Cold Warriors: Buffalos and Wolves

“If the buffalos strategy was full proof there wouldn’t be any wolves.”

                                                                                    -Jeff Turner

Cold Warriors: Buffalos and Wolves take place in Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Canada, a park five times larger than Yellow Stone. Jeff Turner is a wildlife photographer and the creator of this naturally beautiful work.

A wolf pack is at the heart a family, and the “Delta” pack is the core of this documentary. The main focus of Canadian wolves is hunting buffalo to maintain their group health, approximately one buffalo a week will ensure this. With the assistance of a helicopter Turner is able to follow the Delta pack over their daily 30 mile hunting range. The pure instinctual nature of the wolves is a fascinating marvel of nature; wolves must be in peak form to hunt buffalo. The alpha male is the driving force of the pack, the strongest and most brazen, his leadership and intuition ensures his packs survival by providing meat and thus a healthy litter of new pups.   

The transformation of seasons from winter to spring brings about many changes, opportunities, and offspring. With new litters of both wolves and buffalo, each has a new reason to fight harder for survival. Watching the large female wolf scout out the herd’s new calves was like watching a mother at a grocery store; the calmness of both predator and prey was unnerving. The wolves fight to kill the calves to feed their pups, while the buffalo fight the wolves to save their calves, in situations like this it is hard to know who to root for. It is the never ending vicious cycle of nature and a clear example of Darwin’s survival of the fittest.

The pack structure is amazing to watch, from the interactions between the mother and newborn pups to the “teenage” wolves and their alpha male father. The pups truly act like little siblings to their older bothers and sisters, constantly playing and annoying them like in human culture. The alpha male can be compared to human political structure, where the strongest lead because “the people” feel that it is in their best interest. In terms of the Delta pack the white alpha male takes charge of all situations, be it leading a black bear away from the den to heading the hunt.

Nature is a constant struggle to survive, to find sufficient food and reproduce. This struggle is made even harder when our modern human world begins to encroach on their once protected and isolated land. The Alberta Oil Sands, the world’s third largest crude oil reserve is now just upstream of the National Park and the occupants living ranges. The factory emissions, full of air toxins have tripled in the past few years due to the rapid expansion of the industry. The water downstream of the Oil Sands has been recorded containing double the amount of toxic substances then those upstream. These statistics in hand with the industry are expected to double in the next few years, leading to even greater damage to the ecosystem. Measure must be taken to ensure that the delicate balance of nature is not destroyed by the greed of man.