My dad thinks it’s a wolf, but I think it’s more likely to be like a black coyote or something. Looks too small and skinny to be a gray wolf. This was out in Stanley, Idaho.

I was reading a book wherein a wolf pack gets poisoned and starts behaving very aggressively (due to mental degradation) and was wondering how wolves in the real world would actually behave (or if this has ever been studied and anybody could point me to some papers/scientific articles).

The context: in this fictional story (set in a fantasy world), a person is developing a poison and testing it on animals. With all the previous animals, the infected animal turns violent (even if they are usually incredibly peaceful and herbivores) and attacks everything it sees, humans and other animals alike. Relentlessly. Death seems to be the only thing that stops the animal. The impression I took from the descriptions is something like if a rabbit was infected and it saw a tiger or elephant, it would attack and not stop until dead, so that's the level of persistent aggression and mental collapse I'm talking about.

In the story, the person doing this testing then infects a whole wolf pack, which then attack some travelers. However, the wolves are still very pack-centric, attacking as a pack and with their attack having planned and thought-out elements (surround the group of prey, perform some feints to try to break the formation of the group of prey, attack from multiple directions, attacking in consistent waves to give the prey no break).

And, in the context of this fictional story, that strikes me as odd, since this poison seems to deteriorate an animal's mind to the point that they are just AGGRESSIVE and cannot think or reason. All the other examples talk about how the animals zero in on anything alive and just attack and attack and attack.

So, to me, it would make more sense that this infected wolf pack would attack the travelers, but also each other, and it would be an incredibly random and aggressive melee ending with few survivors among the wolves. I know some wolf behaviors are instinctual, but I think most of the hunting techniques we witness and associate with wolves are driven by intelligence just as much as instinct, so removing the intelligence of a wolf would drastically reduce its capacity to work effectively or in a pack.

Ergo, my question about if this has ever been studied. As in, has a pack ever been observed to still work well as a pack when several of its members are suffering from something causing mental degradation?

​

I think this one is a decent improvement over my previous wolf drawing. I hope this one doesn't mysteriously disappear.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service issued an order to kill an endangered Mexican gray wolf - really infuriating.

https://www.telebari.it/attualita/264103-aggressioni-a-tre-bimbi-a-noicattaro-arriva-la-conferma-del-dna-e-un-lupo-appenninico-maschio.html?fbclid=IwdGRjcAT-QlxjbGNrBP5CSXBkb2YBZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeUn11IMARwetWpspMPzXMgksz6YkCWpsQL9f2DqqXM60g4-w7RJgTVqtfybc_aem_ruv_e4d9PmT0wC_21qS8OQ

https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2026/08/one-young-wolf-two-close-encounters-and-a-journey-hundreds-of-miles-long.html

The link/story has all the videos and photos, interview and a ton more about lone Oregon wolves that have traveled insane distances.

The description of the video is magnificently heart breaking and inspiring.

I follow this wonderful organization @VoyageursWolfProject