Use Those Sniffers

Thanks to the participants in our Zooniversity program, "Senses Around", and our keepers, the wolves received some fun sensory enrichment last week! The zooniversity students spent one day focused on animals that have an excellent sense of smell, the wolves happened to be one of those animals. After the wolves were safely in holding, the students were allowed to enter the exhibit and hide a variety of treats for the wolves to find.


Not only did the wolves have a great time sniffing for treats, they undoubtedly were able to smell the different people that entered their enclosure that day.

Last week was also very warm, so the keepers gave the pack some frozen bloodscicles, ice cubes with bacon bits, and a few chilled apples and carrots...plus a few deer legs right out of the freezer.

Early last week a few members of the pack had a few bites on their ears due to flies, so we have started to treat their ears with fly ointment.

Orion & Moose

Over the past week Moose and Orion have been interacting quite a bit. It leads me to believe the dominant position in the pack is still not permanent. There hasn't been any obvious challenges, but Orion has been seen in dominant postures when he's around Moose and Moose has been a bit anxious in his behavior; Orion will often have his tail slightly raised, he has done a hipslam and some muzzle bites. The most frequent behavior has been the nipping of Moose while he is otherwise occupied. The nipping could be to solicit play, but it seems to lead into Orion asserting his dominance rather than a play bout.

The majority of the pack is just about finished shedding their undercoat. Mozart has his full summer coat, Sirius and Moose are close behind, Ella has a significant amount of fur left as does Orion. The cool mornings and evenings have been leading to play, while the majority of the afternoon is left for napping.

Sirius in a play bow

A Year at the Zoo

A year ago this past Friday the wolves arrived at the zoo! Since that time the wolves have grown, learned, and experienced much; their keepers have as well!

The cool start to the summer has given the pack much opportunity to be active. Mozart has shed nearly all of his undercoat and looks very sleak. Orion still has quite a lot of fur left and the others are somewhere in the middle. Sirius seems to have healed well, although we keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't have any more issues with his foot. We are all looking forward to the second summer with wolves at the Red River Zoo!

Sirius Continued Plus More

Sirius has been healing nicely. He continued to put more weight on his foot throughout the week. While he has improved, we are still keeping a close eye on him, and the rest of the pack, to make sure he has a full recovery.

This week we started to introduce a brush. The weather is warming up and the pack still has a lot of fur to shed, so we are trying to give them a hand. Also, our wovles are on exhibit. Not only are they there to help people understand the wolf, but they are also there for people to see the wolf. Right now they look very scruffy and if we can help them look a little better and feel a little cooler, we'll try our best. So far, the brush has been a moderate success. Moose and Mozart seem to think it's a new toy they must have, but all seem to enjoy the extra attention and I'm sure they feel a little better after fur has been removed!

We checked the scales this week and were able to get weights on everyone.

Moose=113 pounds
Orion=100 pounds
Sirius=96 pounds
Mozart=90 pounds
Ella=86 pounds

Keep in mind that our wolves still have about a year to fully mature and they will continue to gain weight throughout their lives; it's our job to make sure they maintain a healthy weight. They are also the eastern timberwolf subspecies, which is usually a smaller subspecies, therefore the 90 and 86 pound weights put up by Mozart and Ella are normal, even though they may seem light compared to the other pack members.

Sirius

On Monday, Sirius was noticed limping. We checked him out and were able to determine that there was no major injury. However, he has either sprained his foot or has a small fracture (based on observations, most likely a toe fracture). It's pretty much out of the question to place a cast or splint on a wolf, simply because it would not remain in place. Another option is to keep the animal sedated and separated, however in a pack situation it is best to keep all members together if at all possible. Removing a member for a significant period of time and then re-introducing that member can become extremely dangerous. Therefore, it was a relatively easy decision to keep Sirius with the rest of the pack and let the injury heal on it's own.

He is on pain medication and staff have been keeping a close eye on the pack to make sure the other members are not taking advantage of Sirius while he is healing. Sirius remains in good spirits and continues to interact with the rest of the pack!

Blue Update

Last Saturday I visited the Minnesota Zoo and saw Blue. She looks great!

All Healthy

This past week our pack was vaccinated. Because we've socialized our wolves the vaccination process went fairly smooth. Of course, each wolf has a unique personality, so a few handled it better than others. In the end, none were overly stressed or traumatized. We attempted to get weights, but had some problems with our scale. We only have two scales large enough to weigh the wolves and both are located in different areas at the zoo...which means transporting them to the wolf area when we want weights. Well, we used a differnt scale during the last weigh-in and this past weeks weights were quite different from the last recorded. This means we need to make sure our scale is calibrated correctly and or make sure we use the same scale each time we weigh. So, keep an eye on future posts for current weights!

The weather has been cool and the yearlings are loving it! They are, however, still shedding a lot and look very scruffy. We're patiently awaiting what their summer coats look like!