Grayson – Investigation – The focus of the young wolf

You may have noticed that the logs and youtube have been a little delayed.  This week’s photo of Grayson is one challenges we face in getting quality video footage for publication.  Wolves have a natural curiosity and bringing cameras into the enclosure means that wolves will often investigate.  To be able to get footage, we usually require at least two people, one to distract and be an observer and one to look through the eye of the camera.  Added to this challenge is subzero temperatures and precipitation and this winter has created some very short filming opportunities.  Fortunately, we have a series of Birthday webinars coming up.  If you miss our Youtube post, please join us for our webinars, where we have individual birthday webinars and more.  Grayson and Axel’s birthday is May 2nd.   Grayson seems to have the same pattern, losing weight, likely due to increased activity and some increased competition.  Last winter he weighed 82 pounds in February 2018, but by October of 2018, he was back to 94 pounds.   In addition to the weekly carcass on Saturday night’s What’s for Dinner Program, we feed some smaller food resources such as beaver, chicken or deer legs on Wednesdays and extra chicken or beef meals are offered to Grayson on a daily basis.  The issue with Grayson is not about food availability, but it is about attitude and competition. He has always been more reserved and timid, so even if he may want the food, he is easily intimidated when other wolves display food defense.  To reduce food competition, we require at least 2 if not 3 wolf care staff to distract the other wolves.  The good thing is, we condition the wolves from the time they are pups to take meatballs and following the meatball tray as a form of distraction.  Since we are scheduled to adopt pups again in 2020, we are brushing up on the adult behavioral traits that need conditioning with pups.