Shadow seems to be taking Grizzer in stride, with watchful behavior, alert ear posture and high tail when Grizzer approaches. Staff can tell the mood of the exhibit based on Shadow’s interactions. When Grizzer is pushing his status, Shadow will stay more aloof with staff. The more staff can keep Grizzer occupied with enclosure enrichments, the less problems Shadow will face as the dominant male.
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Malik continues to be the low ranking wolf with the high ranking tail. Whenever possible, Malik approaches the other wolves with a high tail showing his willingness for a higher ranking status. Most of the time, Shadow shows no concern over this posture and ignores him, whereas Grizzer sees this as something to address. Fortunately for Malik, Grizzer’s follow through is lacking. Generally, Grizzer chases Malik a few times around the pond and over the logs, and then stops to interact with Maya or rest on the greeting rock. Malik stays on the other end of the enclosure for a while, and then repeats his higher ranking tail. This arrangement seems to work for this group of males. In this week’s image, Malik displays a sign of status by scraping the ground after doing defecation.
MacKenzie’s photo may look a bit under the weather this week. Wolf care staff noticed her holding her left ear at an odd position and rubbing against the fence. When wolf care staff attempted to check the internal ear canal, she became very agitated. MacKenzie is a very dominant wolf and is very reluctant for any handling when she’s not feeling well. Upon the Veterinarian’s recommendation, wolf care staff started MacKenzie on otibiotic ear ointment twice a day. Getting the ointment in her ears is a bit of a challenge, but she allows wolf care staff to come behind her while another staff person offers frozen bonedust through the fence. She only has one week of this treatment.
Grizzer’s agitation level seems to be correlated with extended periods of holding. While holding the wolves off is a necessary part of working on the facility, we attempt to reduce the large periods of time that the wolves need to be held off. Another key ingredient to keeping the peace, is to have some type of treats scattered around the enclosure when they come out of holding. This is easier said than done when Maya or Shadow don’t go into holding. Staff can’t hide treats with those two following them around and Grizzer gets that much more agitated watching them near the treats.
Lakota is doing great since the surgery. Her incision healed without any problems, and her attitude has been tremendous. She’s growing a full winter coat, and has been eating well to store some reserves for the winter. When we fed the venison roast on Thursday, she spent some time caching a few pieces in the straw denbox, but eventually consumed her fair share.
As Grizzer starts testing for status, it’s interesting to watch Maya’s response. Maya tends to still associate with Shadow, even though Grizzer is testing Shadow. She’s very watchful of activity and rarely gets involved unless Grizzer is the focus. She continues to be a bit timid around wolf care staff, but seems to be focused on the small birds in the enclosure.
In order to keep Shadow’s confidence level high, we have greatly reduced the Behind the Scenes presence of strangers. We only have one work crew scheduled in October, the Working for Wolves program, and we have many items of distraction to keep the wolves occupied during that weekend. One thing wolves love to do is shred birch bark logs, so the crew will be out scouting and hauling multiple truck loads of logs into the enclosure. One thing to keep in mind, Malik and Shadow were the aggressors that drove out our retired pack of wolves. It doesn't make them bad, it's just what wolves do. We anticipate as Shadow and Malik age, they will be moving into retirement as well. Although, with new pups coming in the spring, the focus for the next several years will be on the young members of the pack, not the old. We hope to keep this cohesive group together until Malik and Shadow are at least 10 years of age.
Written by Workin' For Wolves participants Pam Dolajeck and Lori Rhodes: The weather for the Workin' for Wolves weekend was perfect. All the wolves were very relaxed with the participants presence. Work in the retirement area consisted of removing dead trees and reinforcing the excavated area that Lakota had dug out with birch logs. The excavated area measured roughly 8' deep by 8' wide-all dug out by a 14 year old wolf! Lakota checked out the newly reinforced area and seemed quite satisfied with the work that had been done.
Written by Workin' For Wolves program participants Shannon MacDonald and Susan Meyers: Much time was spend this weekend on placement of rocks around the pond in the main exhibit, and birch logs placed throughout. Malik was observed inspecting the logs and seemed very curious about staff and volunteer activities in the wolf yard. It was apparent that Malik was aware of the rest of the pack's proximity most times. He was observed frequently checking over his shoulder and would avert his gaze when another wolf was seen nearby, as was seen in one incident with Maya. Malik was also observed with his ears pricked forward and alert with Shadow in the background, a difference in his usual body posture.
Written by Workin' For Wolves program participants Darin Groenveld and Theresa Williams: This weekend for the Workin' For Wolves program, the participants lined the pond with more rocks. Maya was very hesitant about going into the holding pen for Saturday night's feeding and for the enclosure work projects. After the new rocks were in and new logs were added, Maya checked it all out and scent marked many times. She was very playful this weekend with Grizzer. For the feeding Saturday night, they were fed a moose carcass with chicken.
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