grizzer – Nov 20, 2006 12:00 AM

Maintaining wolves during the winter time requires constant assessment of nutritional status, wolf interactions during the most aggressive time of the year, physical response to changing temperatures and water consumption. The wolves have their winter water heaters installed and have adapted well to the change from the summer water system to the winter system. While wolves in the wild find fresh snow to have insulating value, wolves in captivity need some type of additional insulation due to compaction of snow. Fresh straw bales are given to the wolves several times during the month to ensure a warm place to rest. The den is lined with straw as well, but the wolves rarely use the den except to escape summer heat. In this week’s video of Grizzer, you see him investigating the straw as do the other wolves.