lucas – Sep 18, 2000 12:00 AM

As stated in last week's notes, the Wolf Curator redesigned the Wednesday night feeding program. To avoid a situation where the adults take possession of the deer legs first, the pups were isolated in the smaller holding kennel and the adults were isolated in the big pack holding area. The legs were placed inside the main enclosure and the pups were released. When the pups clearly had possession of the carcass, the adults were released. The pups were able to guard and possess the food since they got to it first. This seemed to work well and with modifications, will likely be the way the pup feeding programs are done in the future. Thursday, August 21st was the scheduled day for staining the building within the enclosure. This meant that all the wolves were isolated in the large pack holding area for the day ( 11 am – 3:30 pm). The pups are right at home since this was their main enclosure during the socialization process. The adults are not as comfortable with long term confinement and demonstrated some anxious behavior and a 5-minute bout of aggression toward Lakota. After the painters left the enclosure and the wolves were released, the adults spent several minutes scent marking and scent rolling in the front of the enclosure were the smell of residual stain remained. The pups spent 90% of the day sleeping and were somewhat oblivious to the events of the day. It was a real benefit to long-term management of the pack to have the pups so familiar with this pack holding area. As they mature, their comfort with this isolation pen will make for calmer interactions during future enclosure projects. Any future pups at the center should be reared in a similar manner as these Arctic pups, including all of the time and energy of the Nannies.