Exhibit Pack Update – 22 September 2023

Earlier this week, on Saturday September 16th, we captured some footage that was particularly interesting, and we wanted to offer some interpretations. Rieka was standing over Blackstone and doing little bit of social greetings and kind of presenting herself to Blackstone. She attempts to do a stand over, but she is a little too short. You see her tail rising as she moves closer to him and that’s a little bit more assertive and a little bit less social. Grayson comes around and he seems to be always keeping an eye on what the yearlings are up to.  

We had someone ask us recently, “is Rieka mature yet?” After some of us chuckled and said, “it depends upon the day,” she really is showing much more assertiveness, much more direct eye contact, facing issues more directly, and showing strong body postures. For example, even though Blackstone seemed to resist her dominance displays in the footage, she didn’t back off. She’s had a history of being a little bit intimidated and approaching from behind by tail grabbing because she wasn’t very confident. We are now seeing her directly facing the males and dealing with her place as the dominant female.  

On that same footage, we saw Caz taking an opportunity while Rieka was focused on Blackstone to do a chin rest and that is a dominant posture. Then he goes into a ride up. His tail indicated that he was not very comfortable, and it doesn’t seem like he’s very confident about that move. Blackstone was also facing him so that certainly could have been the issue.  

One of the highlights of this particular video is that we observed Caz and Rieka do a very short parallel gait after all this posturing and chin resting. Rieka kind of walked into that because she protected Caz from a lot of dominance interactions. Pictured above you can see their feet parallel to each other and walking shoulder to shoulder. Parallel walking is a social bonding behavior so we can confirm that fall is in the air.  

It is autumnal equinox today, equal length of daylight and darkness, the first official day of fall. We’re starting to see some beautiful fall colors and feeling the temperature changes. With having a dry summer we’re likely to see some more intense colors than we might see during a wet year. With fall officially arriving, we know that wolf activity will increase so we’ll be watching that as the sun sets earlier every day, we certainly will keep an eye on what the pack is up to. 

You may watch the footage here.