Some of the many articles about it:
The notion that wolves fight amongst each other and the strongest becomes the “alpha” and the weakest is the “omega” and all that, is a misconception that has been debunked ages ago, and even the author of the study who called them “alphas” in the first place is pleading with his old publisher to stop printing the dang book already so this misconception can finally die out.
Wolf packs are more or less just families. One “breeding pair” and their pups, which often stay with their parents way into adulthood.
Considering the original study only documented Wolves in captivity I explain it like this: Alpha, Beta, Sigma, whatever, is just the type of prison bitch you’d be, so congrats.
Exactly this. Put any one species into a tiny depressing enclosure with way too many strangers and way too little food, and they will fight and establish a pecking order eventually. This has nothing to do with how the same species would behave in the wild and with enough resources to live comfortably, and the author realized that mistake years ago and is since trying to correct it.
But I guess the entire “alpha male” thing is just too popular with certain people … ahem.