They have large upright ears and a very bushy tail.
The first time I saw a wolf it was one lone male from a great distance, and I was so excited! I watched it gracefully bounce across a valley below the mountain where we were researching. However, I was confused when my research partner didn't share in my excitement. He explained to me that seeing wolves is often cause for concern for those living on the Tibetan Plateau because many residents there make a living from raising livestock. Sometimes wolves will eat livestock instead of wild prey because livestock can be an easy meal. Therefore, seeing a wolf means you may lose your livestock in the near future. As soon as we returned down from the mountain, he immediately contacted friends of the sighting and they all moved quickly to bring their animals in early from the grazing pastures for the night.
Tibetan wolves live in mountainous environments and often in groups of many individual wolves called "packs". They can be found in the same habitat as snow leopards, but they occupy slightly different areas. Wolves usually stay in the valleys, alpine meadows, or at the lower bases of mountains while snow leopards live towards the top of the mountains. Inadvertently, this allows snow leopards and wolves to help each other out with getting prey items to eat. The wolves chase prey up the mountain sides while trying to catch a meal towards the snow leopards, and the snow leopards chase prey back down the mountain while trying to catch a meal towards the wolves.
