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Helping the Species—One Pack at a Time!
Today was a very busy day for the staff (and wolves) on the Northern Trail, nearly 10 hours long. We just finished a very successful day of exams and a research study with our group of male Mexican gray wolves. To a zookeeper, this success can be measured in many ways—completing the task at hand without any injuries (to the staff or animals), learning from the study you might be doing (such as in this case), and getting all of the animals reunited without any damage to the social structure or an individual animal when you are done at the end of the day. Luckily for us, we were successful in all three areas.
If you have followed our pack over the past year and a half, you know the Minnesota Zoo has been working with the Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan (SSP) in a reproductive study, with the help of the staff at the St. Louis Zoo. We used a form of birth control that is fairly new in gray wolves, and we wanted to make sure that it worked and that it was also something that would be reversible (meaning that the animal could breed at a later time, when the zoo or SSP wanted them to breed). We knew our males were capable of breeding in 2005 by collecting samples and then freezing these samples for future AI work that might be done with wolves. Secondly, in the fall of 2006, we treated our males with an implant that would prevent breeding and tested this theory. The implant worked in all three of our males, meaning they were not capable of producing young in 2007. This year, we wanted to check our males again to make sure they could breed if we wanted them too (the implant is only supposed to last for nine months and sometimes up to two years in some species).
To do this, we need to immobilize each wolf, take it to the animal hospital and check samples to see if they are capable of producing pups. In addition to that, we would also do a full exam (take blood, get a weight, check him over from nose to tail) to make sure that they are healthy since their fall exam in October 2007. Each wolf was brought into the treatment room at the zoo, one-at-a-time, and examined by the reproductive specialist staff at the St. Louis Zoo and our own veterinary team. One of the wolves was found to still be non-reproductive (Frisco), but the other two males were indeed able to produce litters of pups (should we desire so). One of the wolves, Ulie, even had some additional samples stored in the “frozen bank,” so we might produce pups from him long after his natural lifespan.
I mentioned our day is considered successful if we can get the entire pack back together without any damage to the social structure or an individual wolf. This is extremely important, yet challenging, whenever you immobilize a wolf. Due to the extreme temperatures today, we allowed each wolf to awake from the drugs inside a crate in the warm hospital. After a few hours, we then moved them outside, when we felt they could stay warm on their own. We kept them in their individual crates another couple hours, just to be safe, and make 100% certain each wolf was completely awake. If they are not, and we try to reunite the pack, one wolf might see the drugged wolf as “not normal” or maybe “weak” and would try to dominate them excessively or even kill them. By 4:15 p.m., we felt comfortable letting all of the wolves back into the enclosure and observed them for any signs of trouble—behavioral or physical. Luckily, things went fairly smoothly and the group was reunited. I was able to go home by 5:30 p.m.
The day was a long one, but not unusual for the job as a zookeeper. It was also a very exciting day for our staff to be part of such ground-breaking research with this endangered species. It’s more than what I thought I would be doing over 20 years ago when I started at the Zoo, but I’m very proud of our work—both personally and professionally. Now, I am waiting to hear how the other groups of wolves have fared on this same implant. It may be just what we need to help Mexican wolves for the future, and I feel honored to have played a small part of it…pretty exciting for a small-time girl from northern Minnesota who always wanted to help an endangered species!
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