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A Change is in the Air
The last time I wrote, we had just introduced the three females from Missouri to our four male wolves, and things took a while to settle down. We kept the viewing area closed for two weeks, and then slowly opened it up to the public. Initially the two females spent most of their time in the eastern corner of the exhibit, but over the course of a few weeks they slowly began to range out of that corner and venture into the center of the exhibit. The 2nd and 3rd ranked males appeared to be particularly interested in dominating them, so whenever the females encountered those males, they would run back to the corner with their tails tucked.
In the past week, however, we have noticed a dramatic improvement in the behavior of the two subordinate females. They are branching out into the exhibit more and more every day. When they do advance into the western corner of the enclosure, the males very rarely even take notice of their movements—a dramatic improvement over their November 10 introduction.
We have also noticed that when the males do advance towards these two females, they are more curious than aggressive, and the two females are able to chase the males away or engage them in play behavior. |
(Shown above, a positive interaction between a male and female.) |
Since the introductions took place, we have minimized all enrichment offerings to the pack. The last thing we wanted to do was increase the likelihood of aggression over a novel food item. Just today, however, staff observed the youngest male kill a crow that got too close to the food dish. He brought the crow to the other males and single female and they had a group rally with lots of howling and social greetings. The two other females slowly approached the group with the crow and stood observing them from about 20 feet away. There was NO aggression towards either female and the two females were fairly comfortable in the situation. The dominant male then picked up the crow and walked right by the one of the females without either animal moving out of the way or showing extreme fear. By human standards, this was a HUGE improvement in the tolerance level of the group of five towards the two females. We are hopeful that this tolerance will continue and that the group of seven will become more cohesive in the near future. For now though, we have no complaints.
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