20 October 2020 Grizzer and Denali Reunited

If you are a webcam viewer, you may have noticed that Denali and Grizzer are sharing the East Side Retirement and the Back Habitat.  While reuniting the retired pack members was in my ongoing management plan, we had planned to wait until Denali was done with his antibiotics later this week to avoid food competition with medications.  Apparently,  Denali didn’t think much of my plan.

At 3:36 am this morning, In less than 30 seconds and with no agitation, Denali grabbed the gate frame, twisted the hinge on the gate (which staff couldn’t move with a pry bar and sledge hammer) and joined Grizzer in the Back Habitat.  As a management policy, all external gates and gates between retirement and the Exhibit Pack are chained so if a gate hinge is compromised, the gate is still secure (we had an issue in 2008, where Lakota was reunited with the Exhibit Pack, led by Aidan and Denali).  We also chain all external gates in the East Side Retirement area and Pack Holding Area, but since Grizzer has a history of grabbing chains in his younger years, we hadn’t used chains on the internal gates in retirement, except where Grizzer shares a gate with Boltz.  The gate that Denali opened was an internal gate into the transition area. We have been watching Grizzer and Denali since last friday and all indications were good for a compatible introduction, the surveillance video confirmed our thoughts.  Once again,  we are so grateful for those of you who support our camera upgrades and robust surveillance system through generous donations.  After this morning’s events, wolf care staff are now placing gate chains on ALL gates.  One can’t assume that because wolves are older, that they won’t still act like wolves.

As Walter, one of our camera wolf watchers states:   “They are not old, they are seasoned: as in there is very little you can throw at them or put in front of them they haven’t seen before or know how to deal with, including (apparently) wood reinforced chainlink metal framed gates”

If we find that Grizzer doesn’t like the arrangement, we will go back to keeping them separate, with a bolted gate.  So far, Grizzer is following Denali around and it hasn’t impacted Grizzer from claiming his favorite spot in front of the Back Habitat den. Although since the weekend, he is not using the cover hay, so he may be getting some pain relief from the cold ground on his tendon.  It is a form of self-medicating; Luna used to do the same thing.

Boltz is still being maintained separately in the Pack Holding Area until we have additional test results back.  We ruled out cancer of the spine, bacterial or fungal issues, no meningitis, no tick related issues, no blastomycosis, the list is getting shorter.  We will continue to host a separate log for Boltz under the Meet our Wolves section of the website