Talk:Howling

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"Mutually intelligible dialects" claim
> Wolves from different geographic locations may howl in different fashions: the howls of European wolves are much more protracted and melodious than those of North American wolves, whose howls are louder and have a stronger emphasis on the first syllable. The two are however mutually intelligible, as North American wolves have been recorded to respond to European-style howls made by biologists.

The factoid above had been copy-pasted word-for-word around several Wikipedia articles, specifically Eurasian_wolf, Wolf_communication, and Howling.

The claim above originates from Zimen's book 1981 "The Wolf: His Place in the Natural World", specifically the following passage:

> Dave invited me to accompany him on his work. We went to an already known rendezvous, an old clearing in the forest that had become thickly overgrown again, where, upon howling, we were immediately answered by about five cubs and an older animal. I climbed a tree to get a better view, and kept howling in my "European wolf dialect" while the cubs responded in "American." The howling of American wolves is in fact different from that of their European counterparts. I maintained that the howling of European wolves was more protracted and melodious, while that of the American wolves, perhaps because of stronger emphasis on the initial syllables, seemed rather louder. So far as the melodiousness of the howling was concerned, Dave and his colleagues naturally did not agree with me.

> So I sat in the tree and howled, while the others recorded the howling of the cubs on tape. The cubs, attracted by my howling, drew nearer and nearer, and eventually five of them—skinny little fellows about four months old—were sitting under my tree, and we went on howling at each other.

So with a clearer picture of the actual claim, I believe there are several problems with presenting it as fact:


 * 1) Eliciting a reaction by a human does not constitute mural intelligibility, as the animal could have just been confused.
 * 2) Assuming human vocal cords can indeed faithfully replicate canine vocalizations seems rather unwise.
 * 3) Zimen's very colleges have disputed several of the above claims. Presenting it as a fact requires would require consensus.
 * 4) While working with the best data available at the time, early 1980s were the origins of several prominent misinterpretations of wolf behavior, including David Mech's, which by the way is referred to in above passage, pack theory.

I believe the way the claim is presented at the moment does constitute the spread of misinformation. Thus, it should either be reworded to better match with the fact of the matter or be removed, perhaps to be replaced by a more agreed upon and accurate finding.

I refer to [A Brief Lesson on Validating Your Sources (with wolves)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4S47jiIdKc) for alerting me to this issue. He was the one who conducted all the research above and presented his findings. When I checked the articles mentioned and did not saw any edits or talk page sections about it, I knew I had to bring forth a discussion. 94.158.81.70 (talk) 05:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)