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By John Hart, Wildlife Biologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture – Wildlife Services, Minnesota The positions expressed reflect the views of the authors or organizations cited and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Wolf Center. The old phrase to “keep the wolf from the door”, took on new meaning for me recently. A […]
We actually recorded the pack howling and Aidan took the lead in the howl and did some barking towards a stranger in the wolf yard. He's starting to act a lot like Shadow, and Shadow seemed to hold the pack together for 8 solid years. Of course, he had Maya at this side helping, in […]
Boltz is having a rough time with the flies. He is panicked with them overhead and runs with his tail down and head low, panicked. This is a problem in the heat, and he's taken to lying underground at the top of the enclosure. This puts him away from the rest of the pack and […]
Written by Ethology Participant: Anna Schmidt<br> Malik, the smaller of the International Wolf Center's Arctic wolves, is often exhibits a docile behavior. This is due to his thirteen years of age. He lives with his brother Shadow, in an enclosure and is often found resting in the den to get away from the Minnesota bugs. […]
The retired area has increased vegetative cover with the recent rainfall and cooler temperatures. Malik spends a lot of time in the dense cover. His recent activities relate to caching some of the mid-week beef feedings and defending from Shadow. When he does howl with Shadow, his lower ranking status seems to favor howling from […]
Shadow has some quirks. He's very assertive with staff and is the reason there are a limited number of staff that can enter his enclosure. He is the master of chin rests, direct eye contact, posturing and all of the other traits that are associated with a dominant animal. He still psychologically leads the Exhibit […]
Malik and Shadow did extremely well with the work projects. They were temporarily moved into the pack holding area and showed very little intimidation or bark howling on Saturday. On Sunday, Shadow did a bit of bark howling, but overall, they were very tolerant of the work.
Shadow is feeling so much better and his behaviors include chin rests, overmarks and some very intensive greetings with staff. This week's Youtube features some very good howling clips, led by Shadow, but responses from all wolves.
With the webcam on retirement, people may notice the behavioral differences between Malik and Shadow. Malik is more nervous and may be up and traveling more than Shadow. Malik may also be more food possessive and if there is a wolf howling, it's likely to be Shadow on the top of the den. Malik, as […]
Malik seems to be backing off on his testing behavior which probably means that Shadow is back to displaying a more dominant role. We don't have much more to add about the retired wolves this week except that we had some good howling footage from Malik as well as Shadow.
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