Wolves and the size of their group

[Angry Ear-Mii]

It is entirely unrealistic to only have a pair of wolves in one enclosure (adults of course.) Wolf packs contain of " a mated pair accompanied by their adult offspring. The average pack size in North America is eight wolves and in Europe five to six wolves." It's a family. They stay together even as adults, where only the mated pair breeds. Even if dispersed adult offspring usually stays in proximity and doesn't get hunted or killed. I would really enjoy to have more than 2 wolves in one enclosure.

[The Former]

You're in luck! Wait long enough and those wolves will breed. When the pups reach adulthood, you'll have this exact situation on your hands.

You could also bring in a bunch of wolves from the start if you wanted to, though I'm not sure if pack dynamics vary between family and non-family units in this game.

[Koles]

As far as I know, you can have a lot of animals in one enclosure (not sure what is the total animal limit/ if there is one). The only problem is they can get unhappy if there are too little space or if they don't have enough resources/ abnormal social dynamic.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Koles:

As far as I know, you can have a lot of animals in one enclosure (not sure what is the total animal limit/ if there is one). The only problem is they can get unhappy if there are too little space or if they don't have enough resources/ abnormal social dynamic.

Yeah, pretty much. As far as I know there isn't a hard limit, but if too many animals are kept in too close a proximity, they'll stress rapidly. It seems each species has its own threshold for how many other animals it can handle before being constantly stressed.

In beta, I had pretty sizable enclosure (around 16 square km, IIRC) and consistently had packs ranging from 6-12 wolves without any major problems.

[Angry Ear-Mii]

Originally posted by Sheriff of Nothingham:

Originally posted by Koles:

As far as I know, you can have a lot of animals in one enclosure (not sure what is the total animal limit/ if there is one). The only problem is they can get unhappy if there are too little space or if they don't have enough resources/ abnormal social dynamic.

Yeah, pretty much. As far as I know there isn't a hard limit, but if too many animals are kept in too close a proximity, they'll stress rapidly. It seems each species has its own threshold for how many other animals it can handle before being constantly stressed.

In beta, I had pretty sizable enclosure (around 16 square km, IIRC) and consistently had packs ranging from 6-12 wolves without any major problems.

I know that, but they will fight and get unhappy, and that is what I really don't like about it. They are families, it is simply unrealistic to have them constantly fighting.

[Alphakuh]

Fighting is realistic. And if u have 2-2 pairs there will be fights about alpha

[Angry Ear-Mii]

Originally posted by stefizzle:

Fighting is realistic. And if u have 2-2 pairs there will be fights about alpha

It is not. read up about family packs. the mated pair stays together until one dies. there is no alpha beta omega dynamics. the parents are the mated pair, they lead.

[Melon]

Wolf packs do not fight each other at all unless they're unrelated. It's unrealistic to have a wolf attack its parent for dominance the second it becomes an adult. It makes it impossible to have more than 2 animals per exhibit, which is pretty unrealistic.

And it makes even less sense for animals such as bison, who again have this alpha/beta dynamic and shouldn't since they're herd animals. Not to mention that the alpha/beta theory has been disproven, so why it's in this game is a mystery considering frontiers high emphasis on realism.

[ptarn]

I agree that it's highly unrealistic to be forced to trade/sell a wolf's offspring the moment they reach maturity. I didn't even think about it until I got the message that they were fighting for alpha status. The description about wolves also makes no sense at all. Wolves live in PACKS. They are PACK animals. They are a family unit, led by the dominant male and female, with the /occasional/ fight for dominance when either the male or the female gets too weak/old to lead the pack. And as Melon said the whole alpha/beta nonsense has been disproven thoroughly. It's one of those 'facts' that people seem to hold on to even when scientists/biologists explain why it's absolute nonsense.

[Koles]

Originally posted by Melon:

Wolf packs do not fight each other at all unless they're unrelated. It's unrealistic to have a wolf attack its parent for dominance the second it becomes an adult. It makes it impossible to have more than 2 animals per exhibit, which is pretty unrealistic.

And it makes even less sense for animals such as bison, who again have this alpha/beta dynamic and shouldn't since they're herd animals. Not to mention that the alpha/beta theory has been disproven, so why it's in this game is a mystery considering frontiers high emphasis on realism.

Alpha/ beta theory hasn't been disproved, it's just that wolves in the wild (and other animals) do not behave the same as in captivity, what we call fight for alpha was observed in captive wolves, not wild ones, so it makes sense that they would exhibit similar behavior in a zoo.

But yeah, not having them fight constantly would be... Nice.

[SneakyGremlin]

I was very surprised when I read the Zoopedia. Two wolves??? What the heck! I was so eager to create my first pack of wolves and then you can only keep two at a time. Well that is if you don't want them to constantly fight over leadership.

It's really silly and it makes me question Frontiers logic since they've been very clear that they wanted to make the game so realistic as possible.

My two wolves finally had a little female pup and when she grew up they instantly jumped at her.

I'm also having a hard time with my hyenas. In the Zoopedia it says that you can keep two males and two females at once, or that was how I interpreted it. But the females keep fighting the other female constantly so I had to get rid off one female. Now they're happy. Except that the alpha females little daughter grew up and now they're fighting too, haha.

[Kimi]

The Zoopedia actually says that only 1 adult male and 1 adult female are allowed per enclosure, OR 2 bachelor males or 2 bachelor females, meaning non of the opposite sex. If there are anymore than 2 adults at any given time in the enclosure, my wolves fight for "overcrowding". It is impossible for me to have anymore than 2, no matter how large my enclosure is.

To clarify since I've seen people try to say that the fights are for alpha; Mine are not fighting for alpha. There's no reason a female should be attacking a male if it was alpha fighting, plus the warning message tells me specifically that they're fighting from overcrowding. In the drop down menu for social, when I hover over the overcrowding menu, it tells me that there's "too many adults".

This is highly unrealistic as wolves are pack animals that tend to have around 10 adults, or even more per pack. I'm not sure if something changed since beta as someone above stated they had large packs then, but it is capping at 2 adults for me, and the Zoopedia even says 2 adults permitted. I really hope this is changed/fixed, as I would really like a nice big pack of wolves in my zoo.