Puppies! - Wolf Park

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8 (, + We do like to give the singleton wolves, and the interns, some mutually instructive and enriching experiences in the form of going for walks together and letting the interns practice walking DENEB on leash. Deneb is patient and easy to deal with whether or not the intern catches on right away, almost moving in "freeze frame action" as if each second must be considered carefully and in detail. (Other, less “cultured” wolves will lunge forward at high speed or tangle themselves in the leash.) To help the interns develop more confidence and fluidity in handling the leash and preparing for future seconds (just seconds away!) Pat sometimes had them walk Deneb in figure eights around two people. Or was it that Pat told Deneb to walk the interns in figure eights? Sometimes it can be hard to tell simply by watching. Karin, Apollo, and Alyeska chorus howl. ORCA continues to putter along, with good days and bad days and the phrase “same old same old” coming unfortunately to mind. He doesn’t seem to mind the status being so quo. He is still shy at cleanup and still commands a circle of admirers at other times. On December third, Orca got a run (maybe scrabble is a better word) in the field south of the dam. He spent the better part of an hour exploring the pasture, the little riparian "woods" and periodically going along the fence and threatening the Happy Pack, who were, from Orca's standpoint, annoyingly unconcerned about his threats. He also found bison dung and rolled until he was green. Orca was offered the chance of interacting with puppies, but though he seems enchanted by the squirmy little things he quickly becomes nervous and slightly defensive — he no longer has the agility to keep up with four bouncing, hopping babies and prefers that they keep their distance. CHANI shed very early again this year, even though we started her on flax seed oil in the fall hoping to avoid just such an occurrence. The flax seed oil did seem to help, though, and while she did leave us covered with a fine layer of white fur every time we came in to visit, she always seemed to have enough fur left to give us another Chani. Photo by Monty Sloan full coating next time we visited. We kept her hut packed full of straw in any case, and she weathered the winter quite well. KIRI and SOCRATES, aka The Brothers Not Karamazov, had the first bloody spat we can recall. On February 19th Amanda and Pat went in with Kiri and Socrates to test out Amanda's Wolf Jaw Pressure Gauge Mark II, and when the Boyz approached us they began growling, growl-barking, and gaping their jaws at each other while walking tall in circles at each other. Socrates had some blood on his leg and on his ruff, whereas Kiri had a bloody ear. This fight was little as fights go, and pretty ritualized, with more threats and posturing than grabbing and puncturing. Socrates did grab Kiri's ear once and hung on for a while. When they broke Miska, Seneca, and Marion chorus howl. apart, Kiri bit Socrates' leg and made it bleed more. As far as we could tell, that was it for the day. Pat was able to get them to come to the fence for antibiotics. This meant that for the next week Wolf Park News Spring 2004 they both got little treats of cream cheese or pieces of cheeseburger. By February 21st they were back to ordinary levels of winter and testosterone induced grumpiness and by the 27th, intern K'fir reported that he saw Kiri and Tease walking side by side as if hitched, and keeping in step, and smooching each other. On May 5th, Tease and Squeeze got a chance to see Karin Bloch, one of their puppy mothers, and enjoyed it immensely. Photo by Monty Sloan KARIN and APOLLO mated rather late in the season and then relaxed. ALYESKA had to watch his step for several days, especially between February 18 and February 20, when we saw Apollo and Karin mate four times. What with Apollo guarding Karin and all, we left them alone for a little while around the breeding season and then had a massive merry cleanup party afterward to remove the debris. Karin “helped” Pat carry a cleanup bucket by sticking her head into it to the bottom, tipping the bottom up with her nose, and carrying the bucket that way. Apollo tried to “help” Pat carry a calf leg around (they only want things like elderly deer heads and dried calf legs because we are carrying them, not because they actually want to eat them). Alyeska moved up from lupus non grata status and has even been spotted snoozing next to Apollo while Karin stretches out in her own space under a separate tree. There has been no sign of recurrence of Al’s urinary trouble from last year…*knock on wood* MISKA probably did not like the breeding season very much. But he may have liked it better than he did when he was in a pack of six. MARION was the only female available and she was not interested in mating with him; she was interested in getting him into trouble with SENECA. Marion seemed to realize that if she wanted to get Seneca’s attention, all she had to do was stand within fifteen feet of Miska. When Marion went too close to Miska, Seneca came over, and sometimes made ritualized attacks on poor Miska, but did not hurt him. Seneca seemed to know that Marion was behind it all. Sometimes he stood between Marion and Miska and dealt with Marion by grabbing her scruff and dragging her away from his brother. Seneca had an easier time in one respect this year. While he has never had a rival among the males, Marion's interest in things besides Seneca, even at the height of the breeding season, often appeared to vex him. Last year, Marion had nearly 7 acres of which to be in charge and made sure she covered the entire surface area — often several times a day. Seneca was forced to follow her, tethered by the “invisible bungee cord” which attaches all attending males to the females they are attending. This year though, Seneca could stay close to Marion and "attend" her while she was in estrous without following her around and around and around and around the Turtle Lake Enclosure. When Marion was trying to fence fight with Erin, two enclosures away, Seneca could lie on one of the shelter roofs, keeping an eye on Marion as she ran back and forth. Though we could not watch Marion and Seneca around the clock in shifts this year (that was reserved for the Happy Pack) we did occasionally see them mating. They tied at least ten times that we know of between January 23 and February 4. Photo by Monty WILD BILL the coyote turns seventeen this year. We have to admit that his age is beginning to show around the edges. He no longer resembles a coffee table, and is acquiring a more svelte silhouette. The bad news is this means it is harder for him to keep weight on; the good news is, we get to feed him more, and that is always good. He becomes less and less willing to be touched as his aging body becomes more and more “ouchy”, but is always willing to add a genial (and scratchy) howl to any chorus.
+ -./0.1223420 Ursa passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on June 8, 2004. She was seen moving around about an hour before her death was discovered. There was nothing to indicate that she was about to take her final leave. Ursa was born to Lailah and probably Mephisto of the main pack. As a youngster she had an odd colored eye, which retained a fleck of baby blue in a green iris until October of 1989. Most puppies lose the blue in their eyes before the end of June. Eventually both eyes turned gold and stayed gold. In October of her first year she also sustained a greenstick fracture in her left hind leg. The site did form bridging callus, but then the callus telescoped in on itself, leaving Ursa with a permanent limp or swivel in her hind leg. This did not slow her down appreciably; and by spring of 1989 she was the dominant female Miss Ursa Bear. puppy. (Her brother Chinook was the dominant puppy uber alles.) She tested humans too, by "measuring" them. Measuring is a type of inhibited bite in which a wolf puts its jaws around some part of another wolf or, in this case, a human. After using its jaws as calipers once or twice, the wolf taking "measurements" may follow up with a hearty pinch. We did not stop people visiting her, but did intervene when she looked as if she were about to take measurements, and she eventually stopped measuring humans. Instead she turned her interest to becoming a tool using mammal, earning the right to a "Jogs with Scissors" T shirt. Once when we replaced old skirting in Wolf Woods West, I looked up to see Ursa approaching us. She grinned hugely around the yellow handles of the pruning shears, carrying them with the points turned safely away from her, as everyone should be taught to do. She came right up to us to have her trophy admired. We petted and praised her. This was not enough to get her to relinquish her treasure. Her eyes were twinkling but her jaws were clamped tightly around the yellow handles. We traded her a "bunny lesson" for the shears. In a bunny lesson the wolf lounges against a human for support while the human stimulates the bilateral scratch reflex down the wolf’s chest and belly. Ideally the wolf relaxes completely and then you can give shots, draw blood, or take giant yellow-handled scissors away from them, and they don't mind. When she thoroughly blissed out and relaxed her grip, we gently removed the shears from her jaws. In the fall of 1990 Ursa's leg had sufficiently stabilized for her to go on wolf-bison demonstrations. She showed the same talent as her brother Chinook and double first cousins Altair and Vega. She joined the “dream team” of wolves, a team we found we dared not let hunt together too often for fear they would actually injure a bison. Instead we put members of the dream team with other pack members showing less skill and determination and only occasionally took the whole dream team out together. In the late winter and early spring of 1993, we removed Ursa from the main pack. Ursa was being so aggressive to the other wolves, except the alphas, we thought she might drive out Akili, Vega, and Aurora. The level of aggression did go down after that. We took Chinook to visit Ursa, letting them go for romps in the pasture from time to time, but from then on, Ursa lived a singleton life, except for "aunting" puppies. Back in those days the Park kept a flock of sheep as an exhibit of sheep plus livestock guard dog, and as solar powered, self-propelled lawnmowers. My favorite old ewe, Parsley, was living alone in the corridor around the smaller enclosures at East Lake. Parsley, who was very social with humans, one day tried to follow us into Ursa's pen. Understandably annoyed when we pushed her away, Parsley stood right up at the fence, and when Ursa rushed her, Parsley butted her through the wire. In 1991 Ursa had showed us she did not tolerate people "committing maintenance" (mowing, trimming, fence repair) in, or next to, her Photo by Monty Sloan enclosure and to the end of her life we had to be careful about letting her have access to someone she had recently seen committing maintenance, unless it was someone who had known her from puppyhood. Once at East Lake Ursa found she had a splash tank all to herself. Watching someone fill it with water was exciting but it was also committing maintenance. This was the start, I think, of Ursa "hunting” interns for sport when they committed maintenance outside her enclosure. Unwary interns filling a bucket from outside a seemingly empty enclosure would suddenly find 75 pounds of wolf hurtling out of the grass at head height and bouncing off the fence in front of them. This was before we got our DR mower and could trim her concealing grass “jungle”. We did find that Ursa was friendly and outgoing with people, including interns, if she met them while on a walk in one of the large pastures. Ursa could be extraordinarily polite about going on walks. One day in early 1995, I was patting Ursa and a leash, in my coat pocket from walking someone else, came snaking out and hung down a few inches. Ursa got a huge, goofy grin when she saw the leash and spun herself into a very creditable heel position. I started to tell her that I had not planned to walk her but halfway through the sentence I discovered that she was right. I couldn't disappoint that Ursa Grin. After about thirty minutes in the pasture, she came wiggling among us and put herself in heel position next to the pocket with the leash in it. I took the leash out and showed it to her. She smiled broadly and held quite still while I put it on, and then she danced to the gate and back to her pen. That year also marked Ursa's entry into the world of art. Everyone needs a hobby, but when she started making scale models of the Grand Canyon, and Mammoth Cave, we sometimes wished she'd taken up bird watching, stamp collecting, or tatting lace. For the next several years Ursa excavated. Besides repeated studies of the Grand Canyon and Mammoth Cave, she also made an interactive art form, which we named the "tractor trap," underneath one of the maintenance corridors. On another occasion she again dug a small tunnel under one of the corridors. (Continued on page 11) Wolf Park News Spring 2004 9
Page 1 and 2: Wolf Park is proud to announce the
Page 3 and 4: All seminars include time inside th
Page 5 and 6: *)+ Basil and Devon, and indeed Cor
Page 7: Ayla at four weeks. Photo by Monty
Page 11 and 12: Ursa meets the 2004 puppies. Photo

Puppies! - Wolf Park

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