With summer brings heat, humidity, large crowds and various forms of stimuli for the wolves. Prior to last night’s feeding, Shadow initiated interaction with the yearlings, Denali and Aidan, by inviting chase. Some of the behaviors displayed by Denali during this play sequence included running, foreleg stabs, play bows and wrestling. This type of behavior indicates relaxed, comfortable wolves and is an example of the benevolent leadership Denali and Aidan receive from Shadow.
Denali has become quite active in the pond, and continues to be the main consumer of every carcass brought into the enclosure. Wolf care staff have not removed any uneaten carcasses since the 2008 pups introduction in August 2008. This is very unusual, and we will see if this continues this summer. Summer heat usually decreases the wolves appetite, but with this pack, we are still feeding twice a week.
Written by Planning For Pups participants Deb Lewis and Kelly Godfrey: Denali shows his inquisitive nature as he explores the enclosure. Denali focused most of his attention on the pond after fresh minnows were added during the wolf enrichment activity. His photo for this week shows pricked ears that indicate intensity as he searches for minnows to grab. His diligence was rewarded when he successfully caught and consumed a large minnow.
Written by "Pups at One Year" program participants Gail Ramee and Heather Hoff: Denali continues to be a very active member of the pack. During two separate enrichment programs he enjoyed a watermelon for the first time, cached a honeydew melon on the slate den, and snagged one of four deer legs. In this week's photo, Denali is involved in a tug-of-war over a deer leg with his brother Aidan. Part of "growing up" for a yearling is figuring out where you belong in the pack. Denali is exhibiting some "testing" behaviors, sometimes demonstrated by placing a paw on Grizzer or Shadow. Grizzer tends to take it in stride, but on one occasion this week Shadow finally had enough and reminded Denali with a hard muzzle bite that he is still a yearling.
We're not sure if it's a good sign, but we're seeing less of the panic running behavior when Grizzer postures towards Denali and more of the threat display. This indicates that Denali is gaining confidence and may have it in his mind to stop testing and start a challenge. Grizzer is fully capable of dealing with this, but Denali may not like the results. Of course, as this week's photo shows, Denali still does some of the running while looking backwards, a sure way to run over Aidan.
There was some dominance aggression between Grizzer and Denali on Wednesday night. We watched the surveillance video from the Retired Cameras, and it appears the activity started right after the Curator left for the evening, around 6:05 pm. Denali seems to have pushed his testing to a new level, and Grizzer is not willing to accept it. Despite some blood on his neck from a bite, there is very little injury to Denali, and the dominance did very little to curb his testing. There continues to be chase scenes and Denali continues to follow Grizzer and rush towards his face, although the tail biting seems to have stopped.
Denali continues to show no signs of accepting lower ranking status, but instead of constant testing behavior, he has changed to fear avoidance behavior such as a tucked tail and threat displays. This is viewed as a weakness by Grizzer and Maya and results in Denali being chased. We will monitor this situation closely, feed an excess amount of food to keep the wolves distracted, but it is ultimately up to Denali to show a submissive posture towards Grizzer. For the first time since the dominance interaction, we did see Denali show some social tail wags and engagement behavior towards Grizzer, but then he started to follow Grizzer, which is a dominance test. Needless to say, Grizzer didn't allow that to behavior to continue.
Pigeons were donated by the Wildlife Science Center from an eradication effort at the Minneapolis Airport and used in an enclosure enrichment. Text was written by Working for Wolves participants Pam Slosson and Corrine Evenson. On Friday, 10/29/10, we got to observe Denali engage Grizzer in laps around the pond. Grizzer never did catch up, but Denali is a lot younger. On Sunday, we did enclosure enrichment with pigeons and Denali enjoyed the game of finding them. But not only that, he was the first of the pack to figure out that they were edible. Denali might be juvenile acting, but he shows great hunting skills. If he was in the wild, he would be good for the pack's survival.
Last Saturday, we made the decision to immobilize Grizzer, stitch up the bite wounds and give him a few days of rest from Denali. It was critical that Grizzer was back in the pack ASAP if he was going to maintain his status as the dominant male. In the short time between Grizzer being held and the immobilization drugs taking effect, Denali was walking around in high tail and posturing to Maya with a lot of RLU's. Once Grizzer was in the lab under sedation, we placed Denali in the pack holding area and kept him there for the weekend. Denali did extremely well in holding, and showed a submissive posture towards Grizzer when they were reunited the following Monday. Unfortunately, Maya and Aidan had some dominance issues that sparked tension between Grizzer and Denali, but within a 30 minute period, we had the pack together. Denali is showing less testing and is down in front with the pack with a social tail wag and whining. Grizzer still chases and postures, but the energy level is much calmer than last week.
On Friday morning, Denali challenged Grizzer to a dominance fight during wolf care. There were a combination of factors that contributed to this challenge. It was an extremely windy day, which always increases the wolves anxiety. There has been a stray husky running loose in the area, with tracks in the parking lot and around the back of the wolf yard near the freezer. We also had an overnight group with some excitable voices in the parking lot that morning. All of these factors combined with the existing tension of some dominance testing pushed the challenge by Denali. As with all wolf challenges, we watch and don't intervene due to the concern that if we stop it, we might give both wolves the psychological idea that they both won, causing them to engage more intensely the next time. In order for the rank order to be settled, one wolf has to be the clear winner. The initial challenge lasted about 6 minutes, then ended for the day. They started again after dark, and by morning on Saturday, the pack was calm, and it was clear that Grizzer maintained his dominance. Denali was extremely calm, and came into holding with no issues. We are currently holding Denali in the pack holding area for the weekend to give Grizzer a chance to heal a bit, and will reunite the pack on Monday. There's always a risk in holding a wolf off that they won't accept him back in, but we had to make the hard choice to give Grizzer's stitches a few days of healing.
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