This has been a busy week for the wolf care staff with the ethology class, hence the delay in updating the wolf logs. Lucas, with the help of daily brushing from the wolf care staff, has almost shed his undercoat. This is important with the arrival of warmer weather temperatures. Summer weather also means more black flies and fly ointment treatment for the wolves in order to protect their ears and legs from the fly bites. Lucas often seeks the shelter of his den box during the day, but will sometimes come out to greet wolf care staff at the fence or to drink at the small pond.
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Grizzer seemed more relaxed during the behind the scenes program. This may be due to the large meal he had yesterday. Grizzer grabbed two beaver and guarded them from Malik and Shadow. He growled at them when they attempted to get close to the beavers. So in today's program, he just lay down, but he was still alert towards the public's movements.
During yesterday's "What's for Dinner" program, Malik was chewing on a beaver, when Maya came running down from the hill and tried to take it away from him. Malik defended his beaver, but Maya got away with him, leaving Malik with no beaver. Then he tried to take one of Grizzer's two beavers but was unsuccessful. Today Malik had a distended stomach, that indicated that he fianally got some of the beaver
Pups at One Year participants were asked to describe each wolf and their behavior that they observed during their weekend at the Center. Shadow is described as an intense, strong and protective leader. Maya and Grizzer often look to Shadow for behavior, such as, when Shadow starts to get stressed the pups react to that and will run to him. After the enclosure enrichment projects were completed Shadow investigated them and then took the time to mark the newly planted trees. In this weeks picture he is seen scent marking.
During yesterday's "What's for Dinner" program, Maya rushed into the wooded area of the enclosure, carrying a beaver. After a little while, Maya came down, stalking Malik and successfully took a beaver from him. Maya has shown this kind of behavior during the last feedings. During one of the environmental enrichments, Maya was licking a block of ice with some meat in it, and when she saw Shadow licking another block of ice, she rushed towards him and started licking his ice block, but when Shadow tried to reach her ice block, Maya left running and defended it.
We want to thanks Andi Nelson for suggesting a commercial Mist that was available in a catalogue. When you manage wolves, you have to improvise, so we went to the hardware store and we designed a similar device, with a $10 budget! Here you can see Grizzer walking under the hose, staring at the shadow it proyects. Wolves are curious animals, but also skittish with new things, so you have to be patient and let them get use to them.
One of the most distinctive characteristics of Lucas are his greenish eyes. It is common for wolves to have the yellow eyes and some may have green-yellow ones. Eventhough Lucas is 12 years old. He is a powerful wolf. When a group of veterinarians from Europe visited the center. Lucas performed his usual walk infront of the fence carrying a beaver head. We don't know if he enjoys that, but he sure does it every time new people is on site!
Malik seems to enjoy his new mist hose. He's comming down on the hot days more often and stays underneath it. We want to thank Andi Nelson for suggesting the commercial mist. Wolf curator went to the hardware store and bought a garden hose and design a similar divice that only costs us 10 dollars. By this picture, you can tell that Malik and Shadow are enjoying it.
MacKenzie tends to be a bit initimidated by the "big eye" that we call a camera. You can see this in her airplane ears. However, she was relaxed and relieved by the cooler morning air, which means the flies were leaving her alone for the moment. Yesterday, the flies were quite bad for all the wolves, but especially for the retired pack. They got a good dosing of fly ointment on their ears and legs, which seemed to help a bit.
The Pups at One Year program held on 7-29 – 7-31 including enclosure enrichments to stimulate the wolves and enhance photography opportunities. The participants placed chicken legs throughout the enclosure for the wolves to scent and locate. In this week's photo, former Nanny and program participant Theresa Williams photographed Grizzer jumping for a chicken leg in the tree.
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