Chapter 33: The Wolves of the Horse (Part 2)
A gray wolf enthusiasts exchange forum, gathering netizens from all over the world who love gray wolves.
Authoritative organizations often release the latest developments about gray wolves on the forum.
On a quiet afternoon, a post from a famous documentary photographer suddenly appeared on the forum homepage.
Title:
The End of Wolf King Adam
The last photo of the black wolf king Adam, who ruled the forest wetland area for six years and was loved by netizens from all over the world, was a head taken away by a coyote.
Adam's two outstanding daughters, whom he had raised with great care and always kept by his side, died and one was injured in the melee.
The injured eldest daughter fled alone to a place far away from the wolf pack to recuperate.
Three sub-adult wolves, who had just turned one and a half years old, completely lost their whereabouts because they were not wearing positioning collars. They are estimated to be in great danger.
Christine, the mate of wolf king Adam, the powerful, brave and loving female leader, has had her positioning collar remain motionless for three consecutive days.
After the collar is off for three days, animal experts will determine that the wolf is dead.
Christine is 8 years old and has passed her peak as a female wolf.
If you are bitten by wolves in the abdomen and hind legs, even if you are lucky enough to survive, you will not be able to hunt in the short term.
The three cubs she risked her life to protect were probably...
1L: OMG, Adam's family is so miserable!!!
9L: When Adam was young, he defeated many powerful wolf packs, but he never killed any wolf. It is so sad that he encountered a cruel wolf pack at the end of his life...
15L: The hero has fallen, and the era of another legendary wolf king has ended. Adam is the most loving wolf king I have ever seen. I sincerely hope that his last bloodline can continue!
24L: Wow, I really like the cute little golden pupil. I wonder how he is doing. That little guy looks exactly like Adam before his fur color degenerated.
31L: You mean the cute fur ball with black fur and golden eyes? I like him too!
I'm afraid 44L will disappoint everyone. No. 9119... is what you call the black hairy ball, the weakest and lowest-level wolf among Adam's orphans.
In all the photos, he is standing by and watching the rest of the cubs eat.
If Christine couldn't hunt, No. 9119 would be the first to starve to death.
52L: Sad, it would be great if this was the beginning of a movie, where No. 9119 inherited the bloodline of the wolf king and became the new overlord of the forest wetlands!
.
It was not until the fourth day after Yu Yiyun became the "black hair ball" that she figured out her current situation.
Before going to bed, he was still in the Qinling Nature Reserve, owning hundreds of square kilometers of territory and eating beef happily.
When I opened my eyes, the territory was gone, and the beef was gone too.
I ended up in the forest wetlands of the Western Hemisphere for no apparent reason and almost starved to death!
Life is not easy for a wolf, the dog sighs.
Fortunately, wolves are emotional animals that attach great importance to family bonds and will not give up their cubs easily.
Mother Christine, despite being seriously injured and in urgent need of nutrients, fed the last food in her stomach to the wolf cub, which allowed Yu Yiyun to barely recover.
Yu Yiyun looked clearly at the big gray dog holding her, and the two small gray dogs of the same type next to it, and instantly figured out their species.
Mackenzie wolf, also known as the Michigan tundra wolf.
Due to the gray wolf's social nature and frequent tribal migration, it does not have a clear and unified subspecies classification standard like the tiger.
There are currently 11 generally recognized wolf subspecies. Their living boundaries and distribution ranges are often gradual, and hybridization occurs between different subspecies.
But no matter how it is divided, the Mackenzie wolf, which integrates large subspecies such as the Yukon wolf, Northwestern gray wolf, and British Columbia wolf, is recognized as the pinnacle of the existing gray wolf, and the weight of male wolves can reach more than 130 kilograms.
In the 1920s, the Great Plains wolves that originally lived in Yellowstone were slaughtered on a large scale until they became extinct, leading to the decline of the local natural environment.
To remedy the situation, management agencies introduced Mackenzie wolves to fill the void as top predators.
Since then, countless legendary wolf kings have been born and destroyed here, and no wolf pack can dominate permanently.
The wolf pack that Yu Yijun belonged to was no exception.
After opening his eyes, he never saw his father or family members. Only his mother, who was covered in scars, was by his side.
Yu Yiyun quickly came to the conclusion that his family was destroyed in the fight between the wolves.
In order to protect their mother, they must have risked their entire family's and their own lives to barely save the three cubs.
Unfortunately, the mother wolf was seriously injured and could not provide food for her cubs.
The other two little gray dogs were fussy and didn't seem to have the ability to hunt yet.
It is estimated that within two days, their entire family will die of hunger.
but--
The word "hunger" does not exist in the dictionary of the dog who is very good at eating!
For the time being, he didn't care about family hatred or reviving the wolf pack.
The most urgent task at the moment is to find food to fill the stomachs of mom and my younger brothers and sisters!
It is late summer and early autumn in Yellowstone. Although prey is hard to catch, there are plenty of ripe fruits and vegetables.
The forest wetland is rich in vegetation, with trees that have not been artificially interfered with. The trees are as short as three or four meters and as tall as dozens of meters, and the leaves are so lush that they block out the sun at a glance.
Ordinary herbivores can only wait for the berries to ripen and fall.
The birds in the sky will at most eat the fruits near the treetops.
In this situation, Yu Yiyun, who has her own innate skills, is like finding a treasure!
The claws of canines lost the ability to "bloom" during the evolution process, and their grip on tree trunks is relatively poor, so most of them cannot climb trees.
But Yu Yiyun is different.
His tree-climbing skill was cultivated slowly from level 0 to the maximum level, and he knew very well how to overcome disadvantages.
Due to limited physical strength, Yu Yiyun could only climb shorter trees for the time being.
Even so, the berries hidden among the leaves were enough to relieve hunger.
If you are lucky enough to find a squirrel's nest, you can also steal a lot of pine nuts for the winter.
Squirrel: Squeak!
Wolves are omnivores and can fill their stomachs with fruits and grass when food is scarce.
The fruits picked by Yu Yiyun temporarily saved her mother and younger brothers and sisters from the risk of starving to death.
But the wolf's diet is mainly meat.
It would be difficult for Christine to recover from her injuries relying solely on the nutrients provided by plants, and her younger brothers and sisters were also becoming increasingly thinner.
Yu Yiyun has been a dog for four days, but he has not spoken a few words to his family members.
They were so hungry that they spent most of their time sleeping in order to heal their wounds and conserve their energy.
Yu Yiyun ate a lot of fruit and her stomach was a little bloated, but her strength had not recovered much.
After being a carnivore for more than two years, the little black dog is going crazy over craving for meat!
He looked at his sleeping mother and two companions and knew that they were in the same situation.
Finally, Yu Yiyun made up his mind, turned around and ran out of the jungle where he had been hiding.
.
'Loneliness' is a comfort zone for tigers, but means death for wolves.
Christine wanted to heal her wounds quickly, regain her mobility, and take her cubs to join a new wolf pack.
However, it is not easy.
Wolves may accept foreign wolves if there is enough food.
The cold winter in Yellowstone lasts for six months. How could a wolf pack accept an old, seriously injured female wolf with three children?
Even if the wolf pack is willing to accept it, Christine and her cubs will definitely become the most marginal members of the pack.
There is a strict hierarchy among wolf packs. If a wolf is judged to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, not only can he be bullied by all wolves, but he must also be the last one to eat.
When food is scarce, marginalized members have to go hungry and vent their anger on hungry members.
When the wolf king Adam was still alive, he took special care of the cubs and often shared his share of food with the children.
Christine couldn't imagine herself becoming the bottom wolf in a new wolf pack, with the cubs also being inferior to the wolves.
Moreover, only the female leader in the wolf pack has the right to reproduce, and the family members will only do their best to protect the "leader's cubs."
Spring is approaching, and if the leader of the new wolf pack gives birth to cubs, the situation of my own children will be even worse...
Christine was worrying about the cubs, but the smell of meat getting closer interrupted her thoughts.
The female wolf, who was about to run out of energy, opened her eyes with great effort, and in a trance she saw her husband holding the prey and slowly walking towards her.
Christine widened her eyes and looked closely.
It turned out to be the cub that looked most like her husband, grunting and bringing back half an otter.
The two greyhounds nearby smelled the meat and turned on their cameras in a second, their green eyes gleaming with wolf-like light.
The desire to survive made them overcome their fear, and they left their mother's arms and rushed towards their brother who was bringing the prey home.
When Yu Yiyun saw them running over, he put down his prey, opened his mouth to reveal his sharp fangs, and issued a warning as a superior.
"Awooo!" Get out!
The order within the wolf pack begins to be established when they are young.
Generally speaking, the cubs will gradually differentiate into different levels of strength during the process of playing.
As they grow up, they consolidate this order through socializing and hunting.
The black fur ball was so small and thin that he thought he was only three months old.
But judging from the season (wolves give birth in March and April every year) and the degree of tooth development, I am at least four and a half months old.
Yu Yiyun was furious: You two foodies, you stole so much of my food!
[swearing.jpg]
But this is the survival rule of the wolf pack.
Even if the mother favors the little wolf who is most like her husband, she cannot change the fact that he is too weak, has to eat last, and is often bullied.
However, the hierarchy within the wolf clan is not static.
The simplest and most brutal standard is hunting contribution.
At this moment, when Yu Yiyun brought back the food alone——
He reversed the class and became the superior among the cubs!
The superior has the right to decide the order in which the inferiors eat, and Yu Yiyun issued a threatening warning.
The younger brother and sister immediately lay down with their tails hanging down in obedience, acknowledging his superior status.
This counterattack does not require any unnecessary actions.
The two wolf cubs didn't have the energy to fight, they just hoped that the wolf who had the right to distribute the prey would give them some meat.
The black ball didn't bother to enjoy the joy of counterattack. He held half an otter in his mouth with great effort and ran to the side of Christine who was unable to move.
"Woo woo..." Yu Yiyun nudged her mother's mouth with her kiss.
This is usually the action of a little wolf begging for food, but now it is the opposite.
Through this behavior, Yu Yiyun made her mother eat the few prey quickly.
Although the little black dog is four and a half months old, it is developmentally retarded and its hunting ability is not even as good as that of Yunxiao, who is three months old.
There are all kinds of prey in the forest wetlands, including elk, bison, pronghorn antelope...
Yu Yiyun couldn't even catch the smallest individuals, so he had to turn his attention to small rodents.
However, even if the goal was lowered, Yu Yiyun's running and jumping abilities were limited due to not having enough oil and water for several days.
He, who had once caught so many hares, could not even catch a vole.
Later, the "cunning" wolf cub and the dog lay in ambush for several hours.
While the mother otter was out looking for food, he sneaked into the den and stole a cub weighing about ten pounds.
Even though he had turned from a cat into a dog, Yu Yiyun was still able to eat. He quickly hid in a high place and wolfed down half of it.
If it weren't for her mother at home, Yu Yiyun would have eaten all the remaining meat.
He dragged his prey and returned home with great effort.
It feels like I have caught all the prey that I didn’t catch in my previous life in this life.
Although the prey was in front of her, Christine did not eat it immediately. Instead, she lowered her head and rubbed the weak cub.
She felt acutely that the cub had become different.
This child used to be timid and allowed himself to be bullied.
Although he looks the most like his father, the Wolf King, he has always been at the bottom of the wolf pack.
But the moment he came back with the food, Christine seemed to see her deceased husband.
She lowered her head and ate the little bit of meat in big mouthfuls.
An adult horse or wolf can eat more than 9 kilograms of meat when it is hungry.
Moreover, wolves eat quickly and cleanly, leaving no leftovers.
Christine ate all the meat, and the other two cubs licked the meat and blood on the ground, then came over and licked their mother's mouth to beg for food.
The female wolf, who had always doted on them, didn't spit out anything.
Christine knew that she had to recover from her injuries as soon as possible.
This is the only way to protect the cubs and see with their own eyes the wolf cub inherit Adam's bloodline and become the new leader of the wolf pack.
She licked the crying children guiltily, wanting to tell them to be patient for a few days.
When I regain my mobility, I will hunt for them.
The two cubs were not yet at the stage where they could reason. They only knew they were hungry and licked their mother's muzzle even harder.
"Ah!" Yu Yijun was so annoyed that she yelled at them.
The sister with the white collar was scared. She swallowed her saliva and squatted where she was, not daring to beg for food from the female wolf anymore.
The younger brother with marshmallow-colored back is the largest of the cubs and gets the hungriest the fastest.
Appetite overcame everything, and even when he heard the roar, he still persevered in licking his mother's mouth.
Yu Yiyun did not yell a second time. Instead, she rushed over, bit his neck, and knocked Marshmallow to the ground.
He is not as big as a marshmallow, but he has just eaten a full meal and has plenty of energy.
“Oh…”
Marshmallow was stunned by the bite. He was so scared that his ears pressed against the back of his head. He lay down with his paws together, posing a gesture of submission to his brother.
At the same time, it was accompanied by the unique coquettish sounds of a cub, as if explaining its previous behavior.
“Oh my!”
Yu Yiyun: ...Where did this crying monster come from?
Of course he knew that the two cubs were very hungry.
If I were still a South China tiger, I would definitely look for food for my cubs.
But now the situation is different, and there are dangers all around.
There is no way to go back to the otter den that we just dug out.
Yu Yijun is too weak now, even an otter mother protecting her cubs is enough to hurt him.
If she couldn't bring back food, the seriously injured Christine would surely die.
During the long and cold winter, the three stray dogs without their mother's protection could not survive the white snow.
Therefore, the most urgent thing is to heal my mother's injuries first.
Yu Yiyun made a decision, howled at White Collar and Marshmallow, and shook his big furry tail, signaling them to follow.
Wolves are social animals, and the entire clan goes out together when hunting. Yu Yiyun certainly makes good use of this habit.
As the saying goes, 'three cobblers can be better than Zhuge Liang', three dogs can at least be better than a small tiger... right?
White Collar and Marshmallow are larger than himself, and their claws are sharper.
Even if it is impossible to deal with large prey, it can at least increase the chances of hunting small prey.
Don't forget that Yu Yiyun has rich teaching experience and once trained two tigers to be the best assistants.
Now, with two wolves suitable for supporting roles, it is not difficult at all...
Teacher Yun quickly realized that he had misjudged the two stupid dogs.
"Woof-o-oh-oh!"
The white collar tries its best to make the most vicious noise, sounding more like a dog than a real dog.
She jumped high up, trying to kill her prey with a headbutt like a fox trying to catch a mole, but ended up demonstrating a standard "headbutt".
Marshmallow looks so big, but he is actually a crying monster.
It will cry when it is hungry, cry when it cannot catch prey, cry when the prey attacks it...
Yu Yiyun listened to them howling for the entire afternoon and was very suspicious about the breed of these two cubs.
Under the guidance of Teacher Yun, who has many students in Qinling Mountains, although White Collar and Marshmallow are still barking and yelling, at least they have made some progress.
The next day, after working closely together by pulling each other's legs, the two dogs finally caught a fat chipmunk and tasted the meat.
After one success, the Paw Patrol’s confidence increased greatly!
The two stupid dogs were very active in hunting, and Yu Yiyun didn't need to chase after them to urge them.
After studying for another three or four days, White Collar and Marshmallow finally acquired the most basic sense of coordination and could barely provide assistance to Yu Yiyun.
Paw Patrol, officially on the move!
The most important thing about a wolf pack's hunting behavior is not the hunting process, but the selection of prey.
If tigers are lurking beasts that kill with one strike, wolves are definitely chasing beasts that win by numbers and endurance.
The bite force of dogs is generally not as strong as that of cats, so they need to bite and attack the soft spots of their prey repeatedly to successfully kill them.
If the wrong prey is chosen, the extra energy consumed will be several times that of a tiger.
Usually, in a wolf pack, the alpha wolf is responsible for selecting prey and formulating attack strategies.
The Paw Patrol, composed of three wolf cubs, is temporarily led by Yu Yiyun.
Although he was very familiar with the prey and terrain of the Qinling Mountains, he had not conducted in-depth research on Yellowstone National Park, where no tigers were distributed, and he was completely in the dark about the distribution of prey in forest wetlands.
Fortunately, the smart dog chose a good helper for himself early on - the raven.
Before this, animal experts had already discovered that the highly intelligent corvids would cooperate with ground hunters, such as wolves.
The big corvids fly high enough to overlook the entire scene from the air and point the way for hunters.
Then after a successful hunt, share a piece of the pie.
Yu Yiyun is still young, and the strong Corvidae boss doesn't want to cooperate with him.
Even if the hunt is successful, there won't be much meat to be found.
Yu Yiyun had a plan in place. Relying on his ability to climb trees, he bribed a baby crow that was about to leave the nest with minced meat.
The raven, who had just left his parents, was as innocent and stupid as a college student. He had no idea about the market and easily agreed to be the leader of the Paw Patrol.
——Later, when the raven learned the truth, he realized that he was just cheap labor.
Fortunately, the Paw Patrol was already able to hunt decent prey at that time. The raven on the pirate ship had no intention of untying itself.
Yu Yiyun: The plan works!
Is this the joy of cultivation?
In nature, cooperation between different species requires a process of adjustment, and Baby Crow and Paw Patrol are no exception.
Baby Crow spread its jet-black feathers and flew high up. When it saw a pack of wolves next door hunting elk, it happily led the Paw Patrol to a group of elk.
Raven: There are so many, eat as much as you can!
The army of sika deer that were happily grazing looked at the three little sika deer that were not even as tall as their knees, and took a few steps to chase after them.
"Woof-o-oh-oh!"
“Oh my!”
White Collar and Marshmallow were so scared that they ran away. Yu Yijun found a nearby tree, climbed up, raised his dog face and called out to the raven.
“Awooooooooo!”
I asked you to find prey, not to find the King of Hell!
“Awooooooooooooooooo!”
There are so many, can we defeat them?!
The baby crow understood Yu Yiyun's meaning, spread its wings, circled once, and then gave guidance in the southwest direction.
Yu Yiyun let out a long howl, summoned the Paw Patrol, and headed towards that direction.
When we arrived at our destination, we saw the big butt of a grizzly bear before we saw any prey.
Grizzlies are larger than black bears and are the largest predators in Yellowstone Park, often stealing food from wolves.
A wolf pack of less than five is no match for a grizzly bear and can only watch as the bear takes the food they have worked so hard to hunt for itself.
"Woof-o-oh-oh!"
“Oh my!”
The Paw Patrol had their food snatched away by grizzly bears more than once. Knowing how terrifying these huge beasts are, they were so scared that they fled in panic.
Yu Yiyun spread his paws and ran while reminiscing about "the glorious days when I was a tiger."
"Awoo awoo!" He used his two paws to communicate with the raven again and provided a precise search range.
"Awooo!" I'm looking for someone who's not much older than me.
"Awooo wooo!" There is no prey for other beasts around, do you understand?
"Quack!" the raven called impatiently and swooped down to peck at the black wolf's head.
Yu Yiyun successfully avoided it, and the raven pecked off the fur on Marshmallow's butt, causing the Yingying monster to start crying again.
Fortunately, although the Corvidae leader had a bad temper, he was quite reliable and led them to a beaver that was building a dam.
Beavers are the largest rodents in existence, weighing approximately 30-60 kilograms, and they prefer forest wetlands surrounded by fresh water.
It planned to chew the tree and use the branches to build a dam as its own luxurious villa.
The underage wolf had a very light body odor, so the little beaver didn't notice it for a long time and was chewing on the tree trunk, making a crunching sound.
Yu Yiyun sent out the signal that the Paw Patrol was already familiar with through days of hunting practice, indicating that White Collar and Marshmallow should attack from the left and right respectively, while she herself would be responsible for the frontal attack.
Wolves are very patient animals and will keep chasing their prey.
White Collar and Marshmallow have eaten some rabbits and mice these days. Although they are still very hungry, at least their strength has been restored a little.
Following the command from the 'leader wolf', all the dogs rushed out and pounced on the beaver from different directions.
The beaver felt the current fluctuations in the shallow water and finally realized the danger.
When the beaver realized that they were three wolf cubs who had just learned to run, he was careless and did not immediately dive underwater to avoid danger.
Yellowstone is home to numerous wolf packs, and local animals are somewhat familiar with top predators.
In the beaver's understanding, a wolf cub of this size has limited abilities, runs slowly and cannot swim, so it will definitely not be able to catch it.
Just as it was thinking this, a raven that had been circling in the sky swooped down, flapped its wings, aimed at the beaver's eyes and pecked them hard, preventing it from getting into the water.
White Collar and Marshmallow, who were extremely hungry, were no longer as helpless as they were in the previous two days. They bravely waded through the water that was almost up to their knees and pounced on the beaver to bite it.
Yu Yiyun pounced from behind and hung tightly on the beaver.
While struggling, he found the throat of the restrained beaver and bit it with all his might.
The wolf cub’s bite force is weaker than that of a South China tiger, and the little black dog tried his best not to let go.
After a stalemate of more than ten minutes, the beaver slowly stopped struggling.
The wolf cubs were starving, but none of them took action and waited for the leader wolf to distribute food.
Yu Yiyun followed the bite on the throat and tried to tear open the fur, then gave the first piece of meat to the raven that had made the greatest contribution.
Then he shouted loudly, signaling his younger brother and sister to start eating.
An off-road vehicle happened to pass by nearby and suddenly stopped. The tourists in the vehicle took two photos.
"Oh~ What a cute little puppy!"
"No, they look like wolves, right? I know there's a wolf lovers forum online, I can ask them if they recognize these little cuties~"
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