While we have always witnessed Luna and Aidan in shared dominance behavior, we continue to witness some social behavior stimulated by Aidan towards Luna. This is usually in the form of subordinate behavior on Aidan’s part and Luna initiating a greeting. Aidan is confident and tolerant, but will assert some status if she becomes too interactive. As winter approaches, we expect to see an increase in some pair bonding behavior instead of just shared dominance behavior.
Boltz has been very active chasing and sometimes catching migratory song birds that land within the enclosure. He continues to display jaw sparring with Luna and while there appears to be times when he seems to respect Luna as the dominant female, other times, they revert back to the pup wrestling behavior. This is one of the reasons we always adopt wolves in pairs, the social interaction between pup mates is strong and lasts well into maturity.
Aidan had a busy week with the International Wolf Center Post Symposium visitors. We had several guests to the Exhibit on Monday including biologist and handlers from the Mexican Wolf Project which created some great colloquial discussions. Aidan, who usually is bit reserved with groups, tolerated the visit well and spent a lot of time with the me as I discussed pack dynamic issues. It was a great opportunity for some professional dialog and I appreciate all of the networking stimulated by the symposium.
Boltz continues to show a slightly reserved behavior when Aidan is dominant over Denali. This is a good sign, just a few short months ago, Boltz was taking advantage of Aidan when he was occupied. The one incident of intensive jaw sparring and faceoff (I believe the photo was posted on Aidan’s August 16th log) was probably enough to set the limits in Boltz’s mind. This will be the last posting until after the International Wolf Symposium which will be held in Duluth starting October 10th. There is still time to register at www.wolf.org.
This week’s Youtube video features several clips of Aidan in a subordinate posture with Luna. He does set limits when she gets overstimulated, but it seems that Luna’s social greetings are getting better. In the male rank order, Boltz and Denali continue to wrestle and have equal time being chased or jawsparring with Luna. The one noticeable interaction is that when Denali gets to intense, Aidan is quick to put Denali down, but doesn’t do the same for Boltz. There seems to be a strong correlation to Luna’s interactions as well. Sometimes Denali may try to jawspar with Luna, but that usually leads Aidan to intervene. This will be the only posting this week due to the International Wolf Center Symposium in Duluth, Minnesota that starts on Thursday. There are still opportunities to register, check out the details at www.wolf.org.
Boltz had his fill of beaver and then some… In the Youtube video this week, you will see Boltz with some classic excess meat consumption black diarrhea. Since Boltz rarely gets more meat than he can digest, he seems a bit startled by the condition. These loose stools occur within 12 hours of gorging on a large amount of meat and are not formed enough to express the anal scent glands, so you will see him butt scoot as well. But scooting is where a wolf drags themselves through the grass, it may also be a parasite issue, so we will always test a fecal when we see it.
Aidan has a few subtle behaviors that indicate he is not quite over the anxiety of last week, but he also has some strong submissive responses to staff and what appears to be the start of some pair bonding behavior with Luna. This week’s Youtube video has no narration because my voice is a bit scratchy to narrate. I challenge people to see if you can identify the behaviors that indicate a bit of stress, relaxation and social cohesiveness.
Boltz wasted no time taking advantage of Aidan over the weekend. As a yearling, he seems to be programmed to look for weakness. Fortunately for Aidan, Luna doesn’t seem too tolerant of Boltz’s exuberance and seems to assert herself with more tenacity towards Boltz. I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that they are pup mates, although, I see the same behavior towards Denali. Boltz has developed a very distinctive saddle on his back, making him much easier to distinguish from Aidan. If you look closely, Boltz’s saddle forms what appears to be a triangle on the base of his back which is much more distinct than Aidan.
Aidan experienced some significant anxiety after a work crew from Vermilion Community College removed some problematic invasive species. Aidan is usually calmer, and we don’t know what trigger is response this time, but we know that Denali, Boltz and even Luna noticed a difference in his behavior. Aidan retreated to the back half of the habitat and wouldn’t even approach the front of the Exhibit, and when he did, he just sniffed, looked up at the sky, held his ears turned to the side and was quick to tuck tail and run. I spent several hours with him on Saturday evening and by Sunday morning, he had improved dramatically. On Monday, we had a dominant pair of wolves and the previous days tests from Denali and Boltz were quickly forgotten by Aidan. There is no doubt a level of frustration with our camera situation. I have been in contact with our tech support and they reassure me that the surveillance cameras will soon be streaming live video. I will definitely let everyone know when that event occurs.
The logs this week are all the same. It’s been a busy week. We started with the discovery of some damage to an outside security fence behind the Retired Enclosure. It appears a wild wolf attempted to get into the secondary security fence behind the retired enclosure. There were a significant number of boards torn from the fencing with a lot of teeth marks. Surveillance video shows that it likely occurred on Sunday morning, although we don’t have a camera pointing directly at this fence, Shadow showed some tension and agitation. We had a group of students from Vermilion Community College volunteer with some invasive species removal. This is critical as the plants that they were pulling harden off with hundreds of burrs that get stuck in the wolves coats. Unfortunately, Aidan seemed to have the most stress about the work project. He was agitated while he was in holding, then after the students left and Aidan was released, he proceeded to have some fear avoidance behavior throughout the weekend. This created some interest from the other wolves that saw the dominant pack leader showing some weakness. We impose a lot of limits on activity in the wolf yard as winter approaches, but the removal of the invasive species is critical work that saves a lot of wolf frustration as staff try to pull burrs from their coat.
