Shaun Ellis' Biography
Shaun Ellis is a wolf behavior expert who conducts research in a unique and sometimes controversial way: by living with the wolves and becoming part of their world. Throughout his life, he has dedicated much of his time to studying and researching the behavior of wild wolves by living among them, which has given him one-of-a-kind insight into the complex society of the wolf. By being closer to wolves than nearly anyone else in the world, he has learned a language unlike any other.
Believing that living alongside wolves is the best way to understand them, Ellis immerses himself in wolf society. He lives and behaves like them — howling, licking and snarling — even eating and playing like the wolves. He has lived among captive wolf packs in England and spent seven years on the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho studying wolves. It was on the Nez Perce reservation that he first was able to get inside a pack of wolves and live among them.
His studies evolved as he began recording wild wolf howls in the woods, using recording equipment at night in freezing temperatures and snow, and then playing them back again and again the next day. With patient listening, he learned how to pick out individual pack members through their distinctive sounds.
He recently spent 18 months living in captivity with a trio of wolf pups that had been abandoned by their mother at birth, educating them as wild wolves in the hope that they could survive in the wild.
Through this direct study, he has learned how to communicate with the wolves and defend himself through scent and sounds. He understands scent markings as well as the different howls to defend and call. He believes that wolves are highly intelligent, highly instinctive animals brought up with trust and balance, characteristics that are often misunderstood by humans.
Ellis is also the founder and head of Wolf Pack Management, a self-funding organization located at the Combe Martin Wildlife Park in North Devon, England. He works with 13 captive wolves at the park. His work is devoted to furthering the welfare of wild and captive wolves, promoting knowledge and awareness of the plight of the wolf and advancing knowledge of wolf behavior through research and education.
He is involved in a number of research projects both in Poland and at Yellowstone National Park with the goal of developing humane methods to discourage wild wolves from entering areas of potential conflict with humans.
Ellis is the author of “The Wolf Talk” (Rainbow Publishing, 2003), and “Spirit of the Wolf” (Parragon Publishing, 2006). He frequently speaks about his work on television and at public events. He also advises other wildlife centers that maintain wolf packs.
Ellis is determined to keep living with wolves. It has cost him his family and home — his partner and four children left him because of his total dedication to wolves. But he truly believes he can make a difference.
Art of the Howl
Shaun Ellis has spent years of his life immersing himself in wolf society. By living and behaving like wolves, he has learned their intricate language and how to communicate with them through various forms of howling. In "A Man Among Wolves," Shaun is shown teaching a wolf pup to howl by holding it up and howling in its ear. Its ears prick slightly and, after a few seconds, it too begins to howl, throwing its tiny head back.
Below are some of Shaun’s observations on this aspect of the wolf’s complex communication system, as noted in his book “Spirit of the Wolf:”
- The howl is a long-range method of communicating with pack members who are out of sight. It is also used with rival wolves as a way of avoiding conflict and can be heard several miles away — up to 10 miles in favorable conditions.
- Wolves often prefer to howl from an elevated position in order to project the sound farther. They can also be seen standing in a semicircle while howling to project their sound in different directions.
- A wolf away from its pack will often call the pack using a rallying or locating howl.
- Defensive howls are low in tone in order to be discouraging. Locating howls are higher in tone in order to be encouraging, and are drawn-out in order to urge a response to questioning. Depending upon the reply, a subsequent howl may be either high in pitch as encouragement or lower as a discouragement.
- Rallying howls are intended to recall pack members to the location of the family, and will be high in tone but mournful to denote rallying or return. Rallying howls are sometimes misinterpreted as lamenting a death in the pack.
- Communication through howling is taught to young wolves at an early age, and they are rewarded with food and praise.
- Each wolf has a different sound depending upon its pack status.
- The alpha pair’s howl is low in tone, a sign of its high status within the pack. The alphas howl for short periods, and then pause to listen for any response so that they can decide whether the pack as a whole should stop or continue.
- Alpha wolves may not initiate howling, but they will assume control of the situation once vocal contact is made, with, for example, a neighboring pack, a lone wolf or a family member that has become lost while hunting. If the alpha wolves determine that the pack needs to prolong its calls, they will offer encouragement to howl by repeating a long deep howl, or, if they want to stop the pack, they repeat a series of two or three cut-off howls in quick succession.
- Second in the pack to the alpha pair are the betas. The betas’ howls are moderately low in tone: not as low as the alphas but lower than the remaining pack members. They howl approximately three to four times longer than the alphas, adding strength and continuity to the pack calls.
- Mid-ranking wolves create the illusion that there are more wolves in the pack than there actually are. They use a variety of sounds — yips and yaps as well as howls — to make it hard for neighboring packs to identify exactly how many wolves are in the pack.
- The omega wolf is responsible for defusing tension within the pack. The omega’s howl is the most tuneful in the pack, reaching both high and low notes. By adding vocal harmony, it can help calm the pack when the pack is on the defensive.
Sources
Wolf Pack Management
“Spirit of the Wolf” by Shaun Ellis
