denali – Mar 11, 2011 12:00 AM

Denali has had a harder time with the separation of Grizzer than Aidan. Denali seeks Grizzer out and has had many howling bouts with him. He has been sleeping near Grizzer's enclosure and is frequently standing near the fence line. A staff member observed the following; "When they were running around Grizzer was standing and biting at the fence then when Denali saw Grizzer standing he ran over there and anded up laying down by Grizzers area". Aidan and Denali are showing no behavioral signs of wolves that deposed their dominant pack members, such as Malik and Shadow showed in 2002. They continue very low throated howls and when they do interact near Grizzer, they don't display high tail postures. I just finished a necropsy for one of the MN DNR Conservation Officers, on a wolf that was killed by other wolves in the wild. He described the scene as lots of tracks, scent marking and scraping of the ground, which is typical when there's a winner in a territorial dispute or a dominance rank change.