of describing wolves than that put forth by George Schaller, they are, "endlessly absorbing carnivores". Wolves, like their domesticated counterparts, have played a unique role in human history. Of all the land mammals they are the most widely distributed and adaptable. They are tireless, fearless hunters, traveling upwards of 20-30 miles a day, attacking animals multiple times their own size in packs as numerous as forty. In spite of this, and the ruthless conditions wolves must undergo both within and without of the pack, there is a great joy and companionship among them. Wolf spectators have observed wolves in the wild transporting food from their kills to their crippled pack members. Others have observed pack members slowing the pace of their hunts for the sake of the injured. Onlookers have even observed wolves curling up next to their dead pack members in mourning. All of these characteristics make the wolf a favorite among animal enthusiasts. However, for this author and other students of property, the most interesting aspect of the wolf species is the hidden order of territorial rights and respect for boundaries. It is to this aspect that the majority of this essay will be dedicated. Although the ideas presented below have been quoted from a wide range of texts, the majority of the material presented here is credited to David Mech and Luigi Boitanis' great work Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Coservation. This marvelous text has made the research involved relatively easy, nearly displacing all other material in its quality and quantity. The purpose of this article is thus to detail property and territorial disputes within the wolf species as well as document the system of order that it yields. Wolves possess a complex system of territory and ownership that exists both within the pack and within pack-to-pack relations. Even within the often categorized pack-hierarchy, subordinate wolves possess levels of territorial ownership that are normally only maintained by their higher ranking pack members.
Why Study Territories and Boundaries?
"Those who insist that privately-owned property is nothing more than a fiction created by humans, or the creature of political and legal institutions, would do well to examine the behavior of other life forms. Such an anthropocentric vision expresses a fundamental ignorance of the nature of all living things to occupy and consume resources. Territory is the most fundamental fact of existence. Even plants, trees, and corals stake out and defend individual territorial boundaries. Other species have no known governments or laws and yet maintain a very high degree of respect for the territorial claims established by other members of their species." --Butler Shaffer Boundaries of Order
Borders and territory (what we deem property) are not specific to human interactions, humans, like all animals have specific notions of property, more specifically, what notions are in violation to said property. Border disputes are the essence of all conflict. In fact, it may be argued that conflict may only exist along borders. That is, any conflict may be deconstructed in terms of borders and any level of interaction or conflict may be simplified to a dispute between two or more border claims. Thus, even conflicts as basic as person-to-person aggression can be simplified to disputes among bodily borders (that is, where does the body begin and end). These are the reasons why property must be studied in order to maintain a free society. Furthermore, it is because of these reasons that the topic of a world without boundaries, without claims to property, is absurd. The individual who makes such assertions is, at minimum, acknowledging the human-borders of those to which he is asserting to convince (see argumentation ethics Hans Hoppe). As poetic as it sounds, life is a border. It lives within the bounds of spatial and temporal order, within the borders of the body which can only be preserved by violating the borders of other organic life. To speak about communal ownership is to neglect ownership and to neglect the individual is to neglect life itself. It is for this reason that we are all propertarians in some shape or form.
What is a Border?
Before we speak territorial disputes it must first be noted that when we speak of borders, we are speaking of intra-specie relations and not relations between non-like species. That is, borders are normally only defined vis a vis like species. A wolf defines its territory vis a vis other wolves, not various other competitors. Though true that other competitors, like the bear, may violate a wolf’s boundary, the bear must only be thought of as a factor, an obstacle, to any claim of ownership. For our purposes we may think of the bear as simply an unpredictable, uncontrollable, object, within an otherwise controllable territory. The bear cannot be expected to respect the property of the wolf anymore than the wolf can be expected to respect the property of a squirrel. Again, quoting Shaffer, "a claim of ownership derives its validity from a recognition by others, of the inherent worthiness of an individual to act to sustain himself or herself through negentropic action in the world."
The reason for such a typical restriction on ownership stems from the fact that it is only in relation to like-species that ownership has a purpose. Like-species hold the ability to reproduce and consume in relation, and opposition, to each other, and thus why like-species are each others predominant form of competition for natures limited resources. Furthermore, only like-species have the ability communicate (on some level) their demands and desires to each other—even if such communication is deemed elementary. Each species thus develops a more detailed form of communication in relation to each other as opposed to outsiders. Though it is true that animals may communicate to other non-like animals with similar signs to which they communicate with each other1 (visual, sound, echolocation, body language, and smell), these signs are not always interpreted as they should/could be interpreted within each species due to the evolved system interpreting-equipment predisposed within any system of intra-specie communication. Therefore, even though both intraspecies and interspecies communication mechanisms between animals are viewed as elementary to the observing human, there is a significant difference between them vis a vis each other. Wolves, even if desired, have but limited means of communicating their demands to bears and other species. Likewise, even if a mutually beneficial set of actions were available between the bear and the wolf, such a set of actions would normally only be revealed by random luck.
Wolf Territory
Depending on geographical location, time of year, prey population density, rival competition and other factors, wolves may claim a territory ranging anywhere from 25 to 1000 square miles (the average being between 50 - 100 square miles (Busch). Faced with the inescapable law of scarcity, wolves maintain their existence--their ability to consume and reproduce within the comforts of safety--by staking a claim to land and resources and defending it from all newcomers. Yet, what does it actually mean to say a wolf makes a claim to a territory?
For humans, property is typically defined by what you are willing to defend. To legitimately claim un-owned property, one must “mix their labor with it”. That is, transform it from its nature given state to some state worth defending (there is much to unpack within such a definition as “mix their labor with it”, and many words have attempted to unpack it, for the purposes of this essay, we will simply use the homesteading, in all its vagueness, as a compass). Therefore, “what you are willing to defend” seems like an appropriate definition for territory within the wolf population.
To make-obvious territorial ownership, wolves perform a sequence of both direct means and indirect strategies. The majority of all strategies are indirect, including markings, scratching and howling, however, under specific conditions wolves have been recorded as attacking their neighbors in order to remove a potential threat. Given the energy and bodily costs of conflict, indirect strategies are typically the norm for carnivores seeking to make their boundaries known. Núñez notes that, “For a carnivore, placing marks in its surroundings is important for several important reasons. In this way it can affirm its possession of food or mate resources, delimitate its territory, or indicate its social position or a certain physiological or emotional state.”(Núñez). In the economic and biological game of signaling, we may accept occasional direct attacks as simply a means for solidifying the reality indirect threats, in other words, you may only bark so long before you must bite (otherwise your bark will eventually become disregarded)
Marking Territory
As mentioned above, wolves make their territorial claims obvious to other wolves via a complex system of indirect strategies including urination markings, scratching and howling, as well as a system of occasional direct pack-to-pack attacks
The use of urination markings is divided between various forms of raised leg urinations, squatting urinations and defecation. Raised leg urinations are typically performed by the packs alpha male (and sometimes the alpha female) in an attempt to “maximizes their packs’ advertising power by marking scent posts like logs, sticks, rocks, ice chunks and snow banks" (Mech). In one study of 583 urine leg raises, 99.3% of them were directed at a particular object such as those mentioned above. Furthermore, there are normally twice as many markings around the edges of wolf pack territories as compared to the centers. It is thought that scent marks help to maintain peace between neighbors by outlining each wolves claim to property—equivalent to a crude form of a no trespassing sign.
In the words of Mech, through such a system of markings and defecation, usually about once every 300 yards lasting upward of 2 weeks, the wolves’ territory “becomes dotted with olfactory hot spots". Such hotspots allow wolves to know when they are entering or leaving their lands. In contrast, lone wolfs rarely perform raised leg urinations since they have no boundaries to claim. Such a system becomes a survival tactic for lone wolves as they move in and out of other wolves territory avoiding being tracked.
Yet, as mentioned above, territory markings are only a portion of the wolves’ indirect strategies for maintaining their borders. Markings allow for about two weeks of border signaling before they must be revisited. To compensate for this, wolves also engage in a strategic form of howling. Howling may be heard upwards of 6-10 miles by other packs and serve as both a form of inner-pack communication and determent. In an attempt to sound more numerous and formidable wolves typically will not howl in discord with one another. Mech has noted that due to the discord of a packs’ howl, humans usually miscalculate the number of wolves they believe to be howling by as much as two times. Through such indirect strategies wolves typically operate within a system of boundaries and ownership, but are such boundaries respected?
Pack to Pack Relations
Wolves typically do not permit trespassers within the bounds of their territories and it is not uncommon for packs to fight other packs larger than their own in an attempt to defend their claim to ownership. Yet, in spite of this, wolf territories are often quite stable (Mech). Wolves cannot afford to continuously wage war with their neighbors since each physical dispute leaves the pack vulnerable to injuries (and death) and making them less capable of hunting and defending themselves. Thus, even though the majority of wolves are killed by other wolves, pack-to-pack warfare is normally scarce and limited to chance encounters along the borders2. Thus, for wolves, pack-to-pack wars are not a resourceful use of time and energy. It is because of this noted waste of resources, and the fact that the majority of all disputes take place along the borders, that wolves typically harbor a 1-2 mile buffer zone between pack territories. Within this buffer zone, packs rarely encounter each other (though when there is encounter, there is typically injury and death). This is normally true for areas of well defined territory or even where a claim to territory is small and buffer zones are non existent. In fact, peace is typically still maintained between packs in situations where the two opposing territories overlap (such as wolf relations in north western Canada). All of this should serve as a testament to the respect wolves place on boundaries of territory.
Ownership Among The Pack
Wolves are typically categorized as hierarchal. Their pack, usually 4-7 wolves, is composed of an alpha male and alpha female, as well as subordinate members. The alpha pair are typically the primary breeders, though there has been observations of multiple breeders. The extended family unit, the pack, is the main social system of the wolf. It's structure has been noted for both it's loyalty and cruelty. In addition to the pair of breeding alphas, there is also a pair of betas (second in line for alpha), the remainder of the subordinates, and the omega wolf--usually the subject to much harassment. As noted by Mech, social ranking is usually enforced by a set of body positions and movements, intimidation and harassment. "status quarrels are never a private matter, each member keeps their eye on the quarrel and is constantly looking for an opening to increase their rank" (Mech). For the alpha, dominance is typically shown by posture, growling, biting, showing teeth; they are usually first to hunt, to lead, to mark their territory and to fight. For subordinates, such submission is shown by the folding of ears, peeling back of their lip, licking superior wolves muzzle and under extreme conditions urinating on themselves. Though social rankings move up and down the lupine social ladder as they get older, injured, ill, or form alliances, subordinate wolves may actually solicit responses from more dominate members to reaffirm their status.
In spite of this hierarchal system of dominance and submission there seems to exist a system of borders and ownership even between subordinates and their higher ranking members. This exception was documented first hand by David Mech in his work "The Wolf". The study was performed in St. Paul Zoo in which a pack of wolves were withheld food for 72 hours. At which point in time a small amount of food was placed into the cage. Immediately a submissive wolf grabbed it, carted it off to the corner of a cage and proceed to defend it from all dominant members of the pack. Eventually, the dominant members of the pack reframed from attempting to take the food from the subordinate wolf showing that even subordinate wolves may prevent higher ranking wolves from taking food they already possess. Such exceptions of social status is described by Mech as "...an ownership zone within about one foot of a wolf's mouth in which anything within that zone is beyond disputed".Thus, even subordinate wolves can become dominant over other wolves with respect to the piece of meat. Such an 'ownership zone' demonstrates what economists call an endowment effect, in which a possessor will defend their property above and beyond the amount of energy they would normally expend to gain it. Such dealings could be interpreted as a crude system of property rights among wolves.
Conclusion
Though it may be true that other species have no baring on human property rights or interactions among human borders, i believe that the detail of such property and boundary disputes among other species is interesting in its own right if only to demonstrate that respect for property is not specific to humans, and from the study of property of other species we may draw parallels to our own dealings
-------------------------
1 Ravens and wolves form a pact, the wolves rip open skin and thus they alert each other to food (Busch) 2 Most wolf-to-wolf deaths involve lone wolves trespassing along a packs territory.