malik – Nov 15, 2006 12:00 AM

In this week’s video, Malik is observed doing raised leg urination. It is a bit unusual that a lower ranking male does an RLU, since this is usually just a behavior of the dominant male in a pack. But, remember the history of our pack. The retired wolves were moved out of the Exhibit Pack in 2002, leaving Shadow and Malik as the only pack members until the 2004 litter was introduced. With no real pack, there was not a very clear distinction between pack roles. Malik began using an RLU posture, without much reaction from Shadow, now that there is a pack role, both adult males are using RLU, and now Grizzer has started the same pattern. There are several differences between life in the wild and life in captivity. Even though marking is part of the behavior of a wolf, it’s not as critical as the message that is conveyed when marking one’s territory in the wild.