As stated in last week's notes, the Wolf Curator redesigned the Wednesday night feeding program. To avoid a situation where the adults take possession of the deer legs first, the pups were isolated in the smaller holding kennel and the adults were isolated in the big pack holding area. The legs were placed inside the main enclosure and the pups were released. When the pups clearly had possession of the carcass, the adults were released. The pups were able to guard and possess the food since they got to it first. This seemed to work well and with modifications, will likely be the way the pup feeding programs are done in the future. Thursday, August 21st was the scheduled day for staining the building within the enclosure. This meant that all the wolves were isolated in the large pack holding area for the day ( 11 am – 3:30 pm). The pups are right at home since this was their main enclosure during the socialization process. The adults are not as comfortable with long term confinement and demonstrated some anxious behavior and a 5-minute bout of aggression toward Lakota. After the painters left the enclosure and the wolves were released, the adults spent several minutes scent marking and scent rolling in the front of the enclosure were the smell of residual stain remained. The pups spent 90% of the day sleeping and were somewhat oblivious to the events of the day. It was a real benefit to long-term management of the pack to have the pups so familiar with this pack holding area. As they mature, their comfort with this isolation pen will make for calmer interactions during future enclosure projects. Any future pups at the center should be reared in a similar manner as these Arctic pups, including all of the time and energy of the Nannies.
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On 9/27, the wolves were held for several hours for the final staining of the building. The adult wolves were more anxious in the pack holding area than on previous days of confinement. Lucas and Lakota made several attempts to escape the pack holding area, not in the direction of the woods, but the attempts were made to get back into their enclosure. The main pack area is what the wolves consider as their territory and whenever they are anxious or stressed, they make many attempts to get back to where they are most comfortable, the main enclosure. As in previous holding attempts, the pups slept through most of the events of the day, including when the Wolf Curator gave Lakota and Lucas an IM injection. Again, this demonstrates the value of the Nanny program and the time spent in acclimating the puppies to the pack holding area. THANK YOU NANNIES…
On 9/27, the wolves were held for several hours for the final staining of the building. The adult wolves were more anxious in the pack holding area than on previous days of confinement. Lucas and Lakota made several attempts to escape the pack holding area, not in the direction of the woods, but the attempts were made to get back into their enclosure. The main pack area is what the wolves consider as their territory and whenever they are anxious or stressed, they make many attempts to get back to where they are most comfortable, the main enclosure. As in previous holding attempts, the pups slept through most of the events of the day, including when the Wolf Curator gave Lakota and Lucas an IM injection. Again, this demonstrates the value of the Nanny program and the time spent in acclimating the puppies to the pack holding area. THANK YOU NANNIES…
The wolves are doing well, all appear to be healthy and active. Grizzer's matured significantly in the last few months. Wolf care staff haven't had any of the earlier grabbing, unpredictable behavior consistent with a pup or a yearling. There's still a lot of social and dominance behavior between Grizzer and Maya, very typical of this age structure.
One notable behavior that started last week was the increase in associative behavior between Maya and Shadow. It is typical that the dominant pair goes through a pair bonding ritual during the height of the breeding season, and even with spayed and neutered wolves, this behavior is still present. How does this influence Grizzer? There are two factors that create a change in Grizzer, the first is that Shadow gains confidence with the support he receives from Maya, making him more assertive over Grizzer. The second factor, is that Maya’s pair bonding behavior is stimulated by a hormone rush. In the absence of a second female, she asserts her added hormonal dominance focus on her littermate, Grizzer. When Maya gets excited, she pins Grizzer to the ground and Shadow and Malik are right there to get some status over Grizzer. Which explains the photo for this week, Grizzer showing less status by doing a standing urination rather than a raised leg urination (RLU). In the wild, it’s usually only the dominant male that does and RLU since marking behavior has more important role of defending territory, but in captivity, all of our males will present an RLU dependent upon their confidence at any given time. In Grizzer’s video, you still see him following Malik, but as Malik’s behavior demonstrates, it’s at a much calmer rate
Wolf Care Staff Member Jess Edberg documented the following observation on Saturday April 23rd: 9:25am A male hooded merganser landed in the pond! Maya ran in after it and it dove – confusing her. She got out as the other 4 booked down the hill and they all ran in circles trying to find the duck. The duck came up and flew into the air (~10feet) but the wolves closed in so quick that it dove straight down again. The wolves got out of the pond and circled around more looking up in the air for it. The duck took one last jump and flew up circling the pond and flew out of the enclosure. The wolves kept looking around and after five minutes are still wandering around sniffing by the pond and looking up.
I realize the focus this week has been on the tragedy of Nyssa, but the wolf care staff continues to care for all wolves on site, including the needs of the retired pack. MacKenzie appears to be gaining weight again and is very relaxed during wolf checks. This is a good sign, as one of the main behavioral observations during her recent issues, was the obsessive focus on food resources and agitated state. I look forward to the summer season with the return of Donna Prichard and Joyce Riveroll to the Wolf Care team, and the added hours of behavioral observation these two can provide.
Maya's behavior since the loss of Nyssa has been extremely submissive to staff and the other wolves. She has been observed spending time near the holding gates, but mostly found up in the woods near the arctic wolves. There has been limited social behavior between the pack, but Grizzer and Maya were observed interacting late Sunday afternoon. There has been much howling on site, but I also noticed wild wolf scent marking outside of the secondary fence this morning. The location of the Wolf Center in the heart of wolf country makes the visit of wild wolves to the enclosure highly probable. The territorial defense behavior of the captives to these visiting canids (can be towards dogs as well), has been well documented.
Shadow and Maya have a very strong bond with each other. On the first night after the medical exam, while Maya and Nyssa were held in an adjoining enclosure for recovery, Shadow frantically bark-howled and stayed next to the holding area all night long. Maya showed an equal amount of anxious behavior to return to Shadow and the pack. His behavior continues to be that of an alert, cautious member of the pack that responds to situations out of the norm. Maya has been extremely submissive to Shadow since the loss of Nyssa and continues to show active submission, active licking of Shadow's mouth with a completely submissive body posture. Shadow seems to be instigator of the howling in the pack, but all members join in.
MacKenzie is doing very well. For some reason, her behavior has reverted back to the dominant female role that includes rolling Lakota over on her back. In previous months, MacKenzie was not as interactive with her siblings, but she must be feeling better. I'm not sure if Lakota is as thrilled about MacKenzie's behavior, but she always has her tunnel to escape to. It's nice to see MacKenzie feeling better.
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