There has been a significant increase in the comfort level of all pack members. The biggest change has been in Malik. He is exhibiting much more interest in the pups. For the first time, he self-inititated a submissive rollover to Maya and Grizzer. He also allowed them to crawl on him. He is showing more ears forward than he has in the past 2 days. When Maya and Grizzer were resting , Malik laid near them. Maya wiggled closer and laid touching Malik.
Nyssa is very independent, she rarely comes down to greet the other staff. Often staff have to go into the woods to get her when it's feeding time. She has no intimidation towards Shadow and Malik. In a recent dominance display between Shadow and Malik, Nyssa slept quietly next to them until Shadow started displaying a submissive paw to get her involved.
Shadow continues to be the most involved with the pups. Today at 5 pm, he spent an hour rounding them up and bringing them to the front of the Exhibit. Last night was the first night all 5 wolves slept together. While Malik spends most of his time playing with the pups, Shadow is showing signs of protecting or guarding the pups. He is the first to discipline if they get too overwhelming in a greeting, but he is also very cognitive of their place in the enclosure and has been observed checking on each pup, nose to nose, before laying down.
Lakota started at least 10 howling bouts today. On about 4 occassions, the Exhibit pack howled back, but they became conditioned to ignore her after about the 5th time. She is constantly at the fence peering into the main enclosure. She is beginning to grow her winter coat in and frequently stimulates MacKenzie to chase her. MacKenzie has been observed standing in the front of the enclosure, waiting for Lakota to run by rather than chase her.
The cooler, rainy days have been a relief for MacKenzie. She seems more active than previous weeks, and has been observed in several dominance displays over Lakota. During the Behavioral Observation orientation session, rather than watch the slide show, the team observed many of the behaviors we were coding from the live-feed video camera in the retired enclosure. Her eyes seem less irritated with the cloudy weather we've been having. A new treatment of ointment has given her some relief.
Staff have observed Lucas sleeping a lot more than usual. He's often in the den box and doesn't get up to greet. Of all the retired wolves, he's really showing his age. He's definetly lightening in color and opposite of Lakota, he's still shedding.
Maya is gaining more confidence around the arctics. Today she was running and playing with Grizzer and Nyssa for a long time. She was walking on the stones in front of the obsrvation room, trying to catch some grasshopers. She managed to defend a beaver tail from Grizzer and Maya, and ran around the pen until Malik chased her. She rolled over and Malik started licking her while Shadow was nibbling her back. As fall approaches and the curator goes back to full-time employment at the college, wolf logs will be posted only once a week.
After 3 days of isolation, the yearlings are allowed back into the enclosure. The re-introduction goes smoothly with Mackenzie and Lucas excitably greeting the yearlings, Lakota retreats to the corner of the building with minimal interest from the yearlings. After Mackenzie and Lucas chase the yearlings up the hill, Lakota decides to follow and runs to the top of the enclosure to chase the yearlings. Within a minute, Lakota races back down to the building followed by the other 4 wolves, she clearly has great mobility, but is not quite ready to be so far away from safety. Everything seems to be going well with limited aggression toward Lakota. Staff observe Lakota on the deer carcass several times throughout the day.
Shadow very submissive to Mackenzie through the fence, very relaxed and calm, probably the response of the Chlomipramine. Staff fed Shadow a deer at the same time that the pack got a deer carcass on Saturday night. He still seems comfortable with his surroundings and is very relaxed when wolf care staff approach and interact with him in holding. Mackenzie's confidence has returned; She now approaches Shadow and readily shows dominance between the fence, but there's still the issue of Malik and Lucas attempting to dominate Mackenzie, we've only observed this a few times, but we want to watch the dynamics of Lucas and Mackenzie before we introduce Shadow. The November 5th scheduled release of Shadow back into main pack is postponed for another week, to allow more investigation of Chlomipramine use in wolf facilities and to give Mackenzie an additional week to heal and gain status. Chlomipramine is discontinued after today's dose.
Pond was drained today, wolves were fine, but Malik tried to remove several of the tools used to disconnect the pump. Attempted to move large white pine log from top of enclosure to place across pond. This would allow the wolves an opportunity to climb and chase each other across the pond, unfortunately the log was too big for wolf care staff to drag, will try again when there's snow on the ground. The more stimulus the better, so several more logs and trees will be brought in before summer.
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