Aidan has earned far more freedom in the past few weeks, as Maya advances her transition into the summer behavioral mode. She still has her limits, and chases back to the safety zone do occur, but Aidan is getting bolder. The pack was weighed this week; Aidan weighs 106 lbs, up from his September 14th weight of 103 lbs. He certainly gets enough exercise to build muscle.
Aidan has his moments where he gets caught off guard, either in the woods or near the windows in the front of the exhibit, but a short distraction by staff gives him time to get to his secure area by the den. The temperatures have been very warm lately, resulting in a lot of sleeping wolves. The YouTube video shows Aidan inside the den, and Maya stands long enough for Aidan to do a full body sniff. Within the next few weeks, we hope the frost is out of the ground to fill the pond, Aidan does like water.
Aidan turns two years old on April 27th, and while the winter has been rough as the omega wolf, you will notice his presence on the greeting rock more frequently. With the spring, comes a calmer hormonal cycle for wolves. While Maya still has her moments, she has been very playful with Aidan at times. Wolf care volunteer, Don Gossett, recently photographed this sequence through the viewing windows. Maya willingly submitted to Aidan in a very social behavior.
The weekend staff reported some great behavior associated with the Wolf Enrichment program. This program is conducted every day of the week at 1 pm. The stimulus varies from food, to scent to sound. This weekend, we use sound of prey animals such as moose calls, deer fawns, stressed rabbitt calls etc. Initially the wolves looked anxious, then Aidan started stalking behavior. We didn't let the sounds run more than a minute, then played a Tracy Chapman song, one of Aidan's favorite. They were very relaxed when the song began to play. We forgot to mention that Aidan and Denali were both weighed during the Planning for Pups weekend in early June. They both weighed 124 lbs.
There isn't too much new to report. Aidan's shed out most of his winter undercoat, thanks to the fact that he clings to wolf care staff and gets the most brushing. There's a slight amount left on his neck, making him appear a bit misproportiante with a slim body. Aidan may look thin, but his 124 lb body can sure eat the food. A feeding of an 80 lb deer torso last night resulted in a small amount left on Sunday morning.
Aidan has had a noticeable change in behaviors, acting far more submissive towards Denali. This week's YouTube footage shows several minutes of Aidan passively submitting. Aidan still dominates a significant amount of wolf care time, but the intensity of his guarding behavior has diminished. As spring approaches, it will be important to provide good stimuli to engage the wolves in activity. With the pond drain thawing this week, we should be able to get the pond cleaned and filled by the last week of April. With daytime temperatures nearing 50 degrees this week, it may seem cool for a human, but a full coat of guard hairs makes 50 degrees warm for a wolf.
We had some trees felled for Grizzer's new habitat and some of the branches landed in the Exhibit area. Aidan really likes fresh pine boughs and spent a lot of time rolling in them. Of course, this means we will need to do some pitch removal on his coat.
Aidan did extremely well with the work activity during the recent Working for Wolves program. He positioned himself right next to the chainlink fence and watched as crews diligently constructed the protective walls around the medical enclosure. He even crawled under a white pine branch and entertained the crew with his antics. We are putting walls and a roof on the medical enclosure to prevent snow build up, but we are always mindful of change and how it impacts the wolves. We have not completed the roof, but so far, Aidan has no problem with going in and out of the enclosure with the new panels.
Aidan and Denali have started to really socially interact. This behavior is very similar to their behavior as pups and the primary reason why we prefer to have two pups socialized together. There doesn't appear to be any clear indication of dominance when they are socializing. We see Aidan doing ride up behaviors and mounting, but in the next moment, Denali will display the same behaviors. Of course, this is the season for calmer wolf behavior, and we are not likely to see dominance testing as the summer approaches. We are dealing with some Aidan insecurity issues, where he needs to be with wolf care staff and will grab the staff if they try to leave him. The best course of action is to stay with him until he wanders off. In the last several days, we have observed several passive submissions towards staff. This means, with no prompting from staff, he roles over in a submissive posture.
The pack has had a quiet week, so there's not much news to report and all logs will be the same. The Center is moving forward on an additional habitat for Grizzer with a design that will allow continued access to the current pack holding area. He has become quite comfortable in this area and its' location is right in the Center of Wolf Lab activity which seems to be of interest to Grizzer. This is a bit reminiscent of Lakota.
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