Luna – Running with the Pack

In this week’s Youtube video you will see Luna active and running with the pack.  In most cases, she instigates the chase by doing playbows and obnoxious submission behavior towards Aidan.  Despite her limitations, she can run.  As she approaches her 4th birthday next spring, we are really monitoring her movements and see if she has any degradation of her joints that might make life challenging as she ages.  We certainly know that the addition of pups will mean an increased amount of time running with the pack.  Since wolf care staff will be with the pups 24 hours a day, 7 days of week during the late spring and summer of 2016, we are in a good position to care for Luna if there is a medical procedure that can improve her condition.  But, that is the key phrase, the risk of the medical procedure and recovery must have a greater benefit to her quality of life.  The next few months will have a lot of discussions and observations to make these critical management decisions.

Luna – Wolf Ethology Observations

This week’s wolf logs are based on observations by our Biology 1476: Wolf Ethology participants

Lorie Chestnut – Luna was again the center of enclosure activity as she observed Denali gnawing on a deer leg that he had wrestled from a three-day-old carcass. When the opportunity presented itself minutes later, Luna walked slowly to the deer carcass and lay down in closer proximity to the deer. Soon Denali was drawn away, investigating a small animal in some nearby bushes, and Luna moved in; possessing the leg for the next 10 minutes. Later in the evening, Denali regained possession of the leg.

Wolf Ethology Participant – Luna was in a playful and rambunctious mood when she was up and moving around. She was full of energy, but also relaxed now and then. After some high levels of activity, she started favoring her back leg a little more. Luna spent some time investigating what could have been a small animal in the rocks surrounding the pond, but it turned out to be some camel hair that was previously used for enrichment.

Luna – Irritated with bugs

Luna recently developed a hot spot from licking at a bug bit on her leg. It’s important to remember that one of the many reasons we socialize our wolves is for hands on care without the need of anesthetics. We’ve been applying some medications to the spot to allow her to heal with relative ease. The socialization process helps to allow this hands on care with highly trained staff who have worked with these animals for an extended period of time.

Luna – Summer Look

Luna has shed most of her summer undercoat on her body, butt that leaves her with partially shed neck hair that contrasts with her dark pelage.  We think she’s striking.   We have a local photographer who attends our Thursday night and Saturday morning “Photographer’s Only” sessions and he recently captured some beautiful Luna images.  Actually, all of his photos are amazing..  Check it out http://www.elypix.com/Wolf/i-s54mqrR

Luna – Shedding a White Undercoat

Luna is a black color phase of the gray wolf, but her undercoat is nearly pure white.  Wolves shed this dense undercoat during the summer season, leaving the sleek permanent guard hairs as their main summer pelage.  Luna seeks out sunny places to rest, but the dark coloration of her guard hairs absorbs a lot of heat.  To find some relief, Luna will rest in the cool vegetation until the middle of the day, then she tends to find an underground resting spot.  Behaviorally, Luna’s been a bit less dominant, lately which could be the cyclical influence of prolactin hormone or the fact that she’s finally maturing.  A recent observation on an overnight session captured a display of Luna dominance over Aidan.  Initially, it appeared that Aidan and Luna were pairbonding, walking side by side.  But, a closer observation noted that Luna was doing a chin rest over Aidan while she was walking.  Chin rests are definitely a sign of dominance.  Let’s just say that Aidan didn’t appear too impressed with the behavior and the “pairbonding stroll” only lasted about 20 feet.

Luna – Roll on Back

Luna rolling on back in the cover hay, but not for long.  We will be removing the hay as part of the Working for Wolves program on May 15th.  Actually, we may need to do a pre-Working for Wolves hay removal.  In the East side enclosure, we removed straw yesterday and discovered a 6 inch layer of ice.  So, if we want to truly clean up the enclosure on the Working for Wolves weekend, we need to remove the 18 bales of cover hay that keep the ice intact.  As we start the summer season, we are starting a new dose of Ivermectin which treats a broad spectrum of parasites as well as prevents heartworm.  In order to ensure we have the proper dose, the wolves were weighed today.  Luna weighed in at 97 pounds.  This is an increase in weight from her two=year old weight last year of 91.7 lbs and her yearling weight of 82 lbs.   A person would only need to watch a “What’s for Dinner” program to appreciate this data.

 

 

 

Luna – Three and Going Strong

So sorry for the delay in postings.  We celebrated Luna’s 3rd birthday on March 25th with a webinar featuring a short clip of her birthday. She received a cow leg, and in a behavior uncharacteristic of Luna, chose to lie quietly with her cow leg until the webinar ended.  Of course, moments later, she was wrestling and defending her leg from Denali and Boltz, but proceeded to carry it around, drop it in front of the other wolves wolves, then growl in defense of the leg.  This went on for hours after the webinar, and reminded us of Lucas’s behavior from the 1993 litter.  Lucas was the only male in a litter of 4 and without another male, he tended to stay out of the rank order.  He was famous for carrying deer heads, dropping them in front of the dominant female, MacKenzie, then growling at her if she showed interest. 

This week’s image shows Luna doing a play bow which was followed by an invite chase behavior.  I posted the video of this on YouTube last week, Aidan was pawing the ground like he was in a bull fight.  Could this be Luna’s idea of pair bonding?

Luna – Spring Fever

Luna has become extremely excitable and interactive with other members of the exhibit pack, as seen in this week’s youtube video. Perhaps this excitement is coming from all the new smells and weather patterns we’re seeing with the coming of spring. Winter hormones will soon be on the decline, as the breeding season has come to a close.

Luna – A hint of a maturing dominant female

We were hoping to see some more pairbonding behavior from Luna towards Aidan this winter, she still has many of her juvenile traits, mixed in with her more dominant personality. We have seen some pairbonding behavior, mixed between Aidan and Denali. Some days we see her rolling around with Denali (Though it often appears to be motivated by a piece of food he’s possessing), other days we see Luna resting very closely with Aidan. During the breeding season, it’s been noted that the breeding pair often rest closer to one another, and generally interact with each other more often than other pack members. We’ve seen only a little bit of the pairbonding behavior this year, and it will be interesting to see how Aidan and Luna may fall into their roles as we bring in new pups for 2016.

Luna-The Sneak

Wolf Logs written by Wolf Watch participants Steve Houglum and Marcia Mummau. 

During the Wolf Watch Friday evening program, the “Wiley Luna” waited for the opportunity to take one of Denali’ deer legs.  she positioned herself near Denali and slowly made her move by getting a front paw on one of the deer legs.  At this point, she shares possession and all she needs is time and Denali moved away. 

The Wolf Watch program is generally offered on the first Friday of each month, allowing participants to join wolf care staff as they observe the pack interactions and record any behavioral data that helps determine pack dynamics.