Maya continues to interact with Grizzer, and has started to show interest in play behavior with Malik. Shadow earns most of her respect and she is observed doing a parallel gate walk with him as the dominant pair.
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The retired pack has been about the same… Lakota has been very excited and runs around a lot when staff great. MacKenzie enjoys the comforts of a straw bed.
In last week’s logs, you saw Maya being the instigator of dominance over Grizzer. This is a two way street. This week, Grizzer takes a moment to do a ride-up behavior on Maya with a scruff bite. These two continue to wrestle like pups, although Maya’s video shows there’s plenty of time for resting.
Of all the wolves in the Exhibit, Malik seems to be most expressive in body communciation and interaction with packmates. His vocalizations can be heard whenever Grizzer of Maya come within range of him and his exaggerated tail postures show his efforts in making himself look strong, even though he's the lowest wolf in the pack. This defense mechanism appears to be how he has adjusted to the omega status, but he is still a very active participant in pack social interactions. Our hope is that Shadow adjusts as well if or when Grizzer moves up in rank.
The following logs were written by Wolf Watch participants Kelly Miller and Jessica Sollie, who spent the night at the Center observing the Exhibit Pack's behavior. Enclosure enrichments were given to the wolves to stimulate their sensory ability. During this week's enrichment with frozen fish, Maya was the more aggressive of the two wolves during the hunt, with Grizzer following close behind. Maya then proceeded to take her fish into the woods, probably to eat or cache. Upon her return from the woods, she overmarked where Grizzer had previously urinated. When Grizzer walked by, she ambushed him with soft muzzle bites.
MacKenzie continues to get groomed to remove large quantities of hair. She is relaxed when handlers interact with her, but seems anxious for a while after staff leave. She settles down during the heat of the day and lays in various places throughout the enclosure. Her favorite place in the enclosure is the slat wood/log lean-to, built by the working for wolves crew in the fall of 2005. She also likes the newly seeded grass completed by the spring 2006 working for wolves crew.
Last week, Lakota chased (unsuccesfully) a squirrel that was drinking from the pond, and was seen by many visitors laying on top of her den box (web cam and direct camera inside the Center). She also tried several play bows with Mackenzie, with no result in stimulating a chase. During these hot summer days, she tries to cool off by going inside her dug den, or as you see in this week's photo, removing the soil to reach the damp cool soil.
Malik was observed at the “What’s for Dinner Program defending a beaver from the rest of the pack. He dragged the beaver several feet from the window and chewed on it for a while, until Grizzer came and disturbed him. After leaving the beaver, Malik tried to take the deer leg from Maya. Today the whole pack howled in response to an unidentified stimulus during wolf care.
When there's a bit of dominance in the pack, Lakota as the lowest ranking wolf, seems to know when to stay out of the way. In the wild, some of these lowest ranking or omega wolves, will even be observed on the fringe of the pack activity, picking up scraps from leftover kills made by the pack. In captivity, the social interaction is usually much more compatible, probably due to the lack of food stress with a regular meal. In this week's logs, check on MacKenzie and Lucas's interactions to see why Lakota shows a submissive ear posture.
Several people have commented via email concerning their observations of Lucas spending more time sleeping. He was even observed sleeping with a group of ravens feeding on dinner close to the den box. Staff are documenting the recent increase in resting behavior and are looking for additional subtle changes that might indicate a declining health. Today, staff woke him up from the den box, watched him walk over to MacKenzie and do another classic dominance display called a stand-over. He’s done this before, and this behavior is a reminder of his status, even though he’s aging. MacKenzie was less than thrilled as indicated by her weblog photo. These type of social interactions are very typical of wolf packs that communicate the details of hunts, travels and social status by a twitch of the ear or look in their eye. They are very expressive, social animals and by watching the dynamics of a socialized captive wolf, you can’t help but wonder about the critical role of this communication in the wild.
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