Maya continues to interact with Grizzer, and has started to show interest in play behavior with Malik. Shadow earns most of her respect and she is observed doing a parallel gate walk with him as the dominant pair.
In last week’s logs, you saw Maya being the instigator of dominance over Grizzer. This is a two way street. This week, Grizzer takes a moment to do a ride-up behavior on Maya with a scruff bite. These two continue to wrestle like pups, although Maya’s video shows there’s plenty of time for resting.
The following logs were written by Wolf Watch participants Kelly Miller and Jessica Sollie, who spent the night at the Center observing the Exhibit Pack's behavior. Enclosure enrichments were given to the wolves to stimulate their sensory ability. During this week's enrichment with frozen fish, Maya was the more aggressive of the two wolves during the hunt, with Grizzer following close behind. Maya then proceeded to take her fish into the woods, probably to eat or cache. Upon her return from the woods, she overmarked where Grizzer had previously urinated. When Grizzer walked by, she ambushed him with soft muzzle bites.
This week, all the wolves will have the same log text, although the photos will be different. We conducted an enclosure enrichment project, where a variety of unusual food scraps such as hamburger patties, frozen meat balls, fish and a few other food items were scattered throughout the enclosure. The wolves had a variety of responses to the items. Grizzer ran around and ate everything he could find, Maya scent marked, Shadow scent rolled, Malik investigated every spot with a high tail and excitability, Lucas food guarded, MacKenzie actually caught a burger in midair, and Lakota cached what she could take from Lucas. This type of stimulus creates high activity, a chance to use their sense of smell, and overall curiosity. Today was an overcast, cooler day, perfect for this type of high end stimulus.
When enclosure enrichment projects are done in the Exhibit Pack, Maya's predatory behavior is very stimulated. She stalks the scent trail of the handlers until she finds the stashed treats. She's most observed doing the rock to rock leap in a very fluid motion. When people observe a pack of wolves crossing a frozen lake in winter, they often comment on the smooth gate of a traveling wolf. Maya displays this same type of movement.
This log written by Working for Wolves Participant: Ann Briem Ever curious, Maya greeted us at the fence upon our arrival for the progam this weekend, that is until Shadow expressed his discomfort with our presence in his space by bark howling. Maya greeted Shadow with muzzle licking which was not well received. Saturday evening, the Ambassador pack was fed six beaver carcasses. Maya displayed great anticipation by jumping several feet at the fence and mouthing the chain-link. Once released back into the enclosure, she sniffed each carcass and seemingly settled on a pile of three on which she scent marked by urinating on them. Her interest in eating seemed to increase only when Grizzer attempted to steal one. The two of them eventually dragged it behind the greeting rock. Sunday morning, Lori released a bucket of minnows into the pond and as I write this, Maya is standing knee high in the pond watching and pawing at the minnows; a well earned treat for putting up with so much activity this week-end.
Maya has completely shed, except for a ruff on her neck. In the last two weeks, staff have added fish oil tablets to her diet in hopes of improving her coat. She has always had a coarse layer of guard hairs compared to the other wolves. When she was younger, staff would add a can of tuna to her diet twice a week. As she feeds with the pack on weekly carcasses, it's difficult to add tuna, so the fish oil capsules are added to a meatball and given with her daily vitamin. Grizzer is also getting fish oil, and so far, the coats seem to be improving.
When enclosure enrichment projects are done in the Exhibit Pack, Maya's predatory behavior is very stimulated. She stalks the scent trail of the handlers until she finds the stashed treats. She's most observed doing the rock to rock leap in a very fluid motion. When people observe a pack of wolves crossing a frozen lake in winter, they often comment on the smooth gate of a traveling wolf. Maya displays this same type of movement.
Written by Wolf Ethology Students; Jessica Durgin, Christina Meyer, and Kathryn Jaeger. During this week's enrichment, despite the rain, Maya was able to find hidden food items by using her strong sense of smell. She cached a few items in the den, although they were discovered by other members of the pack while she was off searching. Maya was also seen spending moments with Shadow. She would relax and fall asleep near his side after playing. They curled up together under plant covering during one of the morning wolf care sessions.
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.