Today I lear­ned : Les meutes de loups

Wolf packs don’t actually have alpha males and alpha females, the idea is based on a misun­ders­tan­ding
[…]

Most wolf packs simply consist of two parents and their puppies. The group may also include one- to three-year-old offspring that have not yet headed out on their own.

« The adults are simply in charge because they are the parents of the rest of the pack members. We don’t talk about the alpha male, the alpha female and the beta child in a human family, » Zimmer­mann said.

https://phys.org/news/2021–04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females.html

La suite est aussi inté­res­sante. Les idées de mâles alpha et de hiérar­chie viennent d’ob­ser­va­tions en capti­vité où on force des loups adultes de familles diffé­rentes à coha­bi­ter dans des espaces réduits. Ce sont des compor­te­ments provoqués qui n’ont rien de ceux que choi­sissent les loups quand ils ont le choix.

Et tout ça a des consé­quences :

« Once the concept of the wolf and its strict hierar­chy was esta­bli­shed, trai­ners were more likely to use punish­ment. It wasn’t just that the dog was puni­shed when it did some­thing wrong, you had to show the dog that you were the alpha wolf all the time, » she said.

Nous justi­fions nos propres horreurs avec des compor­te­ments que nous avons nous-même provoqués.