Boltz is showing more testing behavior and seems to be attempting to test Aidan whenever Aidan is preoccupied with Luna or Denali. Aidan is very strong in his response to show dominance, and so far, this is enough to keep Boltz submissive. It is natural for a yearling to attempt multiple tests when the situation arises, but if the pack leader is strong, it’s been our experience that there’s a level of acceptance of their position as they reach two years of age.
Boltz has been feeling the affects of a young wolf with some new hormones. He already has an eye stare that makes us wonder what he’s up to, now he’s getting some frisky behavior that seems to increase as the temperatures decrease. As a young male with two fairly strong males above him, he’s taking his testing behavior and redirecting it to Luna. Luna and Boltz jawspar just like a pair of pups, but the intensity is increasing by the day. The good thing is that Boltz is easily distracted. He seems to enjoy taking items, and frequently checks the staff pockets. A deer hide is gold mine for Boltz and if he is too excited, we can easily divert his attention. The only problem is, if Luna gets there first, she will guard it with all her might.
I can always tell when Boltz has a slight surge in hormones, he gets extremely friendly, not just with wolf care, but he seems to increase his social behavior with the wolves, specifically Denali. Boltz is known for his sideward glances of mistrust towards both wolves and humans, but as he matures, he seems to be getting more comfortable with the dynamics of the group.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Boltz seems to have learned a valuable lesson when testing Aidan. The lesson is, don’t do it unless you want a very powerful wolf to bite you in the head. It seems to have worked because Boltz has not shown any indication of testing Aidan since that video posting and images that I posted in mid-August. His new tact is to try to take advantage of Luna and treat her like a pup mate. He’s also finding that Luna’s not much more tolerant of his testing behavior than Aidan. The maturing juvenile seems to be driven to test his boundaries, the question is, on what.
The YouTube video this week shows Boltz in some more pup-like behaviors than in previous weeks when he showed some inclination to climb rank. Young adult hormones can have these swings in behavior, but it also helps that Aidan showed him a strong defense to his testing and it seems to have reduced the intensity and focus of Boltz. Of course, it’s early in the fall and most of our testing takes place in winter, but we do know that Boltz is calmer if he is occupied. Let him get bored, and we have issues. Items that are stimulating include deer hides, legs, beaver tails and rib cages. All items that we have readily available.
