Luna continues to challenge our staff on new and innovative ways to deliver 40 grams of nutritional supplement. At this point, the new protocol includes offering her a tray of meat varieties to see what she's willing to eat on a given day, then once she's committed to eating, the supplement is hidden in several meatballs. Patience and time are the requirement for this job. Luna continues to enjoy the larger carcass feedings on Saturday night as well as a mid-week feeding of beaver or moose heads. We have been a bit challenged in the recent heat spell, with the growth of her winter pelage, the black color phase definitely heats up faster than the other wolves. Luna took her first swim in the pond, which is good for cooler as well as muscle development. She is gaining weight, but definitely slowed down when temperatures reached the high 80's again. Luna is far more active in both feeding and interactions on cooler days.
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Denali's been the lower ranking wolf since he was a pup and he seems to willingly accept Luna's dominance. Fortunately for Luna, Denali is a mild mannered subordinate, since he probably weighs 50 pounds more than Luna. We should have up to date weights on the wolves early next week.
There is no doubt that Luna has become conditioned to avoid nutritional supplements, which makes the twice daily treatments a challenge. But, we have to remember, the challenges of getting Luna to a healthy adult size in the next 3 months are critical to her having a healthy adult life for the next 14 years. Late nights and long shifts are worth it. As you can see from her weight, she has gained and we would be extremely happy if she were to continue this growth pattern. Luna continues to develop a strong predatory drive and is active with carcass feedings and pack rallies, especially led by Aidan.
In the interest of getting logs posted tonight, I’m copying the same text. The priorities in my job include pup feeding time. We have a short period of time to maximize growth and get Luna and Boltz the resources necessary to prepare for a Northern Minnesota winter. Feedings require time, patience and some ingenuity. As I write this, I just finished a successful pup feeding with Luna eating over a pound of venison and another ½ pound of chicken. It was not quite as successful with Boltz, but he was caching everything I offered, so he must have been full. Boltz does utilize the remaining carcasses from previous feedings and his scats are dark, indicating meat consumption. Aidan has had some tremendous social bonding behavior with Luna, unfortunately, I didn’t get it on tape. With cooler weather stimulating hormones, we are bound to see more. Grizzer is the beneficiary of most of the pups left overs. He does enjoy that part of wolf care. Shadow and Malik continue to posture with Shadow more dominant, but they don’t have any issues when it comes to sharing the den in a rainstorm. Thanks for checking in, I hope to have more time next week to give a more complete update of each wolf. We have started to increase the feedings or all the retirees, and are in need of some pigs ears to serve as distractions as the pups continue to be the focus of the staff.
This is the first week that we've noticed a return to some of the stand off behaviors between the arctics. This means that Shadow approaches to do a chin rest and Malik resists and continues to turn to face off Shadow. When we see this behavior, it's a pretty good indication that we are having some hormonal stimulus. The good thing is that Malik still averts Shadow's direct eye contact. When Malik starts to return eye contact, it can get pretty noisy in retirement. These two twelve year old wolves certainly have a lot of spunk and good interactions.
Observations from the Working for Wolves participants:br> Luna and Boltz were down for a snooze after wrestling with the moose hide. They are bedded down on the straw near the building wall. Aidan checks on them and then goes to the moose hide displaying a lot of scent rolling. When Aidan starts pulling on the moose hide, Luna gets up a (little stiff) and joins Aidan and eventually Denali. The adults back off the hide and Luna wings again. Within an hour, Luna retreats to the main den, but by 1:30 am, both pups move to the straw by the eaves, and rest comfortably there until 6 am.
When we came in for wolf care this morning, we knew something was different in retirement. Grizzer was posturing towards the retired enclosure with a t-2 tail showing heightened intensity. When we went in Shadow greeted, but we watched Malik do some T-2 and T-1 tail posturing. Shadow responded with some dominance which we filmed for the Youtube video, but we also noticed some coughing. It may have been some dusty straw or we may have something more serious. We will be watching Shadow closely throughout the weekend, but it was apparent that Malik had gained some status and Grizzer wanted to do something about it. This is why Grizzer is a neighbor and not a pack mate.
Shadow is clearly feeling better. Not only is wolf care staff getting a full face greeting (a bit much when it's below freezing), but he's put the chase back into the invite chase behavior. These wolves are like no other retired wolves in our history. They run faster and spring higher than most of the young wolves on the Exhibit and compared to the days of MacKenzie, Lucas and Lakota, they expend far more energy in daily interactions.
It’s a busy time as we are in the middle of tier evaluations for all wolf care staff, finalizing the updated Ethogram and selecting video for the Updated Highlights of the Ambassador Wolves DVD. The tier evaluation includes filming wolf care staff with each wolf and observing the dynamics between each wolf and handler. As the wolf curator, I meet with all staff and view this video footage to determine if there are issues or if a particular handler would like to advance in the 3 tier system. We get several hours of footage and it gives us a lot of perspective about the social nature of each wolf. Boltz is testing Aidan when Aidan allows it, but is putting limit on Boltz. Boltz may have some defiant moments, but when Aidan is serious, Boltz submits or leaves. Aidan still rolls over for the pups more frequently than he dominates the pups.
The text for today will all be the same for each wolf. Why? Well, for the first time in my nearly 27 years of wolf care, we are sump pumping the water in the wolf yard. The snowmelt and day of rain has left a 10 inch deep layer of water. This usually happens in April, when temperatures are near 40 and the ground is still frozen, but in April, we know it will drain in a week. It is January and the weekend forecast is for temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit with a wind chill and more snow coming. If we let this pond freeze in the yard, we will have a serious safety issue for wolf care working on slick ice. The wolf enclosures all have good topography and other than wet from the rain, they have no issues with standing water. They’re just standing on the edge of the fence watching us pump and sweep as the roof keeps dripping. Hence, I don’t have a lot of time to write wolf logs. All wolves are doing well and the warmer temperatures have been kind to Luna.
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