Aidan brought one of the beavers from his Saturday feeding over towards Bolts. We've been observing this behavior from both Aidan and Denali, but Aidan brings it over and leaves it, while Denali seems to be more enticing play behavior. In a recent wolf check, Denali was grabbing my brush in my pocket. I pinched his lip and started to roll him over when Aidan intervened and blocked Denali from coming close to me. He continued guarding behavior for the rest of the wolf check. If he does a similar behavior for Bolts, he will be well protected.
We've been noticing some subtle changes in the relationship between Aidan and Denali. Denali seems to be gaining some status over Aidan, and we think it might be related to the fact that Aidan is more intimidated by strangers. Having Pup Care Participants in the wolf yard is excellent socialization for the pups, but we can't forget that adult wolves have stress responses to strangers. Fortunately, we have Wolf Care staff that enter the enclosure and pay some specific attention to Aidan which helps with some of this anxiety. He continues to show some strong social bonding behavior towards Boltz.
We weighed all the adult wolves this week. Aidan and Denali have fond memories of the scale as pups and were very easy to acquire weights, as long as we had a bit of peanut butter. Aidan weighed 1234 lbs, which is down from his July 2011 weight of 130 lbs, but he might have been carrying a bit of deer in his belly during that weight. We are done with the 3 month antibotic treatment for the Discoid lupus condition. Unfortunately, it was not as successful as hoped. We will be consulting with the Veterinarians to come up with another treatment option.
Aidan and Denali had a large deer on Saturday night, which resulted in Aidan sleeping in the den most of the day on Sunday. We have successfully conditioned the wolves to come to the front of the Exhibit when we ring some chimes. We usually reward them with ice cubes or other miscellaneous treats. Today, the temperatures were in the upper 70's, with full sunshine, perfect weather for biting flies. Combine the temperatures, sun, flies and full stomach, Aidan was a challenge to keep on display today.
When pups are coming in for daily programs, Aidan spends some time at the windows, watching the interactions. So far, he remains tolerant of the core wolf care staff as they interact with Bolts (Peanut doesn't get much fence time under her restricted mobility limitations). We did watch an interesting behavior last week. When Bolts was climbing on Oscar, he rolled off of Oscar and up against a temporary fence and it made some noise (as well a squeak from Bolts). Aidan ran to the fence, and jumped towards Oscar. We moved Oscar away from the fence, but Aidan continued to eye stalk him. Since then, he's been back to normal with Aidan, but we have to make sure that Aidan doesn't see anything that might indicate a pup is in distress.
We started the Behind the Scenes programs last week. Both Aidan and Denali are at the fence for this program, but Aidan is much more reserved and will tend to wander away from the crowd. Denali seems to take advantage of this and has been testing Aidan a bit. So far, it's nothing more than some ride-up behavior, but we are trying to do all we can to keep them calm. This is one of the reason's why we scheduled the Behind the Scenes on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Rather than spread them out during the week, we concentrate the programs to reduce the amount of time Aidan may express anxiety. We will also end the Behind the Scenes programs prior to the introduction.
Thanks to one of our log viewers (Thanks Kate); we are trying a new treatment for his Lupus condition. We will keep you posted on the results. Other than the pigmentation loss, there's no other effects from the Lupus. He continues to show very good social behavior towards the pups and had some interesting "Stand Over" behavior with Denali on this week's Youtube. We are counting down the days until the introduction of Boltz on July 30th. We still don't know about Luna, but we believe Aidan will be a good social companion to Boltz.
Prior to the Thanksgiving Holiday, we usually feed some meat scraps to keep the wolves full and sleepy for one of the few days when there is limited staff in the lab to monitor the wolves during the day. Aidan really enjoyed this protocol, as we fed bone dust, provided by Pam Slossen and moose scraps provided by a local resident cleaning out their freezer (moose from 2009). Aidan's behavioral transformation in the past year includes a significant increase in feeding opportunities. When he was low ranking, he often had to wait for meals. Now that he appears to be in control of this Exhibit, he waits for no-one.
Lately, staff have been thinking that Aidan was the main dominant force in interactions, mainly due to his guarding wolf care staff when they are in the enclosure. Recent surveillance video showed some interesting footage of Denali doing a ride-up on Aidan and pinning him to the ground. It appeared to be very social behavior with tails wagging, but the next day, Aidan had increased diligence when following Denali.
The YouTube video this week shows 10 minutes of pack activity during wolf care. Staff observe the pack dynamics on a daily basis to determine if there's tension in the pack, or if the pack is interacting well. The video shows what we are seeing today, there is an increased focus on Maya's interactions, and Aidan was very tentative during wolf care. Both yearlings have shown more interest in Malik, possibly trying to figure out the bottom of the rank order.
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