Friends who played bestial chess as a child know that wolves are definitely not the most powerful predators, and lions and tigers are much more powerful than wolves. But wolves have almost the most extensive living space among carnivores. They were once widely distributed in Eurasia and North America, and their habitats are also very diverse, including grasslands, forests, deserts and even mountains.
Wolves are stronger thanks to group life, where members work together to defend against enemies, cooperate in feeding their cubs and dividing their work to hunt, greatly improving their survivability, and wolves are the top predators in their habitat.
In addition, wolves are one of the animals that cause the most injuries, and France has the most records of wolf attacks, from 1200 to 1920, where a total of 7600 fatal attacks were recorded, mainly children, followed by women, and finally adult males.
One of the wolves, between 1764 and 1767, attacked France 210 times, killing 113 people and wounding 49 others. When it was killed, it also found human remains in its stomach that were being digested.
So as a ferocious carnivore, does the wolf have a natural enemy? Can an adult male defeat a wolf with his bare hands? How can a man protect himself if he encounters a wolf in the wild? Let's talk about these issues.
1. What are the natural enemies of wolves?
First of all, we need to clarify the meaning of "natural enemy", natural enemy is actually a relationship between two different species, referring to a certain animal in nature that specializes in preying on or endangering another animal, such as a lion taking a bison as prey, then a lion is a natural enemy of a bison.
For example, a male lion can easily kill a spotted hyena, but the lion does not eat the spotted hyena, then the lion is not the natural enemy of the spotted hyena, and they are competitive.
So strictly from the definition, the wolf's natural enemies are very few, because it can easily crush the wolf pack, and the wolf as food or specially endanger the wolf animals are very small, here are the following three types of wolf predators:
It has to be said that most of the reduction in the number of animals is inseparable from human activities, and the same is true of wolves. Wolves were once one of the most widely distributed and numerous predators in the world, and they are strong because they live in groups and are very adaptable to their environment.
Before the 20th century, wolves were almost everywhere in the country, but now it is not so easy to encounter wolves, only in Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Tibet and parts of Xinjiang. And today's wolves are also greatly reduced in size, rarely more than 10 wolves in size, and there is no super group of hundreds of wolves in film and television works or literary works.
The decline in wolf populations is closely linked to human activity, on the one hand, human expansion has compressed their habitat, and on the other hand, because wolves can pose a threat to people and livestock, the fight against wolves has hardly stopped since humans were able to defeat wolves. During the period of industrial development in the United States alone, about 200 million wolves were killed.
Humans aside, tigers, especially Siberian tigers, are probably wolves' biggest natural enemies. Siberian tigers are the largest surviving felines and predators at the top of the food chain. In general, large and medium-sized carnivores are mostly competitive, that is, they will kill each other for habitat and prey, but they will not feed on each other specifically, because it is difficult to hunt a carnivore and the risk of injury is also large.
But zoologists have found that Siberian tigers will actively hunt wolves and feed on wolves, and the number of the two in the same habitat is in a trend of mutual decline. That is to say, when the number of Siberian tigers decreases sharply, the number of wolves will increase significantly, and when the number of Siberian tigers increases due to environmental improvement and human protection, the number of wolves will decrease significantly.
An adult Siberian tiger weighs more than four times that of a wolf, the tiger completely crushes the wolf in size, and the tiger's strength, speed, and jumping ability are above the wolf, and it is easy for the Siberian tiger to hunt a wolf, so the tiger is one of the natural enemies of the wolf's habitat.
Siberian tigers can become natural enemies of wolves thanks to their size and combat strength, and another predator, who is smaller than wolves, can kill wolves until they have no children, which is the Eurasian lynx known as the "wolf slaughter machine".
Lynx look like cats but much larger than cats, they are good at ambushing, agile, and especially good at climbing trees, so wolves, even if they are slightly larger than lynxes, can't help lynx in the forest. Lynx and wolves are a competitive relationship, but in the same forest, the lynx is completely crushing the wolf.
Between 1997 and 2017, Belarusian zoologists observed and documented the long struggle between wolves and lynx in the Naliboki forest for 20 years. The recorded results showed that the survival rate of cubs within half a year of wolf age was inversely correlated with the density of lynx distribution.
That is to say, lynx specially slaughter wolf cubs, this is well understood, lynx and wolf ecological niches are highly overlapping, the competition between them is fierce, lynx and adult wolves are difficult to compete, then can only take advantage of the adult wolf out hunting, hunt the wolf cubs, adult wolves but can not be good at climbing trees lynx.
2. Can adults defeat wolves with bare hands?
Although the wolf is the ancestor of the domestic dog, we must distinguish between the two, in fact, the dog is in a "young wolf" state, their mind is not mature enough, nor can it reach the combat effectiveness of the wolf, the rumor of "one mastiff fighting three wolves" is not true.
At the same weight, wolves have a longer snout and canine teeth, and a wolf's bite force is twice that of a domestic dog, enough to bite off a bone. In battle, wolves are more calm and pragmatic, but also more tenacious, and they have been baptized by nature.
The wolf's silent, slightly bowed head, staring at the opponent, step by step approaching, the feeling of oppression, you can hardly feel in the dog. Once encountered, wolves are 15 times more dangerous than dogs. So can a grown man defeat a wolf with his bare hands? The answer to the question falls into the following two cases:
A North American gray wolf weighs about 40 to 50 kilograms, while a steppe wolf weighs only 20 kilograms, and the weight of adult males of about 70 kilograms is relatively large for wolves, and the height of people standing when they stand is also more terrible than that of wolves.
In most cases, lone wolves will not take the initiative to attack when encountering humans, and they will often leave on their own, so adult males are more likely to be able to protect themselves when they encounter a wolf.
Wolves are far more powerful than lone wolves, and group members hunt cooperatively, fight together, and are able to hunt prey that is much heavier than their own body. And once wolves attack, they usually don't have any reservations, they tend to attack deadly, trying to solve the opponent at once.
Wolves usually attack the neck and face of their opponents, and once the attack is successful, they can put down a dog about the same size as themselves in ten seconds. Wolves are far above human endurance and speed, and adult males surrounded by wolves cannot escape with their bare hands no matter what.
3. What should I do if I encounter a wolf in the wild?
In terms of the population and distribution area of wolves today, it may not be easy to encounter them in the wild, but there is still a certain probability of encountering wolves in some no-man's land, so what should we do when we encounter wolves?
First of all, before going out to travel to make relevant preparations, the necessary self-defense tools must be carried, if you encounter a lone wolf, take out the self-defense tools to make a defensive posture, the probability will scare the wolf away.
Secondly, when facing a wolf head-on, do not run because of panic, which is likely to cause the wolf to hunt, and the human running speed and endurance cannot be compared with the wolf. At this time, it is necessary to be quiet and composed, confront the wolf head-on, and take a defensive posture, and the wolf is likely to take the initiative to leave.
In addition, if you encounter a group of wolves, leave as soon as possible before they find you, and look for shelters such as buildings, caves, and tree holes, or find a large rock or tree as a backrest to prevent the wolf from attacking from the back.
In addition, if you encounter a pack of wolves during the day, and the wolves are looking at you at a long distance, which means that they do not regard you as prey for the time being, then it is the best choice to stay away as soon as possible to avoid making the wolves feel threatened.
4. Conclusion
As one of the top predators, wolves have few natural enemies in the natural environment, Siberian tigers and lynx are one of the few, and humans are the biggest natural enemies of wolves, and 80% of wolves have disappeared due to human activities and hunting.
Wolves are strong because of the group, but do not underestimate the combat effectiveness of a single wolf, under the same weight, a wolf can easily kill a dog in a second, the danger of wolves is more than fifteen times that of dogs, just imagine the situation when people face evil dogs, you can imagine whether they can defeat wolves with bare hands.
Due to the sharp decline in the number of wolves, encountering wolves in the wild is rare today, but if you go to some no-man's land, you must be well prepared to protect yourself when you encounter wolves.