maya – Sep 24, 2010 12:00 AM

Certainly Maya's dominance towards Aidan is difficult to watch, especially when Aidan tries so hard to be with her and Aidan willingly greets and submits to her. Maya is not an aggressive animal, but she is a dominant animal that is driven by hormonal influences that have a strong survival instinct in the wild. Female dominance in the wild is a form of population control, keeping the lower ranking females from copulating and producing litters of pups that may stress a pack resources. We know from experience that females are more intense than males, and we can't hold that against the individual wolf. I know that our job as wolf care staff is to maintain the highest quality care possible for all wolves, and in Maya's case, that includes keeping her stress levels low to keep her from redirecting to Aidan.