Grizzer – Life from the East Side

Grizzer seems to enjoy the access to the three enclosures.  His photo this week shows him resting on the den in the “East Side” enclosure, formerly known as the Retirement enclosure.  Grizzer, who will be eleven years old next spring, acts a bit more active than the average retiree, hence the name change to the enclosure.  On this week’s Youtube, I featured a video clip that shows Grizzer pawing and rolling a piece of birch bark, then going into a full race around the enclosure.  His stimuli, a group of neighbors with a high energy level (Luna).  He certainly seems to partake in the Exhibit Pack chase scenes even if there is a fenceline between them.

Boltz- A Wolf of Many Faces

Boltz is one of the most challenging wolves that I have worked with in a long time.  His older age when meeting our staff and our facility (he was nearly a month of age when we selected him), means that he doesn’t have as strong of a bond and can be mistrustful of staff or situations.  We are continually working with him to build confidence and trust, but his hesitancy towards strange actions is when he is most expressive.  One thing I see is that Boltz, independently of Luna, is much less testing and far more social.  Luna stimulates the antagonistic behavior and Boltz follows her lead from behind.  If Boltz is interacting with Denali alone, they greet and tail wag, rubbing shoulders along the way. 

Denali – Threatening Posture

Denali has become the focus of the two year old practice tests.  They practice ride-up behaviors, chin rests, dual confrontations and eventually get a scruff bite and submission from Denali.  Certainly, Denali shows some threat displays in response to this attention, but Denali spent the last two years wrestling and chasing with Boltz and Luna, as if he were a pup mate, not a higher ranking pack member showing any leadership.  The consequences of interacting as an equal versus as a wolf with more dominance is that the two year olds are less intimidated by threat displays.  This same situation happened to Malik when Grizzer was maturing, Malik eventually lost status to Grizzer and was the bottom of the rank order until Aidan and Denali were introduced in 2008.  While each wolf has their own personality, sometimes the scenarios repeat themselves.

Luna – Focusing on Scavengers from Above

Luna has a strong predatory drive which stimulates her stalking and ambushing behaviors.  She can be an indiscriminate stalker, going after Boltz, Denali or Aidan, but lately, she has turned her focus to the scavengers from above, namely, ravens.  As the fall and winter approaches, there will be more interactions between Luna, who is extremely food possessive and the many scavengers who frequent the Exhibit Pack territory.  Lately, Luna’s also been chasing her fellow pack mates off of her food possessions.  During last week’s “What’s for Dinner program”, she gathered all 4 beaver in a pile, ate about 10 lbs of meat, then slept on the rest.  Staff had to draw the wolves off and redistribute the beaver to get the other wolves a chance to eat (and that wasn’t until 3 pm on Sunday).   Today, when I came in for Wolf Care, Luna had killed and was possessing a raven.  Speaking of Scavenger’s from above, we are offering a program that not only investigates the relationship of ravens to our captive wolves, but includes a field visit to wild wolf territory to learn about ravens, eagles and vultures as they scavenge on wild wolf kills.  For more details, follow this link to learn about the Scavengers take Flight program. 

Aidan – Surveying the Pack

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 3 months since we lost Shadow.  Certainly not a day goes by when I don’t think of him, his behaviors, his leadership and the incredible lessons he taught us all.  When I turn my focus to the Exhibit Pack and watch the 2012 litter of Luna and Boltz maturing into adulthood, I see a bit of Shadow in Aidan’s response to their youthful exuberance.  Aidan will willingly roll on his back and present a submissive paw towards the wolves as they stand near him.  If they become too excited, a quick rise, lip curl and reinforcing growl sends them into a submissive posture. 

Luna – Obnoxious Submission

Obnoxious submission is a behavior, often from a subordinate wolf, that attempts to get a more dominant wolf to interact or reinforce the rank order. This behavior often includes whining, biting, pawing at, or even bumping the other wolf, and generally getting into their face about their display. Needless to say, this behavior can get quite old quickly. Aidan will tolerate these behaviors for a while, but when it gets to be too much, he often puts an end to it by rolling Luna, or retreating to the upper portion of the enclosure.

It’s hard to say why Luna submits in such a way, but submitting still seems to be a new thing to her, so there’s bound to be a few (or more) awkward attempts.

Grizzer – Vantage Points in Retirement

Although wolves in retirement are separated by several fences from the exhibit pack, they tend to keep tabs on the younger wolves. Grizzer seems to enjoy taking the vantage points of the two large dens in retirement in order to see into the main enclosure. From these vantage points he often has a great view of the antics the others get into.

Denali – Privacy?

Denali doesn’t seem to mind who’s watching him do his business where, in this week’s photo we see him urinating in the pond while standing halfway in it. When we say he tends to have a laid back personality, we really mean it.

In this photo you can also see the beginning of the fall colors. As I write this, we’re closer to the full swing of autumn, the leaves are changing and falling now, making for great photographic opportunities at the International Wolf Center. The wolves are in full winter coat now as well, which can be difficult to manage when we still hit 70 degrees on a regular basis, but soon enough those warm days will be far behind us.

Boltz – The Chin Rest

A common dominance position involves a chin rest, where one wolf rests their chin on another wolf either to reinforce their rank as a dominant animal, or to gain some status. In this week’s picture of Boltz, it’s the latter. Aidan had been greeting and rolling over for wolf care staff when Boltz decided to take this opportunity to try and gain some status over the dominant male. We’ll likely see more of these behaviors as he tries to test for rank this upcoming winter, ‘tis the season for testing.

Aidan – Life with Two-Year-Olds

As the winter breeding season quickly approaches, Aidan’s been dealing with more stress from the testing of the two-year-olds. Luna frequently goes into an obnoxious submission bout towards Aidan, but as the name suggests, this behavior can get old pretty quickly. Once it becomes too much for Aidan, he’s quick to attempt rolling Luna over, which can become very noisy, and at times stressful. Boltz often picks up on this opportunity and attempts to gains some status when possible.

In this week’s photo we see how this behavior can escalate and now Aidan has two two-year-olds on him, Boltz with a T2-tail posture, showing his confidence. As the younger wolves approach the age of 3, we’re looking at an interesting winter to come.