While reviewing clips for Aidan and Denali's 5th birthday, I found some footage of Grizzer that is worth watching. Grizzer's doing some rolling and spinning in the snow, sliding down a hill, then doing a race around the enclosure… Sound familiar?
Grizzer continues to amaze us in his calm demeanor. It's like working with a different wolf, and the calmness in the pack is very noticeable, especially for Malik. In past winter's, Malik and Grizzer had so much tension between them that wolf checks were noisy bouts of activity. Now, a wolf check is calm, Malik spends time on the greeting rock, and overall the pack is very relaxed. We will be monitoring this closely, at some point, the calming influence of the pups will wear off for Grizzer.
Grizzer has been a hungry pup lately. Though he had a full belly from Sunday night's "What's for Dinner" program, he was very insistent that this piece of left over deer belonged to him. He is a big wolf, still filling out.
It seems like we repeat this in every log, but Grizzer is still very calm and incredibly tolerant of pups that are not so kind in return. We keep thinking that this will wear off, but so far, we see no change in his behavior. One thing about wolf work is that every personality is different and the social relationships between wolves can greatly affect behavior, so there is never a standard of what to expect. This is why the study of Ethology is such a great profession. We are offering an ethology course next summer if you’re interested in learning more, check out the Program section of the website, look for the link Wolf Seminars. A new YouTube video has been posted showing scenes from the early winter in Ely.
Grizzer's face scar is healing, but the tensions continue between he and Malik. When the pups start wrestling with Grizzer, Malik comes in for a few grab bites, which Grizzer tolerates to a point. When Grizzer has had enough, he charges after Malik and initiates a chase. These chases usually end up with Grizzer following Malik around the greeting rock. This may go on for about 5 minutes, before they both get tired and settle down. The interesting response is how the pups react to Grizzer when this occurs. They seem to know when they can wrestle with him, and when it's best to just stay out of the way. Usually, after a chase scene, the pups come back to Grizzer and lick him intently while he is resting.
Due to the weekend blizzard and the resulting time spent shoveling and blowing snow, the wolf logs will all be the same today. Despite windchills in the 30 to 40 below range and nearly a foot of snow, the wolves are doing great. These are animals that are clearly adapted to winter environments and they are much more comfortable than during a warm summer day. Staff provide straw beds to give them a comfortable place to rest and insulates them from the cold ground, the dens are dry and well covered in straw, but unless the wind is bad, the wolves usually don't use the densites. Staff make sure there are plenty of scraps available for a quick snack, and the water heaters are monitored daily to ensure there is always a fresh, warm source of water. We are aware of some issues with the pond cam's exposure problems, and we are doing some adjusting to see if we can repair it, thanks for your emails about the issue. I hope to get a youtube video posted later in the week, filmed on a -26 below morning to show the activity levels of the wolves in these temperatures.
We had a little problem with video editing this morning, so all the logs will be the same and we hope to get video in the logs and a new Youtube video posted by the end of the week. The fall colors have been tremendous in the enclosure, and thanks to local moose hunters, we gave the pack a moose head mid-week. The pups were actively feeding on the moose head, but soon cached it, and have not been back on it since. They consumed an entire deer this weekend, despite the warmer than average weather conditions.
Grizzer spent the fall being extremely tolerant of the pups. Rolling over for them and interacting with them in a very social way, not showing very much dominance over them. Now that the pups are bigger, they are taking advantage of this. In recent observations, the pups are grabbing the scruff of his neck and tugging on him, still no real response from Grizzer. The unfortunate thing is that Malik takes advantage of this and charges Grizzer, which causes him to retreat with both pups in tow. Although, we have started to see Grizzer pin Aidan, maybe the colder fall weather will help Grizzer establish some boundaries.
Grizzer has some great food threat displays and lip postures, as shown in his photo this week. What’s interesting about this photo is that Grizzer is defending the bison head from one of the other wolves, while standing over Aidan, not bothered at all by Aidan’s presence or Denali approaching from the side. The pups aren’t the only ones who receive Grizzer’s food possession threats; Maya is likely to get dominated as well, as shown in the video this week.
Grizzer is the ideal pup monitor. He continues to show great tolerance when interacting with the pups and initiates social behavior. The dominance between Grizzer and Malik is much less than last fall, but when Grizzer is occupied with the pups, Malik still goes in for a grab bite. What is interesting is Grizzer’s continued submissive behavior towards Shadow. He shows a great deal of appeasement behavior, tucking his head under Shadow’s chin, with flat ears and submissive licks to the face.
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