Shadow's completely recovered from the knee strain and is doing well maintaining his dominance. He has also been observed in several bouts of play behavior with Grizzer and Maya. This includes rolling around in the snow with them, displaying a playbow and allowing them to chase him a bit. He's still very responsive when Grizzer gets too excited and has a growl that will set the record straight that he's in charge. You will see this in Grizzer's video clip as well in Shadow's clip.
Lakota had a good week, the retired pack is now on a twice a week feeding, allowing for one large meal of beaver or deer and one smaller mid-week meal of chicken or beef. This allows the wolves to feed on their natural pattern of gorging a larger meal, but accommodates the older metabolism. The reality is winter is a much easier season on the older wolves than the heat of summer. Lakota is back to taking meatballs with whole vitamins, the problems we had a few months ago related to an extra feeding we thought they needed. The third feeding a week was too much food for Lakota, and she had no urge to take daily meatballs. She’s now back to getting the best nutrition possible with vitamins, cosequin and durlactin. As a reminder, the Nanny and Behavioral Team applications are on the website under the Programs tab… the deadline is February 1st.
This week’s photo for Grizzer shows many indications that he considers himself lower ranking than Shadow. The first indication is the ears perked forward on Shadow and the ears back and to the side on Grizzer. Grizzer is also averting his gaze not looking Shadow directly in the eye. These are important postures to note when trying to determine status among wolves. As you may know, during the first week of the pup’s introduction into the pack next fall, we will have a behavioral team monitoring the wolves, making sure the pups are doing well in the Exhibit pack. In order to learn these subtle behaviors, an Ethogram was created and is often used by wolf care staff when interpreting behavior. As a reminder, Nanny and Behavioral Observation applications are still being accepted until February 1st. We are willing to accept the application as an email attachment.
MacKenzie has been responding well to the newest wolf care staff and seems very at ease with the activities of the Exhibit Pack. This may be due to the fact that the Exhibit Pack seems to have settled a few rank order disputes and things are calmer than they’ve been. MacKenzie’s eye condition is noticeable in this week’s photo and video. The cell growth on her cornea hasn’t advanced at all this year, and she hasn’t had the squinting issue with sun reflection on the snow. She’s still leery of looking right at a camera, but that’s probably more behavioral, as the camera lens is like a direct challenge. As a reminder, Nanny and Behavioral Observation applications are still being accepted until February 1st. We are willing to accept the application as an email attachment.
Maya and Grizzer are littermates, and as littermates, still revert to the pup like behavior of wrestling and pinning each other in social interactions. Even Shadow joins in, but this littermate time is unique from other pack interactions. With the exception of a snarl on Maya’s face, there very little redirected aggression or tucked tail when pinned by a littermate. It’s quite different if another pack member does the pinning. This is the reason why, when adding pups to the Exhibit, we will never add only a single pup, the dynamics between littermates has so much social interaction to observe. As a reminder, Nanny and Behavioral Observation applications are still being accepted until February 1st. We are willing to accept the application as an email attachment.
You may have noticed that we are experiencing some technical difficulty with the webcams. We hope to have them repaired this week. We appreciate your patience and support for the Ambassador wolves at the Center. The Nanny Application deadline has passed. Now we will begin to coordinate teams and make selections. We plan to have the award letters mailed by February 15th. The wolves are doing well, and have fared the recent cold snap without issues.
Written by Kristin Radermacher – taken from the pup logs. The pups are alternately hard playing or hard sleeping. They spend equal amounts of time doing each. The nannies spend time handling the pups ears, feet and mouths every shift. This will make caring for them as full grown adults much more easy for the IWC staff. The pups are very accepting of this handling by now.
Lakota taking stuffed toys from the pup pen to the Retired Enclosure.
Shadow takes the lead in howling to the pack when there's tension. He still shows status toward the pack, and it makes one wonder, if he wasn't removed from the pack due to age and declining weight, would these 2-year olds have tried as many testing bouts with a dominant male that frequently showed hard muzzle bites?
The wolf logs will all be the same today, we would like to thank all of the wolf care supporters this past year. From the significant donations to the Water in the Lab fund to the vitamins and nutritional supplements, straw, squeaky toys, pigs ears, blueberries, tools, jump drives, web cams and many more items that are donated to the lab each year, we are so grateful there are so many people who help support the Retired and Exhibit Pack. There are too many names to mention, but you know who you are. We can always count on you when the wolves are in need. We are happy to report that all is well on this New Years Day, 2008. The Exhibit Pack received 2 frozen fish from a recent fishing trip, one caught by Assistant Wolf Curator, Donna Prichard and one caught by Lori Schmidt, Wolf Curator. Grizzer and Maya enjoyed rolling on them. The retired wolves are doing well, excited about the thawing of two deer legs for a mid-week feeding. The Nanny applications are posted on the website, they can be found on the Programs tab, look in Wolf Seminars or Learning Vacations – Northern Minnesota. We did institute a prerequisite program for the Nanny program this year, we did this based on some experiences that we had in 2004. Wolf pups are not dog pups, and we want to make sure nannies have to skills knowledge and abilities to assist in the socialization process. This is an historic time for the International Wolf Center, 2008 will mark the first time the Center has had three age structures in a pack and we want to make sure the best interest of the pups and the pack in mind as we move forward. If you have questions about the Nanny program, please email the curator directly at curator@wolf.org
The International Wolf Center advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future.