If they were really hungry, not to mention a lamb leg, a whole lamb wouldn't suffice for the eight wolves to share.
However, the animal keeper fed them every day, ensuring their hunger remained consistent so that the wolf pack wouldn't engage in fierce conflicts over a lamb leg.
The other wolves, although envious of the delicious meat, slowly calmed down under the intimidation of Charcoal and Mizzle and became much more orderly after their restless probing, patiently waiting on the side.
Doudou and Little Cabbage lay on the ground, admiring the scenery, occasionally glancing at the lamb leg and licking their lips, while Black Back realized that without other wolves to join in the probe, he definitely wouldn't have a chance by himself, so he too stood three meters away.
After watching for a while and sensing it would be some time before he could eat, he simply ran off to rest somewhere else.
They knew they had no chance until the alpha wolves had finished eating!
Mizzle huffed and puffed at Charcoal for quite a while but couldn't drive him away. Charcoal, looking innocent with his tail tucked, continued to eat while stealthily glancing at Mizzle from time to time. Mizzle had no choice but to let him eat together with her.
After eating for a few minutes, Mizzle, having indulged herself, glanced at Charcoal and let him continue eating while she lay beside him in a composed manner, watching the other wolves and maintaining order.
The tourists marveled, "There's even sweet love between wolves."
"Mizzle says she didn't find a husband, she found a rice bucket."
"It's obvious that Mizzle really dotes on her husband!"
"What do you call this, partners in crime, birds of a feather flock together?"
Charcoal ate happily for a while before Mizzle took over to eat the meat at a leisurely pace. Charcoal stood by alertly, guarding his wife like a majestic god of war.
Only when the two of them were satisfied did the other wolves cautiously approach to eat. By then, Mizzle no longer stopped them but still maintained order.
Zhuang Xiaobai was fascinated by the intriguing relationships within the wolf pack and snapped plenty of photos, "click, click"!
Before visiting the wolves in the zoo, they indeed had a bad impression of wolves!
But after seeing these wolves with their own eyes, it doesn't seem that they are as cruel and cold-hearted as the legends say.
Charcoal and Mizzle, playfully teasing each other, loving and caring, watching over and helping each other, seemed to share a better relationship than most human couples.
In reality, people's perception of the danger posed by wild animals is quite different from the actual situation, and the danger and loss caused by wild animals are often exaggerated, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
For example, one common situation in human-animal conflicts is that within a flock of sheep, several dozen might die of disease.
If a wild animal takes away even one sheep to eat—or, in fact, if there isn't any wild animal that comes to eat the sheep at all—the shepherd might blame all their losses on that animal, stubbornly believing that all the dozens of sheep were killed by wild animals, and feel intense hatred.
Shooting, trapping, poisoning—all kinds of retaliatory hunting ensue.
Inherent, deep-rooted fear is the primary reason for human prejudice against wild animals!
And those who have had the experience of living close to wild animals tend to have much less fear and hatred toward them, with a more rational understanding of them.
Zhang continued, "In fact, wolves also play an important role in maintaining ecological balance. They prey on the sick, old, and weak herbivores, keeping these populations vigorous, reducing the spread of disease, and keeping the number of these herbivores in balance with what the environment can support.
We now recognize that using hunting to protect livestock is very shortsighted. Yellowstone National Park in the United States is a classic example.
In the last century, people, carrying out what they believed to be 'justice', slaughtered wolves – animals that appeared to be 'very bad' and 'ferocious'. They farmed the land with cattle and sheep until, by 1926, there were hardly any wolves to be seen in Yellowstone National Park.
However, after the wolves were gone, the deer population rapidly multiplied, grazing on trees and grasslands, severely damaging plants, and leading to food scarcity for other herbivores.
Without the pursuit of wolves, without fear of natural predators, more and more deer became overweight and sick, and the local ecosystem was severely damaged and distorted. People realized that they could not control the number of deer by themselves and could not replace the role of wolves. So, in 1995, they had to reintroduce wolves from other places.
Only then was the deer population gradually brought under control."