Captive Wolf Sound Characteristics

The vocal behavior and sounds of captive wolf were studied in Jinan Pao Maling Wild Animal World from October 2008 to May 2009 by using visible light-infrared videocorder and high-fidelity sound recorder for 24-hour full-time recording. Four types of vocal sounds (growls, whimpers, barks, howls) and the duration, main peak frequency, basic sound, upper partials of the sounds were listed with spectrographic analysis. Based One-way ANOVA on duration, main peak frequency of the four types of vocal sounds, the results showed that the duration and the main peak frequency were significantly different between the four types of vocal sounds. The results of Multiple Comparisons revealed that the duration of growls, barks and howls were all longer than whimpers significantly, the longest was howls then the next was growls and the last was barks; the main peak frequency of barks was higher than that of growls and howls, the main peak frequency of whimpers was higher than that of growls and howls significantly, the main peak frequency of whimpers and barks was not significantly different. Based on the Spectrographic analysis of the four types vocal sounds can get the result that the four types of vocal sounds all consisted of basic sound and upper partials. With the research on the chorus howling occasions per hour, the results can be found that the chorus howls mostly occurred between 6:00-7:00 a.m. and 17:00～18:00 p.m. During the play back experiment of the wolf's vocal sounds that were taped around the wolf's enclosure, the results showed that the wolf only responded to the chorus howls and the Response Rate was 10%.