There was some dominance aggression between Grizzer and Denali on Wednesday night. We watched the surveillance video from the Retired Cameras, and it appears the activity started right after the Curator left for the evening, around 6:05 pm. Grizzer is a tolerant animal, but he can only take so much. Denali is young and it is natural for him to test until he sees limits. Grizzer may have shown Denali these limits, but it may take a constant reminder for this to settle. At this point, Grizzer is on antibiotics (so is Denali, even though his bite was minimal), and Grizzer gets an anti-inflammatory to keep him up and moving around. We don't want Grizzer to show too much weakness and give Denali any unfair advantage.
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There was some dominance aggression between Grizzer and Denali on Wednesday night. We watched the surveillance video from the Retired Cameras, and it appears the activity started right after the Curator left for the evening, around 6:05 pm. We were able to piece together the activity based on the retired wolves reactions. Malik, who was always the omega in the Exhibit Pack, responded by running, that's what omega's do. His excitement level was very high with a T-1 tail and very aggressive arousal. After a few minutes of excitement, Malik tried to dominant Shadow with an intense ride-up and some grab biting, but Shadow was able to maneuver away. Malik definitely takes advantage of Shadow when there's some excitement, of course, if you read Malik's archived notes, you would see that is not unusual behavior, he's always been an opportunist.
Aidan is developing a much nicer winter coat than last year. This could be just the effects of a maturing wolf, or the fact that Maya and Grizzer are more focused on Denali, causing Aidan less stress. Aidan now has a routine in the mornings. To avoid having to compete for meds with the other wolves, he willingly goes into the small medical pen, waiting for the others to leave. The only problem is, when he's done, he doesn't want to leave either. This enclosure is close to the lab door and he has strong memories of his time in the lab with wolf care staff, listening to music when he was recovering from his neutering surgery.
Denali continues to show no signs of accepting lower ranking status, but instead of constant testing behavior, he has changed to fear avoidance behavior such as a tucked tail and threat displays. This is viewed as a weakness by Grizzer and Maya and results in Denali being chased. We will monitor this situation closely, feed an excess amount of food to keep the wolves distracted, but it is ultimately up to Denali to show a submissive posture towards Grizzer. For the first time since the dominance interaction, we did see Denali show some social tail wags and engagement behavior towards Grizzer, but then he started to follow Grizzer, which is a dominance test. Needless to say, Grizzer didn't allow that to behavior to continue.
Pigeons were donated by the Wildlife Science Center from an eradication effort at the Minneapolis Airport and used in an enclosure enrichment. Text was written by Working for Wolves participants Pam Slosson and Corrine Evenson. On Friday, 10/29/10, we got to observe Denali engage Grizzer in laps around the pond. Grizzer never did catch up, but Denali is a lot younger. On Sunday, we did enclosure enrichment with pigeons and Denali enjoyed the game of finding them. But not only that, he was the first of the pack to figure out that they were edible. Denali might be juvenile acting, but he shows great hunting skills. If he was in the wild, he would be good for the pack's survival.
Maya has been showing some strong association with Grizzer, sleeping on the rocks near Grizzer and overall spending more time with him. This has probably helped his confidence, and could be the deciding factor for Grizzer to keep his role. Maya chases Denali with Grizzer, but Denali shows no fear response to Maya, in this week's video on Youtube, he actually runs into Maya while trying to avoid Grizzer.
We are happy to report that Shadow is up to 89 lbs. This is a very good weight for a 10 1/2 year old wolf coming into winter. You may notice the curator sitting with bowls of food for hours at a time. It is a slow process to get Shadow to eat, but it is a critical effort until we can determine the cause of his anxiety about carcass eating. We are in a deer surplus time due to a generous donation of roadkill from the Wildlife Science Center and some deer scraps from hunters.
Shadow is still getting feedings of chicken and beef, but it is less frequent with more deer legs and carcasses fed in between. We also use Shadow as a barometer to pack tension in the Exhibit Pack. On Friday, he was very agitated and security camera video showed some tension. On Saturday morning, while Grizzer was getting prepped for surgery, he and Malik stayed on top of the den resting. When Denali came into the pack holding area, he carried around part of his deer torso. I'm not sure if that was because he was doing a food presentation towards Denali (offering food) or concerned that Denali was so close that he needed to possess his food. Regardless of the reason, Shadow was guarding food from Malik and that is a good thing.
Aidan continues to benefit from the pack's focus on Denali. He is frequently eating the excess deer carcasses, and has enjoyed some restful time in the straw beds. He and Maya had an issue when Grizzer and Denali were reunited, and it is clear that Aidan has gained some confidence. Aidan didn't have much for bite wounds, but Maya's ear and lip show the signs of a dominant female that actively shows her status. We continue to see Aidan foreleg stab to Maya despite the fact that she postures over him and chases him to the rocks in the front of the enclosure. We received a foot of snow, and Aidan still shows young animal tendencies playing in the snow.
Last Saturday, we made the decision to immobilize Grizzer, stitch up the bite wounds and give him a few days of rest from Denali. It was critical that Grizzer was back in the pack ASAP if he was going to maintain his status as the dominant male. In the short time between Grizzer being held and the immobilization drugs taking effect, Denali was walking around in high tail and posturing to Maya with a lot of RLU's. Once Grizzer was in the lab under sedation, we placed Denali in the pack holding area and kept him there for the weekend. Denali did extremely well in holding, and showed a submissive posture towards Grizzer when they were reunited the following Monday. Unfortunately, Maya and Aidan had some dominance issues that sparked tension between Grizzer and Denali, but within a 30 minute period, we had the pack together. Denali is showing less testing and is down in front with the pack with a social tail wag and whining. Grizzer still chases and postures, but the energy level is much calmer than last week.
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