Summer bugs continue impacting the behavior of Boltz

Boltz has lost much of his winter confidence as summer bug season has arrived.  Wolf care staff are working on ways to desensitize him to flying insects – often using flavored bubbles – but in the high temps of the last few weeks it has been a challenge to keep him visible and interacting with the rest of the pack.  We started leaving the medical pen open 24 hours a day.  This area is well shaded, has a concrete pad that will remain cool and is adjacent to the water hoses and misting system.  The Curator has a ring camera that connects to her phone and she can track Boltz’s midnight rendevous in the medical pen. 

Grizzer, now at 15, enjoys new mister system in retirement pack

Grizzer is doing well for being over 15 years old.  He has finally shed his winter coat and rests in the shade.  Retirement has a new mister system to help keep him cool, but he has figured out a south wind will send the Exhibit Pack misters right into the shared fenceline.  This image was taken in late May, what a difference a month makes.  One other noteworthy item is that Grizzer weighed in at 120 pounds in June.  This is a very solid weight for a 15 year old wolf coming out of a long, cold winter. 

Growths being managed with medication for Aidan

Aidan is being closely monitored for any changes or re-growth of mass cell tumors.  He is on medication to help minimize these growths, but so far, he hasn’t shown any sign of irritation such as licking.  Wolf Care Intern, Mandi Bendel created a body profile binder for staff to document the location and any subtle changes that occur with these masses.  Aidan is a willing participant with the staff brushing sessions and shows this tolerance with a nice summer pelage. 

Luna continues to be closely monitored for any new growths

After Luna’s mass removal this winter, she recovered well. Her hair grew back around the incision and the site healed without issues. However, on Saturday, July 6, staff again noticed some irritation and weeping, which was the same issue we saw in February.  

This time, the weeping was below her original incision. The Ely Vet Clinic consulted with the pathologist who assessed the first mass and suggested a week of antibiotics. If it was an infection, the site should show an improvement from the treatment. If we saw no results, we should perform a second biopsy.   Staff followed the plan and felt the need to complete the biopsy. Luna was taken to the Ely Vet clinic at 7:30 a.m. on July 17. Unfortunately, the medical exam of Luna did not have a good outcome. 

She has several deep, vascular masses embedded in the muscle. Much of the mass had necrotic tissue that was extracted from her neck but the depth, amount of vascular bleeding and adherence to the underlying muscle resulted in a decision to biopsy samples, suture the site and make her as comfortable as possible without complete extraction that could have impacted her neck and leg muscles.  

A tissue biopsy was sent into the lab and we expect results in the next week. Luna spent the night in the Wolf Care Center with access to the outdoor facility, but a series of intense storms kept her sleeping comfortably on several fleece blankets through the night. She will remain in the East Side Retirement area sharing a fence line with Aidan and Grizzer, but will need time to heal before the determination is made to reunite the Retired Pack. 

Luna Medical Update

Thank you all for the concern and support you have given Luna during this medical situation.  Medical issues are always more challenging when there are so many variables to manage.  When working with captive wolves, we have the issue of immobilization and transport to the vet clinic, ambient temperatures and the influence on thermal regulatory ability after drugging, keeping a wound clean in an outdoor environment, pack social interactions during recovery and the risk of immune challenges caused by the actual medical issue we are treating.  The professionals at the Vet Clinic manage the medical, but it’s the job of the wolf care staff to manage the post-operative care and the social pack dynamics.  It’s been our experience that separation from the pack can lead to some posturing and rank issues upon a wolf’s return to the social structure.  Fortunately for Luna, Aidan and Grizzer have been very respectful of her and have shown no focus on her sutures.   In the posted photo, the suture site is visible on the left side of her neck. While Luna is showing some scratching at the incision site, she appears to be scratching the hair above the site, and not at the suture level.  Since a protective cone is not an option, we closely monitor her actions and offer distractions.  We have arranged the schedule to have more wolf care staff and volunteers to be in the wolf lab, including full-day coverage last weekend and this upcoming weekend.      She also had her nails trimmed at the vet clinic to reduce a toenail catching a stitch.  This is a long process of healing; It is standard protocol for dissolvable sutures to be used, eliminating a second immobilization to remove sutures.  We expect the sutures to completely dissolve in 3-5 weeks.  The results of the biopsy came back today and we are happy to report that it is not a malignant tumor.  Unfortunately, they don’t know for sure what it is and are doing more test on it to see if they can figure it out.  There are two possibilities, one is that it was an abscess that had gone bad despite the antibiotics, the second is that it may have been from a hematoma.  Since it was on her scruff, maybe she was bitten (scruff biting is very common, especially this time of the year and with food possession issues) but the bite wasn’t enough to break the skin and it bled under the skin.  If it opened from scratching, bacteria may have gotten in there and grew from there.  The suture site remains very clean and shows no redness.  She completes her antibiotics today, one week post-surgery.   Luna also has a long history of Vitamin D, Ionized calcium issues and her last blood work in 2018 showed some higher than normal Lymes titers which indicated that she may have been exposed to Lymes disease.  All of these tests require some time, but I hope to be able to share some results during her birthday webinar.  The true test of Luna’s recovery is her willingness to take her morning breakfast and her social interactions with Aidan. We captured some footage of her playbowing to Aidan on the surveillance cameras on Sunday and again tonight and have invited some long-time friends to come and visit (thanks Don).  If you want to get a live view of Luna’s activity, follow this link to register for Luna’s Birthday Webinar on  March 25th at 5 pm.

Grizzer – Going Strong

Grizzer is fast approaching his 15th birthday and despite some extreme cold from a few “Polar Vortexes” this winter, he has weathered another winter.  We still have some concerns about his vision in his right eye, you may notice when he rests in the sun, that he has lost some nerve and muscle function on that limits his ability to close his eye.  His nictitating membrane does cover his eye, but not at the frequency of upper eyelid blinking.  This issue occurred during the winter of 2010/2011 while there was some rank order issues after Shadow’s retirement and Denali and Grizzer had some conflict.  This is one of the reasons we would like to keep Denali healthy and active in retirement, as there is some residual conflict between these two and at 15, Grizzer doesn’t need the disruption to his routine. The other notable issue Grizzer had in the past was some right knee issues after a slip on the ice. But this winter, with the addition of Turmeric supplements and a thick layer of cover hay in the transition area gates, he is moving freely  and interacting well with his packmates.  To register for Grizzer’s Birthday webinar, follow this link:

Registration page for Grizzer’s Webinar

Denali – Paws Made for Deep Snow

Denali has no problem making tracks in the deep snow, but his larger body size means he does sink a bit more.  As we continue to accumulate snow, we also see the snow change texture, making it a bit of a struggle for wolves to travel.  When temperatures warm, we see a circumstance where even the wolves over-sized paws don’t keep them from sinking.  We call it “postholing”, when a foot goes in and it sinks.  But, the warmer days don’t necessarily mean warmer nights.  As the melt in Northern Minnesota continues, we still have some cooler nights, making for a hard pack snow especially in the early morning hours.  It’s the hard pack snow that give the advantage to the lighter wolves, like Axel and Grayson and chases throughout the upper enclosure are restricted to the wolves under the age of 8.  Despite his advancing age, Denali continues to be an active member of the Exhibit Pack and while he may not always show tendencies to be the leader of this social group, the younger wolves seem to congregate towards him when there’s some uncertainty.  

Grayson – Investigation – The focus of the young wolf

You may have noticed that the logs and youtube have been a little delayed.  This week’s photo of Grayson is one challenges we face in getting quality video footage for publication.  Wolves have a natural curiosity and bringing cameras into the enclosure means that wolves will often investigate.  To be able to get footage, we usually require at least two people, one to distract and be an observer and one to look through the eye of the camera.  Added to this challenge is subzero temperatures and precipitation and this winter has created some very short filming opportunities.  Fortunately, we have a series of Birthday webinars coming up.  If you miss our Youtube post, please join us for our webinars, where we have individual birthday webinars and more.  Grayson and Axel’s birthday is May 2nd.   Grayson seems to have the same pattern, losing weight, likely due to increased activity and some increased competition.  Last winter he weighed 82 pounds in February 2018, but by October of 2018, he was back to 94 pounds.   In addition to the weekly carcass on Saturday night’s What’s for Dinner Program, we feed some smaller food resources such as beaver, chicken or deer legs on Wednesdays and extra chicken or beef meals are offered to Grayson on a daily basis.  The issue with Grayson is not about food availability, but it is about attitude and competition. He has always been more reserved and timid, so even if he may want the food, he is easily intimidated when other wolves display food defense.  To reduce food competition, we require at least 2 if not 3 wolf care staff to distract the other wolves.  The good thing is, we condition the wolves from the time they are pups to take meatballs and following the meatball tray as a form of distraction.  Since we are scheduled to adopt pups again in 2020, we are brushing up on the adult behavioral traits that need conditioning with pups. 

Webinars & Lectures

 

Boltz – Pelage Blends with the Habitat

There are many unique communication methods employed by wolves.  Tail postures, eye contact, howling, scent marking are the most notable.  But, if you take a moment to look at a wolf’s markings or pelage, you specific parts of the wolf may have a color pattern to aid in communication.  Let’s start with the eyes.  Direct eye stare is a sign of a challenge in wolf communication and we know that ears pricked forward signal a heightened level of arousal and a curl of the lip above the teeth can put the exclamation point on a message of dominance.  If you look closely, you may see the black lips that contrast a white muzzle and a dark rim around the tips of the ears.  A dark tip on the tail is a great way highlight a high tail posture of a dominant wolf.  How about submissive wolf?  Well, when a wolf submits, it exposes a white, pale chest and a white underbelly that may help notice as submissive posture.  Finally, have you every noticed a wolf’s hackles?  The dark coloration on the shoulder and rump are more noticeable when the hackles rise.  Nature is amazing, and so is the effectiveness of camouflage for blending into a background.  Do you notice Boltz’s ability to blend in with his forested habitat?

Aidan – Another Surgery

If you have been following our Ambassador Wolf Aidan’s logs, you will see that he has had some auto-immune issues throughout his entire life.  He was diagnosed with Discoid lupus in 2011, had two surgeries to remove mass cell tumors in 2017.  He was deposed as Exhibit Pack leader in 2018 and joined retirement, so we thought some of the stress of being a pack leader may have been reduced, but he had a resurgence of mass cell tumors with an extraction surgery performed on February 5th, 2019.    The assessment of these tumors in 2017 was estimated to be low-grade, with complete tumor extraction.  The prognosis was not as good in February, when complete extraction was not possible as the growth had adhered to the muscle.  Research on these types of growths is limited and in some cases, 3 or 4 removals and the growths stop, in other cases, removal doesn’t impact the outcome.  In Aidan’s case, after the 3rd extraction, the veterinary recommendation is to employ some immune suppressants to slow the growth of these mass cells.  We are waiting for his incision to completely heal before implementing this, as immune suppressants can also alter healing efforts.  There were some notable differences in the 2019 surgery as a retired pack member compared to his immobilization in 2017 when he was a pack leader. As a pack leader, Aidan seemed to resist the drugging and had high anxiety just being separated from the pack to complete the drugging.  This often lead to increased doses and in one case, a failed immobilization.  As a retired wolf, Aidan readily came into the Wolf Care Center at 7 am, was hand injected within 2 minutes, asleep and on his way to the clinic in 15 minutes and calmly recovered with the wolf care staff with no anxiety.  The Retired Pack is less concerned about rank, so Aidan was able to join Luna and Grizzer by 2 pm that afternoon and had a restful evening.  Even though we know exams like these can be done with more ease in retirement, we are also mindful that the older an animal gets, the more risk can occur.  Wolves are not dogs, where a trip to the clinic is as easy as hopping in the car and getting a treat to sit on an exam table.  These exams are done with a heightened level of concern for the wolf’s respiration, heart rate, gastrointestinal response and ability to control body temperature.  A common instruction for a surgical procedure is to hold food after midnight prior to a surgery, as wolf care staff, we diligently look for food caches. but there is never 100% guarantee that they won’t pull something out of a snowbank.   Mass cells are histamine based cells, so they may cause an itching sensation.  This was the most problematic issue for Aidan resulting in constant licking and irritation.  While we are waiting for him to heal for his next medical step, he is taking antihistamines daily to help keep the irritation under control and welcomes wolf care staff daily inspections.