Maya is often photographed because of her intense eye stare. In this week's photo, she's starting a stalk up the hill to interact with Grizzer. Her focus is tremendous, you can definitely see why wolves are such successful predators with a focus and determination for the object at the end of their stalk.
As the sole female, Maya seems to have the status of dominant female by default. Even though she is more timid than Grizzer, the focus of dominance is on Grizzer. Maya willingly joins in, and as the fall approaches, often starts the dominance display. Grizzer usually interacts with as much energy as Maya, but when the arctics get involved, it becomes a lot more intense. Maya has been spending a fair amount of time on the rocks in front of the Center. When the fall color's advance, there will be many opportunities for great photographs.
Maya seems to still have a bit of an avoidance behavior towards staff. She's not fearful as much as disinterested in the staff. She seems to be interacting with all the wolves, but will avoid getting a daily physical. When she is approached, she submits and allows for a full check, but often has a high pitch whine while submitting. She's always been submissive, but staff have noticed her a bit more timid since Nyssa's death. She's still first to respond to predatory stimuli such as small songbirds landing in the enclosure looking for seeds.
As last week's logs stated, Maya is the most observant and probably most predatory of the bunch. As the first snows arrive, many of the small songbirds are flocking prior to migration. For whatever reason, some of them are landing in the pen. Maya carefully stalks them and rushes them leading to a quick flight to the birds. Most get away, but some are not quick enough for an intent wolf, with strong predatory instincts. By the way, she got the filter mentioned in last week's wolf logs. The curator is designing a metal grate system.
Being the only female of the exhibit pack, maya has no one to actively dominate. She's been doing some dominance towards Grizzer, but in the interactions with the arctics, she still shows a submissive posture. This weekend Bianca, an intern from the Netherlands, reported that Maya killed a raven and two other birds. Today when wolf care staff cleaned the pond's filter, Maya removed the rock that was protecting it, and was trying to dig and reach the filter. She was unsuccessful, but it shows she is the most curious of the pack members.
This week's wolf logs were written by program participants in the 10/28-10/30/05 weekend program called "Working for Wolves", in which participants performed enclosure enrichment and maintenance projects in both the Retired and Exhibit enclosures. Written by Kim Wheeler: The Working for Wolves participants made some improvements to the main Exhibit den. A wall was built and balsam branches were placed across the back opening. When the wolves returned to the exhibit, Maya did some rearranging. She pulled the balsam trees off the back of the den. She did not seem to like our changes! Maya did not show much fear avoidance behavior with the group. She did show some avoidance to entering the pup enclosure during the "What's for Dinner" program. The wolves were fed five beavers. Maya proceeded to scent mark on two of the beavers, which didn't stop Grizzer from taking one.
One of the projects that need to be done in preparation for winter is draining the pond, which was done during the Workin' for Wolves weekend. It always looks very different to see the pond without water. During the summer months, minnows were placed in the pond as a means of enclosure enrichment, much to Maya's delight. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy sitting on the rock and watching minnows. But, for now, she will have to settle for running and climbing in the pond without water.
Howling from discomfort but ceased with the presence of her brother.
Both pups have been increasingly sniffing their surroundings and they generally seem to be more aware of their surrounding environment than on the 17th and 18th.
Picked up female pup today weighing 2.7 lbs. She was nicknamed Groan based on her vocalization when she was handled. Listen to the audio file to hear Groan's normal vocalizations.
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