Luna – Working on a Training Plan

Luna has been bringing on some additional challenges and training for wolf care staff. If you have followed Luna’s story, she has some medical reasons behind her history of obsessive behavior often viewed by fellow pack members as unstable energy.  There’s  been a lot of medical, physical and behavioral assessments over the last 6 years trying to help Luna.  This behavior had calmed significantly when she was transitioned into retirement where she didn’t have to be on the defensive with more active packmates.  But lately, we are seeing some return to some intense possession beyond her normal gregarious behavior.  A few weeks ago, it was the new scat bucket and a staff member’s boots, earlier this week it was a rock and some cover hay that made her lunge in defense.  There’s something to be said about being dominant, but this seems to be something more.  Lately, she has become obsessed with certain staff people’s hands.  It’s not all staff, just certain staff, it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s gloves or bare hands, she tries to grab them.  The pattern we have seen in the past seems to correlate with her pain response on her back right leg.  She has been willing to seek body work from certain people, but we need to be extremely gentle in handling.  As the weather warms, we will look for correlations with temperature, ice conditions or activity levels to see if there’s a pattern. Until then, you may see staff members in training to learn some techniques.   Luna has also been on a diet, we know extra weight can be an issue for her leg.  We have limited her diet, but with outdoor enclosures, we can’t always be certain of her consumption.  We have reported ravens dropping food in her enclosure and thanks to the diligent eye of one of our viewers, we can also report that Luna chased and caught one of two snowshoe hares that made it into the Retired Pack.  I will post the surveillance video of that event on YouTube on Friday.  To those who think Luna should be back with the pack, I just ask people to respect Luna’s issues and the incredible ability of wolves to identify weaknesses, not only in the prey they catch, but within the pack dynamics in which they live.  We would never risk Luna’s safety by preemptively changing her pack status, nor blame other wolves for displaying their natural behavior.  Please, if anyone has concerns about Luna or any of the other wolves care, feel free to email me directly at curator@wolf.org.