Interactions Between Living Things; My Choice: Canis Lupus (the grey wolf)

The Gray Wolf 

Scientific Name: Canis Lupus

       The gray wolf is usually a misrepresented animal, but in spite of everything bad that is said about them, what is interesting to me is the symbiotic relationship they share with ravens. The ravens provide a sort of alarm system (thanks to their always hovering around wolves), if there is notable danger the ravens fall silent or fly away. The wolves have learned to interpret this as a threat so they are known to take shelter and protect their pups. The ravens also help the wolves find prey. The ravens need the sharp teeth of the wolves to tear open the carcass of carcasses, this is why they can't just find previously dead animals and eat them (the wolves tear open the carcasses of carrion and the ravens get the leftovers). Wolves are predators, they hunt prey ranging to smaller than them to much bigger than them. In the North (From Northern USA to various parts of the Arctic circle) they eat mainly dall sheep, caribou, deer, elk, and moose. They regergitate food for their young (primarily when in the first few months of life).

 

two gray wolf pups observed by Helen and Bill Thayer

Charlie (Helen and Bill's) husky mix interacting with a wolf (possibly the one they nicknamed Mother)

A typical successful hunt ending with a young elk, notice the ravens

Rabbit Bean Populatin Results

                                                                        
This graph shows how the rabbit population grows over the years. The population doubles yearly so the rise in population becomes more dramatic the longer the rabbits reproduce as you can see from 1 to 15 years the change is size of the population is little noticed, but 16 to 20 years the population dramatically rises.


This is a closer view on years 1 to 10. You can see that the population was changing with similar results.

These are the calculated results.