The Mexican gray wolf released from her enclosure February 14th will be heading west to live in another facility.  Her time on the lam was apparently enough to set her up for failure with her littermates, and after a few days of assessment, the other two females successfully attacked and overthrew the former leader of the pack. Wolf pack dynamics are very volatile, especially during breeding season.  We are always doing a bit of a dance when we manage wolves in captivity, because most wild wolves leave their packs by the time they are 22-24 months old.  We end up extending that "togetherness" for as long as they allow.  The ideal situation is having one male and one female together and that is it.  Any other demographic presents the possibility of fighting at some point.   The Mexican gray wolf project depends upon donated space like ours to help maintain individuals for breeding and reintroduction.  Since there were so few originally found in the late '70's (5 in the US and 2 in Mexico) each wolf is potentially very important to the program.  These three sisters had lived together relatively peaceably thus far.  There are always dominance displays and aggression, and these three were no exception. However, the female that spent 4 days loose was the dominant female in the enclosure.  She no doubt came back exhausted, dehydrated and in their eyes weaker than when she left.  These two wolves did what natural selection has hard-wired them to do for a million years--they overthrew the highest-ranking female.  Fortunately, we were there and were able to get her out before the injuries she received were life threatening.  She can never be returned to this group, and her future options are only to live with a male.  This is what nature would sculpt--she would leave her pack or die.  If she left her pack she would look for an unattached male and a new territory.