Rebel Scientist Is Unafraid Of The “Big Bad Wolf”

Shaun Ellis is a wolf behavior expert with a unique approach to studying the creatures — he lives with them and becomes part of their world.

Now, before you shrug and say that this is another Grizzly Man just waiting to happen, it should be known that Ellis is not living with the wolves in the wild, but in captivity at a wildlife park in England; wolves are more social animals than bears; and Ellis — though he may look a little odd as he strolls through a luxury hotel in his fatigues during a network press tour — actually knows what he is doing and is a highly intelligent student of nature.

Ellis recently intrigued the scientific world by spending 18 months living in captivity with three wolf pups that had been abandoned at birth. His experience is chronicled in A Man Among Wolves, premiering April 16 on National Geographic Channel.

Ellis got down and dirty with the young wolves, even going so far as to eat with them (out of a plastic bag full of “people food” hidden within the animal carcass the wolves around him ate) and mark his territory. There are remarkable scenes of Ellis snarling at wolves to demonstrate his position within the pack and help the wolves learn their own language.

“It was an interaction versus observation, really,” Ellis says. “Observing wolves from a distance or at close range will give you so much, but then you have to really enter their world to gain their trust in order to get the intricate secrets. And that’s basically what I was after. The animal will share with you what we need to help it if you can maintain and gain the trust of the animal in the first place.”

One of the first things involved in gaining that trust is to make sure that you don’t smell like a human.

“The scent issue,” says Ellis, “is very, very strong. You have to eat and maintain your social position within the pack according to the foods that you eat. So every social-order wolf has its own smell depicted by its food, and if we want to join the pack, with wild or captive wolves, then you have to make sure that you eat exactly the same food as your social order would depict. So it’s very important to have a certain scent of wolves, not the scent of humans.”

Some of the secrets include the complex system of howls wolves use for various reasons, from defense to location to easing tension within the pack. Ellis has himself become a master of duplicating these howls (which he performed at the press tour) and among the cutest scenes in the show are the ones in which he teaches pups to howl. It’s evident from such scenes that Ellis has more than a scientific interest in these animals that have been maligned through myth for centuries.

“It’s ironic, because most people — still to this day — consider [wolves] to be savage killers, but I’ve come to know and love them as family. The emotional side and attachment is very, very deep.”

And they seem to feel the same, which may account for Ellis feeling safe among them.

“It’s very balanced,” he says. “If [a wolf] injures me and I’m seen as part of the family, then it weakens the complete structure. They very quickly adjust to how vulnerable you are in comparison to them.”

But that’s not to say that just anyone can do this.

“You can’t be naive enough to think that you can walk into any wolf pack,” says Ellis. “The pack itself has to be vulnerable. There has to be a vacancy within that pack for you to be able to join. So most of the hard work is actually done before you get into the pack. Once you’ve been accepted through signs and smell, then you can join the pack.”

And with more and more wolf packs coming into contact with human society, they may become increasingly vulnerable, which is a big reason why Ellis does what he does.

“Wolves, maybe over 500 or 600 years ago, had the freedom to roam without coming into contact or conflict with people or lifestyles. Now, we find that, because of the land, the territory that’s taken from the wolves, there’s an ever-increasing amount of wolves that come into contact with people. And because of that, we feel that there’s a need to teach these animals to respect boundaries, parks, ranches, farms. And by doing that and giving farmers the means by which to protect [their land] — using the wolves’ own methods of communication against them — we feel it will be very, very successful.”

ON HOWLING

According to Shaun Ellis, wolves have “many different howls, as you can probably imagine, and every single member of the pack has its own signature howl.” Shaun has mastered some of these howls on his own, and has made some of the following observations regarding this complex communication system:

  • Wolves often prefer to howl from an elevated position in order to project the sound farther.
  • A wolf away from its pack will often call the pack using a rallying or locating howl.
  • Defensive howls are low in tone in order to be discouraging. Locating howls are higher in tone in order to be encouraging, and are drawn out in order to urge a response to questioning.
  • Communication through howling is taught to young wolves at an early age, and they are rewarded with food and praise.
  • Each wolf has a different sound depending upon its pack status — the alpha pair’s howl is low in tone, a sign of its high status. They howl for short periods, then pause to listen for any response so t hat they can decide whether the pack as a whole should stop or continue.
  • Second in the pack to the alpha pair are the betas. Their howls are moderately low in tone — not as low as the alphas but lower than the remaining pack members. They howl approximately three to four times longer than the alphas, adding strength and continuity to the pack calls.
  • Mid-ranking wolves create the illusion that there are more wolves in the pack than there actually are. They use a variety sounds — yips and yaps as well as howls — to make it hard for neighboring packs to identify exactly how many wolves are in the pack.
  • The omega wolf is responsible for defusing tension within the pack. The omega’s howl is the most tuneful in the pack, reaching both high and low notes. By adding vocal harmony, it can help calm the pack when the pack is on the defensive.