Often when I read about animals, I find it difficult to believe that the aggression that is observed (at least in some instances), is truly felt and stems from some deep motivation.
For example, I have watched videos of red deer bachelor herds where the males hang out without much tension although some displays, of course, are observed and the males also engage in play/dominance behaviours that are mostly not truly threatening and might even be used for entertainment or to improve one another’s fitness and fighting skills.
And then the rut arrives, and males fight to death or they engage in such intense harem guarding that they can run out of their own body resources and die in the winter to come.
Sometimes these behaviours are explained as being driven by hormones.
We are all friends until our ‘nature’ reminds us that there is much to gain and also much to lose.
However, I rather think that it might be the other way around.
Animals might be using aggression which is partly produced through a performance act in order to affect hormonal levels.
Aggression, as far as I understand, is involved in the production of testosterone.
It can be the result of testosterone but could it also not be a means to raising testosterone levels?
Testosterone, meanwhile, might improve the quality of sperm (or the quantity thereof) and thereby under circumstances where the male has to invest himself greatly, they might engage in activities (that are not unlike autosuggestion and acting) that allow them to raise their testosterone levels not through feeling aggressive and acting on it but through acting aggressive (pretense) and thereby arriving at the psychological and psychological state, as well.
Namely, what I would like to propose is that animals play make-belief in order to improve their performance (as mates) but the belief component in this is so strong that the animal which at first simply carries out certain behaviours, consequently, believes their own act and stirs up the called-for attitudes.
I believe this might be of special importance in situations where the male has to perform mating services beyond typical capacity.
For example, perhaps the red deer males have not been able to evolve (quality) sperm production at rates necessary to hold a decent rut position in a population of overall red deer abundance.
Human activities have always favoured higher abundance or even overabundance of ungulates.
The males might thereby be pressured to gather large harems but at some point, the male’s natural capacity for hormonal production that results in viable sperm in sufficient amounts might fail him and he might need to increase these rates.
The behaviour of acting out displays of aggression in order to feel aggression as a physical state and to derive the respective body chemistry reactions might be the result of overproduction of ungulates in a population.
Similarly, I have noticed that intrapack strife appears very high in wolf populations where more than one litter is produced per pack (which means that there is one male and several breeding females).
Also, it seems that strife is observed in great rates where there are other environmental pressures acting on the wolf packs that lead to low reproduction rates (e.g., more extreme climate, food scarcity).
Typically, it is explained through the resource limitation but I wonder whether the strife is also aimed at keeping one another going (improving hormonal rates in males) because, after all, such populations are often characterized by very low densities and the success of neighbours might, in truth, be of importance not only because it poses a threat but also because it provides mating opportunities for one’s offspring.
Thereby, simultaneously, having neighbours reproduce is somewhat perilous (large neighbouring groups might seek to expand their range and usurp some of the resources) but not having neighbours reproduce in remote, low density populations might just as well lead to the extinction of one’s legacy.
Sometimes it is not even clear why these wolves are fighting.
I have been, for example, confounded by the Yellowstone reintroduction experience where the packs seemed to wage wars (high tension) despite there being plenty of land and plenty of food.
This was, too, accompanied by production of several litters per pack.
I wonder thereby whether the aggression in these instances might also be perceived not merely as a result of some processes but rather as a means to achieve reproductive rates and some goals that the pack might have on its own but that the population might have, as well.
Another aspect that I have found curious is the aggression display toward some individuals in order to establish new social status.
For example, when I was reading Rick McIntyre’s ‘The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone’s Underdog’, the episode that related of female 9’s attack on male 8’s brother 6 when he had ‘come visiting’ and he had attempted to play with his unrelated pups (who had been adopted and not begotten by wolf 8) with the rest of his group prior to male 8’s official integration into Rose Creek pack as a breeding male, made me wonder whether this encounter was conducted in the aggressive manner not because it was inherently aggressive (perceived as such by the individuals involved) but because it served the purpose of changing the hormonal status in wolf 8.
There might never have been the intent to harm wolf 8’s brother (and maybe female 9 had not even been that afraid over the safety of her group).
Perhaps this (and I would like to call it) performance ritual was executed in order to initiate wolf 8 into the group through making him experience aggression while protecting the group – aggression high enough to override his affiliation with his natal group; aggression that might have given rise to sufficient amounts of testosterone to provide the experience (and the taste) of what it means to be the leader of a wolf pack.
Interestingly, the brother who stayed behind the longer during the interaction with wolf 8 and his new mate female 9, was male 6 who later (in 1997; after two years) became the breeding male of Crystal Creek Pack.
The experience therefore might have been significant for him, as well, and his potential for being a leader might have caused him to ‘antagonize’ Rose Creek group the longest because he might have found it more difficult to accept the behaviour of simply running off and being cautious.
Perhaps female 9 (who could have been at that very moment presented with a choice between two mates because she had not bred with wolf 8 and she could have as well turned him down in favour of his brother 6) encouraged the chase for the sake of wolf 6, as well, in order to demonstrate to him what she values in male leadership and that he still has to grow up but that someday he would grow up to be a leader.
The detail of wolf 6 having been the brother who lingered behind rather than taking off was mentioned in ‘The Yellowstone Wolves: The First Year’ by Ferguson, G. (1996)
All in all, it seems to me that not all aggressive displays are provoked by physiological reactions that incite aggression.
Some of them might be called forth intentionally through ritualized behaviour in order to experience the aggression that is needed but, in wild societies, make-belief is a risk because individuals are so excellent at acting that acting frequently turns reality.
Personally (and probably very controversially), I even believe that individuals take these risks to entice others to aggression although this aggression will be turned against themselves in order to attain some objectives that are beyond the scope of an individual and their life and but that are not beyond the scope of individual’s legacy.
These acts frequently seem to be aimed at males whereby males help one another (as in red deer) or even whole groups might act out behaviours to help the males (as in wolves).
Perhaps it is because in many species the male is the one who has to provide a lot of action within a very short and intense period, often for many females (and, from the perspective of the male, the stakes are very high because it might be the top major contribution the male makes during the entire year in many species).
However, where the objective is to rise reproductive rates, this strategy might be a counterproductive because aggression in males might cause stress in females.
Moreover, in species where males partner up with females in order to engage in aggressive acts (e.g., strife between neighbours or establishing social order within their group), the female might become exhausted and destabilized because she, too, has to keep her own testosterone rates growing.
I believe this was one of the causes behind the sad story of wolf 40 in Yellowstone who has been characterized as overly aggressive (she reportedly instigated most of the fatal attacks on other packs; she brutally dominated other females in her group and she might have killed her sister’s pups in two breeding seasons) but perhaps she was not naturally aggressive enough.
In order to keep up with the demands placed on her in the novel circumstance, she might have suffered severe confusion because it was of importance to have a large pack and to defend it as well as to expand on its behalf but, unlike her larger mates, she might have struggled to naturally produce sufficient testosterone.
Deriving her aggression from ‘performance’ might have led her to ‘overreacting’ and not being entirely certain (due to lack of true feedback from her physiology) when to act how.
There might be other methods to, for example, increasing reproductive rates and those would be aimed not at the males but at the females.
That is to say, they would not be aimed at raising testosterone but at raising estrogen.
And estrogen is not increased through aggression (although it is sometimes assumed that displays of aggression might boost estrogen in the females who are not participating but watching them; however, personally, I find it unlikely).
Estrogen could be raised, for example, through play (cardio-exercise but also probably related to oxytocin, estrogen) and it seemed to be the new tactique acquired by some wolf packs, e.g., in Yellowstone and those were packs that became highly successful and long-lived (e.g., Druid Pack after accepting male 21 as their breeder and leader and Leopold Pack).
The strategy is, in fact, the same (play-acting) but the situation does not override the threshold between ‘fooling around’ and ‘being for realz’.
The estrogen-rising strategy might not work out in food-stressed populations (where energy cannot be spared for play and most activities have to yield also pragmatic, immediate, resource-based benefits) as well as in individuals and populations who, for some reason, find it more difficult to stay in the context of ‘pretense’.
Stress as such (social stress or otherwise) could blend the boundary between acting and reality.
I think, for example, that female 40 in Yellowstone was simply too responsible and too worried she was not living up to the expectations (which was reflected in her own poor pup production) and the tendency to support males and their testosterone could have brought additional pressure on her because she was the leading female and she had to participate in any acts of aggression.
She caught up in the act out of fears she was not acting professionally enough.
I wonder how many actors would accept their multimillion jobs if they, like animals, had been given roles but if there was no promise that an any point, their roles would not unfold into real situations and not merely ritualized displays performed to awaken states anticipated by the society and its needs.
References
Ferguson, Gary. 1996. The Yellowstone Wolves: The First Year. Falcon Press, ISBN 1560445009, 9781560445005
McIntyre, Rick and Robert, Redford. 2019. Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone’s Underdog. Vancouver, British Columbia, Greystone Books
Notes by Ieva 