Today Grizz is 22 days old and has displayed head shaking with a stuffed toy which is a feeding behavior seen in wolves tearing on a carcass. Grizz is now well coordinated and very mobile. He is also more independent than the other two pups, often laying alone in the corner of the enclosure.
Grizzer is doing well, he continues to seek refuge in the upper enclosure, usually laying underground. He is the most difficult to call down during the day, and continues to be the last out of the woods. He's been causing a bit of havoc with the newly planted trees. So far, Nyssa's memorial trees are doing well, but tree's planted earlier in the season have been snapped off. Late last week, Grizzer just decided to walk right over one of the trees, and wolf care staff cringed as we heard the crack, but we aren't giving up on tree-planting. We will continue to saturate this exhibit with trees, hoping one will grow.
Grizzer was very interested in the pond drain this morning. Wolf Care staff drain and wash the pond every few weeks to control the algae in the water. When the pond drains, the noise from the suction of the water through the drain draws Grizzer and Maya's attention. This morning, Grizzer did a full head dunk to watch the water drain, and blew bubbles with his nose as he was coming up from the water.
Grizzer has a full stomach this morning after last night's feeding. He is also growing a full undercoat in preparation for winter, which always makes him look bigger. The cooler nightime temperatures seems to make the wolves more active. This morning, he successfully stole a food cache from Malik, despite Malik's charging and lunging behavior towards him. In this week's photo, he's guarding a stolen cache, and if I had a faster camera, you would have seen the lip curl towards Malik. Instead, you see an intent look, but notice the submissive ears, even though he successfully guards the food from Malik, he still recognizes that Malik is higher ranking, and he may pay for it later.
Grizzer displayed some intimidation behavior since Nyssa's loss. He was quite submissive to the arctics and was somewhat reluctant to interact with staff. A wolf check today showed more social interaction, with play behavior with Maya. He's really starting to shed, so there have been several brushing sessions, trying to remove his undercoat.
It’s a busy week for the curator, so all the logs will have the same text: In the Exhibit Pack, there’s been a lot of raven activity around the left over food, and as Maya’s video shows, some ravens are caught by the wolves. Maya killed this raven that was too close to the carcass. Dominance in the Exhibit pack remains fairly calm. In Shadow’s video, you see him taking a leadership position on top of the den, moving with a high tail position toward the pack. He vocalizes to Grizzer and gets the response he was looking for. Malik continues to show signs of being a third ranking male, in his video, you see him watch Grizzer take a deer carcass up the hill. On Sunday’s feeding, staff fed 1 full deer and a second deer torso to ensure that everyone had plenty to eat. In the Retired Pack, Mackenzie has her good days and bad days. The video for MacKenzie shows one of her bad days, She prefers to rest in her straw bed and not interact with staff, but she shows submissive ear postures to the staff off camera. We are very watchful of these days and give her the respect and space that she needs. The day after that video, she had a great day with staff member, Matt Fetterer. She rolled over on her back and got a full massage from Matt, stretching all 4 legs to full extension for the full effect of the massage. Lakota’s change in antibiotics did the trick. The abscess has drained and she’s back to her playful self. On the same day as Mac was getting the massage from Matt, the curator was doing playbows with Lakota, as she raced around the pen and even jumped over the curator’s head. Of course, she was sitting on the ground, so it wasn’t that high of a leap, but for a wolf nearing 14, it was very limber.
Written by Pups at One Year participant Lynn Kaveny My fondest memory from this weekend with the pack is enjoying Grizzer and his headstrong puppy antics and his longing for acceptance and attention. He seems determined to be in the middle of whatever is going on, whether it's with Shadow and Malik, or challenging Maya. Maybe he sees his status declining. He may fool us and come out on top; he hasn't shown us all he's got. It will be interesting to follow his progress.
This week has been very busy for the wolf care staff with the wolf ethology program, hence the delay in updating the wolf logs. With the Behind the Scenes participants and the wolf ethology students in the wolf yard, Grizzer tends to stay away from the fence due to his fear of new people. This is a good teaching moment for the wolf care staff, as it serves to remind us that wolves, by their innate nature, are shy & fearful of humans. To provide enclosure enrichment this week, blocks of ice with various items frozen in it (such as beaver, feathers, meat scraps, and a deer tail) were given to the wolves. This provided a distraction for Grizzer, and he seemed to enjoy the ice block with feathers that he had.
The following was written by Pups at One year program participant Candee Stoffel My most favorite new memory from this weekend was of Grizzer. When they were fed the beavers, Grizzer took his off to the side then came back and picked up Maya's even after she had scent marked it as hers. He then carried her beaver over by his first beaver. then he seemed to go off to see if he could grab another beaver. But, at the time, Maya came back to claim one of his. By the time he came back, he was down a beaver and the fate of his other beaver was also in question. For a guy who seemed to be ahead of the game in the beginning, he seemed to have lost ground. But he seems to be a thinker and a planner because he still seemed to get some in the end.
Pups at One Year participants were asked to describe each wolf and their behavior that they observed during their weekend at the Center. Grizzer was described as Attention seeking and resilient. Grizzer tends to dominant time with wolf care staff, often coming in between the wolf and a staff member. He has become the recent attention of pack mobbings. He was observed running up the hill with a tucked tail after the mobbing and then turned right around and ran back to the pack.
The International Wolf Center advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future.