Prompt Blog 4

I grew up with wolves. Nothing so glamorous as Julie or living in the countryside of northwestern states. The only place I’d ever seen a wolf in real life was the zoo. But wolves are my mother’s favorite animal and she had adopted one through the World Wildlife Federation. Her house is filled with mugs, throw blankets, wall hangings of stone or fabric, statues, CDs, framed pictures, and stuffed animals. Some of them showcase her wolf, Matzi.

Although I am a cat person, I can understand a wolf’s allure. The main difference between a wolf and a dog is weight (average being 99 lbs), longer limbs, larger paws, greater height and bulk, stronger jaws, and a pre-caudal gland on the base of its tail. The gland is used by the alpha male to release a pheromone to mark another wolf as a member of a particular pack. Dogs have this, but it tends to be vestigial depending on the breed. It also explains why wolves and dogs sniff each other’s tails: to identify who they are by their individual musk. But what drew me to wolves were their eerily beautiful and harmonized howls that are haunting and emotional. Wolves howl, bark in a soft woof, whimper, and growl. Howling is the most familiar to humans and is used to assemble the pack before and after a hunt; pass alarm, especially at the den site; locate each other in a storm or in unfamiliar territory; communicate across great distances; and to create an impression of more animals. Wolves can howl while lying or sitting and they don’t howl at the full moon.  

They also have other unique aspects. Their coats are diverse, making it easy to identify one from the other. They are social creatures with a chain of command, loving parents, loyal pack members, and fierce hunters with amazing stamina. It made me sad every time someone referenced how they were evil just because people had grown up with condemning fairy tales, stories, and movies. Somewhere along the line, the Big Bad Wolf symbolized evil and loomed in Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, The Chronicles of Narnia, and even Bugs Bunny and Tex Avery cartoons. It’s hard to argue with classmates when you’re in elementary school and the nerdy outcast. What could you possibly know that the others didn’t? How could you possibly be right? You’re probably lying for attention. We don’t care.

I wanted to show them videos of pack life. I wanted to show them how gentle a wolf babysitter could be to cubs that weren’t his or her own. I wanted them to listen to the yips, barks, and howls that were used as fluid and effective communication that humans couldn’t understand. But what child wants to learn more outside of class?

Eventually, I became that child. It took me reaching college to do it, but I blossomed in my nerdy ways and researched wolves for a story in order to discover whether they could see the stars. They can, but the light would be extremely blurry. Because they are predators, their eyes are located at the front of their skulls for depth perception and focus. However, they lack a foveal pit, which is used to sharply focus at greater distances. Without it, wolves cannot distinguish much beyond 100 to 150 feet except for shapes and movement. Despite this, their peripheral vision is extremely accurate and they are able to detect slight movement from very small animals (think mosquito) at close ranges of about 10 feet or more, and movement from larger animals at considerable distances. Wolves can probably see color, but their spectrum is limited because of their enhanced night vision, which is usually black and white because of the rods used to see in dim light.

But a wolf’s vision is almost irrelevant (currently) for my thesis next year. I need to research wolves again. There isn’t much I don’t already know, but there are subtle nuances that will crop up throughout the story. I’ll probably research as I go, which is what my current mentor prefers. In that research, I’ll need only what is relevant to the story: general descriptions, coat variances, voices, habits, prowess, etc. For instance, a wolf’s sense of smell is about 100 times more powerful than a human’s, so my wolf character could easily react to something my main character hasn’t yet noticed. In addition to smelling prey a mile away on windy days and smelling another animal three days after it had left, a wolf can detect scents that a human cannot. Odorless poison, perhaps? Wolves also have a broader hearing spectrum, with the upper range reaching 80 kHz compared with a human’s 20, allowing wolves to hear up to 6 miles away in a forest and 10 miles over open land. I’ll have to research how a blind person’s hearing changes, though.  And when a wolf sleeps, its ears are always upright so it can detect sounds from other animals at all times, which the character could remark about if he always pats the wolf’s head throughout the night and notices the ears are up.

All this is a start, at least. And I’m sure I’ll delve into nonfiction and documentaries as I go. But I’m looking forward to writing about this character, and then handing it off to Mom for her approval.

Research: http://www.wolfsource.org/?page_id=69