The wind is strong today, as a storm from the northwest brought rain and many leaves down. It also brought down a large diameter tree, fortunately, away from the fence, but it is a hazard tree for the wolves. Aidan is a bit nervous in the wind, but had a good wolf check today. He seems more confident, and has been observed in play behavior, even with Maya.
Whatever hormone surge Maya experienced in September, seems to be calmer this week. The stalking of Aidan has decreased, although Aidan still protects himself by laying near the greeting rocks, where he can back his way in and face her. She continues to be a strong defender of food, and during this morning's wolf check a dead raven was found. This is likely Maya's doing, but staff did notice Denali working very hard at stalking and chasing ravens this week.
Shadow has had a break from the construction, crews were off Thursday- Sunday. There is a noticeable difference in his attitude. After October 1st, the Center is only open on Friday's and Saturday's to the public. While there may be school groups and the Center offices are still open during the week, the decreased traffic at the back door will help as well. On Sunday's, there will be no staff except wolf care staff on site, giving the wolves their first real restful day of no disturbance for hourly programs since May. Now that Denali is testing more, Shadow is working double time to keep both Denali and Grizzer in line.
Written by Nathalie and Kaela Hedberg: Maya is still chasing after Aidan, but there are other times when Aidan and Maya get along well, and are acting playful around each other. One of Maya’s chases with Aidan ended with Maya getting an injury on her left front leg. Maya also seems to spend a lot of her time looking around, observing, and acting very alert about what’s going on. Maya was reluctant when it came to getting on the scale to get weighed. She would stretch out as far as she could to grab the meatball on the fence, but she would grab it and quickly back up, away from the scale. So instead of using a meatball, wolf care staff lured Maya onto the scale by holding a slice of pizza through the fence. Maya would take little bits of the pizza and the back off, but eventually gave up, and stayed on the scale long enough to finish eating the slice of pizza. Maya’s current weight is now 94lbs.
In the year 2002, MacKenzie, Lucas and Lakota were reaching 9 1/2 years of age, and were spending a fair amount of time with a low tail, spinning around to avoid anyone behind them, and generally showing body language of wolves losing their place in the pack. Now that Malik and Shadow are this age, we are watching for those signs, but are not seeing them. Yes, Malik gets chased if tension is high, but Shadow is clearly in control, dominating all the pack members in a ritualized manner that keeps all the other wolves in a submissive posture towards Shadow. We would expect to see him increase some threat displays as he gets older as a defense mechanism for an aging animal that isn't as physically strong. This is no the case for Shadow, Shadow had a full session of dominance on every male in the exhibit on Saturday. This may be a bit of compensation for the knee injury he had last week, although there's no physical signs of problems with his knee. He was actually initiating chase behavior on Friday night, very excited when interacting with the pack.
In an effort to get Shadow and Malik accustomed to retirement, we have been allowing them in the retired enclosure several times a week. Initially, Malik was reluctant to come into holding with Grizzer, but lately, he's been entering the holding area, and running into retirement. His change in behavior may have something to do with Grizzer showing some anxiety to the new den, and Malik sees this as an opportunity. Malik has spent time in the den, and even went for a swim in the retired enclosure pond. He seems accepting of the retired enclosure, which will go a long way in making him comfortable when the inevitable transfer to retirement occurs.
Despite the focus of Maya, Aidan does get some relaxing moments with staff, as indicated by his photo this week. He is always on the alert for Maya's presence, but does find time to submit to staff, jaw spar with his littermate Denali, and greet Shadow. In discussions with the Biology and Chemistry faculty at Vermilion Community College, it does appear that we will be able to start the fecal cortisol study this winter. This is a study to look at cortisol levels in the scat as an indicator of stress, and hopefully, be able to identify stress levels of individuals, then attempt to apply some management techniques. Initially, when this study was proposed, we were concerned about Malik, but Aidan's situation warrants data as well. One note to all wolf log readers, we are experiencing some difficulty with video editing software. The curator has purchased a new computer and an upgrade of software, but it may not be arriving for a few days. Please be patient, we know the importance of the video, and will solve it before the next YouTube is due on September 1st. In the meantime, a podcast is being produced today, discussing the behavioral observations of the summer Ethology and Pups at One Year participants.
Lakota is doing well and has nearly completed the shedding process. Wolf Care staff will be monitoring the weather patterns and will likely choose a day in the upcoming month to schedule the surgery to remove the benign growth from her face. With the fly season dying down and the cooler mornings, this will be an ideal time. The growth seems to have no effect on her health, but she does scratch it with her dew claw, and we want to make sure she doesn’t open it and get an infection. We will keep you posted via the wolf logs on when this surgery will occur. This week’s video shows the rank order in the pack, even though MacKenzie is slowing down and not as agile as Lakota, she still shows her dominant status.
MacKenzie is monitored daily for mobility and attitude. At this age, declines can happen quickly and the staff discusses any subtle change in her condition. She still maintains a good appetite and is able to compete with Lakota for food. In previous weeks, Lakota has taken food and guarded it from MacKenzie, this week MacKenzie did the same to Lakota. When the wolf care staff feed the Retired Pack, they generally stay in the enclosure long enough to ensure that each wolf gets their fair share. MacKenzie’s video this week also shows her shaking off dirt from her coat. This is one of those subtle signs that her mobility and stability is still good.
MacKenzie has been late to shed her coat this year. As her video shows, she still has a significant amount of undercoat, making her appear much larger than Lakota. Wolf care staff have been brushing the loose undercoat and hopefully will see a full shed by the end of the month. MacKenzie deals with the heat by finding a nice cool area of dirt in the shade, digging down a few inches and spending the day sprawled out. This isn’t much different than the rest of the wolves on site, or probably the wild wolves in the surrounding forest. MacKenzie’s video also shows her entering one of the den boxes, during a recent rainstorm, both the Retired wolves stayed dry and rested comfortably in the wood chips.
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