Grizzer has been increasing his dominance activity in the last few days, probably due to the cooler weather settling in for the fall season. He's not too likely to start in on one of the arctics, but chooses to dominate Maya, who shows threat displays and does a ride-up behavior of her own. Note in this week's video, Shadow stays very close and observes the action.
Grizzer gave the wolf care staff a bit of a scare on Sunday morning. Saturday night the wolves were fed a full deer carcass, as you can see from the Exhibit packs video, they all ate well. On Sunday morning, Donna Prichard came in to do morning meds, and there was no sight of Grizzer. She walked the enclosure perimeter and called, but he didn’t appear, nor would did he come down for meds. Curator, Lori Schmidt came in entered the enclosure with Donna. As Lori walked up the hill, she saw Grizzer’s head pop out of a den hole, looking full, but good. With the ability to eat up to 20% of their body weight, Grizzer was probably just full and there wasn’t enough stimulus in a meatball to disturb him. In this week video, you see Grizzer as the first wolf out of holding going for the deer carcass. Malik is growling at him a keeps Grizzer off, but only for a few seconds.
It's been a busy week in wolf care. The colder weather and snow arrived late last week, creating a few issues in the Exhibit Pack. The first and most obvious issue was the pond. The temperatures were low enough to cause the pond to ice over and the pump and waterleveler to be in danger of freezing underground. In previous years, we were able to keep the water in the pond until after the "Working for Wolves" weekend during the last weekend of October, but no luck this year. Wolf Curator, Lori Schmidt and assistant curator, Donna Prichard spent last weekend dealing with pond draining and pump removal. The second issue that kept staff busy was the increase in aggressive behavior caused by the natural cycle of hormones and probably stimulated by the cooler weather. Grizzer, who in past weeks, had been asserting status over Malik, had begun to test Shadow. He had a rather intense display of dominance that pinned Shadow to the ground, with Malik coming in to assist. Staff were in the enclosure at the time, and provided beaver tails as a distraction. Behaviors have calmed considerably since that first snowy day, but we know maturing wolves are going to test their older packmates if they detect weakness. Shadow was able to maintain status, and as shown at the end of Grizzer's video clip, still actively dominantes Grizzer. It is imperative that wolf care staff keep the wolf yard as calm as possible. Any out of the ordinary activity behind the enclosure can affect the delicate balance of this male order.
With the Memorial Day holiday, all wolf logs will contain the same text content with different video and images. The most noteable event this past week involved a bit of tension between Grizzer and Malik that escalated into a short, but noisy dominance display involving the entire Exhibit Pack. Staff had noticed during the "Workin for Wolves" weekend that Grizzer was stalking Malik, but Grizzer is a bit shy around strangers, so he didn't have too much action in front of the working group. As time went by, this tension was noticeably increasing, and on Thursday morning's wolf check, Grizzer became agitated with Malik and in an instant, forced Malik onto the ground. The entire pack was involved, with varying degrees of intensity, note Maya's hesitant stance. This was Grizzer's way of reasserting that he is now the #2 male on the Exhibit, taking over Malik's role this winter. This interaction is shown in Malik's video. In Grizzer's video, you will see another wolf communication to assert dominance, in a more passive manner. Grizzer is following Malik, causing Malik to be intimidated. When the male rank order has some strife, Maya gets a bit anxious. In her video clip, you will see her seek reassurance from Shadow, and toward the end of her clip, she actually climbs on the rocks to the wolf care staff to get out of the dominance mix. Shadow is watchful of the rank order issues between the #2 and #3 males, as Grizzer may try to increase rank farther by taking him on for the dominant role. But, in Shadow's clip, you do see Shadow with Maya doing a ride-up on him and Grizzer showing submissive ears. The Retired Pack is continuing to do well, as the weather warms, staff are making an extra effort to remove the excess undercoat of hair to help cool them. Lakota enjoys a brushing, Mac is not as enthusiastic. MacKenzie cools herself by finding a shady area in the enclosure or by panting.
Written by Planning for Pups program participants, Tina Stimpson and Heather Hoff: " The exhibit pack was put into the holding pen on Saturday night. Chicken legs, bacon and tuna was placed around the enclosure as part of the enrichment program. After the exhibit pack was released back int the enclosure, the wolves disperesed in all directions to find food. Within minutes, Grizzer was searcing the trees for chicken and bacon. He continued Sunday morning searching the trees. Grizzer was very successful in finding Maya's caches. He continued to test Shadow for dominance."
Due to the active schedule with the ongoing Wolf Ethology class at the Center, all logs will be the same. Shadow continues to have some issues with groups behind the scenes, so the schedule has been modified for the class, with more observations from inside the observation area. Shadow seems to do much better with this. The weather’s been hot and humid this week, causing the wolves to reduce their activity levels significantly. The biting flies are out and all wolves have been treated with Biospot for fly control on their ears. Grizzer and Maya have completed shedding their dense undercoat, with the exception of some loose hair on their necks and tails. Shadow and Malik, as arctic subspecies are a bit delayed in the shedding and are about midway through the process. Although the Retired Pack members are Great Plains subspecies, they are also delayed in the shedding process, possibly due to their age. Lakota has a growth on her face that has been increasing in size. The Veterinarian has chosen to wait until cooler temperatures before anesthetizing her and removing the growth. He has determined that it is benign, but it may continue to grow. Staff will be watching this carefully and have been cleaning it daily.
As a method for enhancing the wolves’ lives in captivity, events are scheduled for the wolves on a weekly basis. These events vary from food placement within the enclosure to additions of logs, trees or other stimulus. One of the events is the placement of minnows in the pond for the control of algae. Most of the minnows survive, but when the pond needs to be cleaned, the minnows are placed in a bucket until the pond water is replenished. The minnows that don’t survive the cleaning process are given to the wolves. They don’t eat the minnows, but as you can see in this week’s video clip, you will see Grizzer scent rolling on a dead minnow.
Grizzer has fully shed his winter undercoat and appears slim to visitors observing him at the Center. He continues to show dominance over Malik, but the summer season is more passive than winter. The Wolf Watch team members who spent the night at the Center on July 5th observed Grizzer following Malik with Grizzer in a pricked forward ear position and higher tail posture when following or passing by Malik. These are behavioral indicators of Grizzer’s status over Malik. Wolf Watch is a program that’s offered on the first Thursday of the summer months, where participants received training in the use of an Ethogram and spend the evening recording behavior. Participants sleep in the observation area next to the wolf enclosure.
As a new summer program, the wolf care staff have been providing enclosure enrichment activities for the wolves every Wednesday at noon. These activities vary from new minnows in the pond, food treats, scents and smells to stimulate the wolves to use their sensory abilities. During one of these enrichment sessions in the summer of 2006, staff put items in a tree, only to have Grizzer damage several young trees in the search for treats. This year, we decided to save the trees and avoid placing treats in any trees, but Grizzer still looks there. In this week's photo, Grizzer climbs up the side of a maple tree. One other behavioral observation about Grizzer, he usually follows the other wolves when looking for stimulus, rather than adventure out on his own.
Grizzer has been doing a fair amount of testing behavior, but continues to be limited in his follow through for more assertive postures. He is often spotted facing off with Shadow, but shows submissive ear postures, even though he is attempting to show a direct stare confrontation. These testing bouts seem to go on daily, but are strongly influenced by Malik and Grizzer’s relationship. When Grizzer begins following Malik, Malik gets very vocal and whirls around quickly to avoid Grizzer. This adds to Grizzer’s excitement and when Shadow comes in to intervene on that encounter, Grizzer redirects.
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