| Author |
Message |
    
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 494
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 5:48 am: |     |
From the newsletter of Wolf Park at Battle Ground, Indiana:
http://www.wolfpark.org/album.html#Ayla
(Click on her name for a photo.)
She has been adopted by a fellow Auelboard member, and I have been posting the regular progress reports on her difficulties that have resulted in her being removed from the pack.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2057
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 6:09 am: | |
Thanks, Mike, she is a very pretty young wolf. 
There are a few other "real" Aylas around too, btw... 
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1979
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 4:54 pm: | |
Thanks Mike but naming a wolf after my daughter! The nerve of it all!!!!
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 496
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 8:52 pm: | |
Sad to report Ayla's story is not a happy one, so far. Will transfer the posts from previous Wolf Park newsletters once we get the AB back, would take quite a while to retype them. Short version: Ayla seems to have been relegated to omega status with only one or two friends in the main pack.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 498
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 27, 2007 - 3:16 pm: | |
From the Fall 2006 Wolf Park newsletter (complete article, mot available online):
The big news about Ayla is that she was removed from her pack November 19, 2006. We were concerned about Ayla earlier this fall. As the wolves' hormonal profiles changed, Wolfgang and Wotan were more aggressive toward her, but although I had to make out several wound cards for her, these were minor bites, occurring in a pattern fairly typical of "normal harassment, on her rump and hind legs. It is unusual for male wolves to severely harass females, or cause serious damage outside of all out attacks, bit I have seen it occur sometimes over the years. Back in the seventies, a low ranking female, Sylvia, was harassed by males, though the instigators were usually females. In the '80's, Kesho comes to mind--my memory paints himm as an equal opportunity harasser of both sexes. Chetan, father of Wolfgang and Wotan, was Orca's Evil Wicken Henchpuppy in his youth, though I remember him primarily singling out poor Kiri.
Ruedi was friendly with Ayla when he had the chance, but since she was spending most of her time (during the day anyway) on the peninsula, he had fewer opportunities to interact with her. But on those occasions when she was in other parts of the enclosure, if Wolfgang and Wotan ganged up on her, Ruedi was likely to rush in and bite Wolfgang's rump hard. Wolfgang almost always whined and chased Ruedi for yards, in effect allowing himself to be led away from Ayla. I don't know whether Ruedi was doing this either because he could not pass up a good opportunity to bite Wolfgang when he was aroused, or whether he was deliberately trying to help Ayla or both, but the effect was at least temporarily helpful to her because she had one less wolf to contend with.
For the most park, Aytla kept a good weight, indicating that she was getting enough to eat. We could see that she moved food over to the peninsula, but sometimes we did sneak her extras--for calories, as well as for comfort and morale boosts. Sometimes we found her on the west side of the enclosure, and were able to visit her semi-secretly. There were several times when she was at the right place at the right time to get lots of petting and treats during photography seminars and when we took interns in for "wolf time." But in the latter half of October Monty began predicting that we'd have to remove Ayla from the pack by spring. Unless we had an unseasonably warm winter, once th pond froze solid, the peninsula would be no refuge at all (other than being furnished with a hut whose smallish door was designed as a deliberate attempt to make it easier for a harassed wolf to defend itself.
From mid October through much of November we got a lot of rain. The saturated ground could hold no more and our rainwater-runoff-fed pond got a lot of water dumped in it fast and the pond overflowed its banks. Ayla, we found, had left the peninsula, which had gotten much smaller, and spent a lot of time trying to be inconspicuous on the dam as he wolves passed by. She'd retreat into the water to try to end or avoid harassment.
On November 13th she was mobbed while on the dam, and though she was not badly injured we did feel cause for concern. She got harassed, but not really mobbed onNovember 16th. At about 12:40 I heard Ayla woofing and went to see what was happening. She was being tag-teamed by Wotan and Wolfgang, while Kailani looked on but did not join in. Ruedi hovered in the background and once darted in and bit Wolfgang, taking him out of the fray because he had to follow Ruedi (who retreated at a trot, hackles standing up over his neck and shoulders). Renki hubg around, but except for putting the eye on Wotan briefly he did not do anything, helpful or otherwise, while I watched. At one point Ayla lunged too far from shelter and got mobbed. Wolfgang grabbed by her lower leg and then her paw and dragged her along the ground.
A little after 13:00 the wolves were drifting away except for the Brats, Wolfgang and Wotan, who were keeping an eye on her. When they started slow trotting over toward her, Rudie, bless him, followed, ready to bite Wolfgang some more.
On November 18th, we found that Ayla had a new wound on her hind leg, with some skin excised. I called Dr. Klinghammer and out vet and started Ayla on antibiotics. Dr. Klinghammer asked if we should remove Ayla from the pack and put her into early retirement at East Lake. I said posibly but wanterd to monitor her a little longer--we do not take removal of wolves lightly and if we removed her it would have to be permanent. The next day, however, decided things. We found that her wound had been significantly enlarged (presumably by Wotan and Wolfgang). The skin had been peeled back to the point that she had to be sutured. She had some other bites on her loin, and her hind legs, which were much less serious.
We moved her into the holding pen north of the Observation Deck and called Dr. Becker, who was at the clinic mending hawks for the local wildlife rehab place, and she brought out the anesthesia machine, and meds and assorted "dollies and dishes" for suturing, etc. We sedated Ayla and brought her into the observation deck, anesthetized her, and Dr. Becker set to work shaving around the wounds and cleaning them. She was concerned about Ayla's paw and suturefd and bandaged it. She was only able to make the wound smaller, bot close it completely, because of its shape. Accordingly, Dr. Julia out in some internal sutures and some that drew the edges closer to each other, but not together. She bandaged the wound and we bet on how quickly Ayla would take the bandage off.
Ayla was awake and walking maybe 45 minutes after we had ensconced her in the little hut in the holding pen, and, at 22:30, was in the far corner of the pen, wide awake, but leaving her bandage alone. She was watching for the pack, which checked on her often, but in the case of Wotan and Wolfgang in particular, not out of a sense of benign concern.
Next morning, November 20th, Ayla's paw was swollen, which Dr. Becker told us to expect, but the bandage was still on and her toes were toasty warm, indicating that "collateral circulation" had picked up the slack in delivery and retrieval of her blood from her toes. Later Monday morning Monty and Gale moved Ayla over to East Lake, to the westernmost holding pen (where she could hide from the pack in either a hut or the pines if she wanted to) and she immediately went into the pines. Later in the day she was out and about. She was mpved that morning so we would have the holding pan available in case Renki needed a time out during the photo seminar.
On November 22 her paw was less swollen and Monty replaced her bandage. We moved Ayla into another pen so she would not be right next to the pack. After her bandage was changed, she began removing it and luckily she did not really need it any more. She left the sutures alone and the wound began granulating in. (At the time of this writing it is greatly reduced in size and continues to heal without complications.)
Rather than regarding her early retirement as being put into "durance vile," Ayla seems to regard it as a safe haven where she can have food all to herself, and can visit freely with people when they enter her enclosure. She has a lot of missed tummy rubs to make up for and she is seeing that we fulfill this need. At this time she is next to her mother, Erin, and I expected to see a lot of fence fighting between the two, once Ayla realized that Erin could not get at her. But it has not been an issue. Ayla is beginning to fence fight with her Aunt Marion, whom she had never lived with and only met briefly as a puppy. Sje completely ignores Erin even though Erin chased her for months. Erin ignores Ayla too in favor of slinging insults and challenges at Marion.
None of us are happy about Ayla being a retired singleton at her young age, but it came to a question of, not whether she would be retuired young, but whether she would spend retirement with four paws or only three. While I hope that Ruedi can stay in the pack for a gopd time to come, we know that if he, too, must be retired young, Ayla and he can probably live together quite happily.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2079
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 27, 2007 - 5:55 pm: | |
Keep'em coming Mike, this is interesting. Thanks!
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 499
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 28, 2007 - 4:37 pm: | |
Another article from the Winter newsletter. (In case you’re wondering, we get them because my AB friend from California is sponsoring Ayla this year, see Wolf Park website for details on how you can sponsor a wolf for $145 a year.)
WHY DO WE REMOVE WOLVES FROM A PACK?
Wolves, like humans, have different personalities. Like humans, wolves in a pack (a family group) do not always get along. Generally, "arguments" are confined to brief, ritualized squabbles, which involve little to no injury and which are over very quickly. Occasionally, squabbling escalates, or it continues over a very long period of time. In the wild a constantly or excessively harassed wolf would simply walk away, to start a new pack elsewhere. In captivity wolves do not have that option, and their human caretakers must take control and attempt to "keep the peace" as best they can.
We take the social lives of our wolves very seriously. We do not remove them from an established pack on a whim--adult wolves are very territorial and there is a real possibility that a wolf removed from a pack will live alone for the rest of its life. It cannot be simply introduced to another pack--the established pack members would drive out the newcomer (or worse). We certainly do our best to find it a compatible member of the opposite sex, but there is no guarantee that we can locate Mr. or Ms. Right.
We did not want to risk Ayla, for example, spending the rest of her life alone if there was any possibility that she might continue to live with the main pack. We certainly have seen "underdogs" rise up from the ranks before, and Ayla was still having good relations with Tristan, Renki, and Ruedi. We humans can and do provide a social support system for our hand-raised wolves--and this is one of the reasons we socialize our wolves, so that we can be their companions, if need be--and we certainly provide entertainment and stimulation for our singleton wolves at East Lake, but we are no replacement for real lupine pack mates. Ayla would be staying in the main pack for as long as possible.
From the time we first saw Wotan and Wolfgang singling out Ayla for "Attention," we started to carefully, each day, weigh how much fun she was having with how much she was getting poked, prodded, or punctured by the Brats and Kailani. For a lot of winter and spring, Ayla was definitely having many more good days than bad. She had opportunities to meet people and get treats, and was still having positive interactions with at least some of the other wolves. She had plenty of food and time to rest unmolested. We definitely would not have taken her out of the pack then--though there were some "arguments" going on, it was still likely to be more pleasant overall for her than living alone at East Lake.
There's usually a very clear signal that a wolf is "done" living with its pack mates. We do not simply wait for a wolf to receive some sort of debilitating injury. We have had wolves who ended up spending all day, every day, hiding in a hut or a den--at this point, they are receiving no benefit from living with their pack mates and are likely ready to go. Some wolves make repeated, consistent attempts to dig under the fence. Some become fearful of everything and start running away whenever any other wolf is visible. In our early years before our current fencing wad installed, we even had low-ranking wolves tell us they were ready to go by actually climbing out of the enclosure (they were still contained by our perimeter fences) and taking up residence in the corridor. Though she continued to be harassed in the fall, Ayla had not yet given us any of these signals. She might have lasted several more months with the pack, maybe longer, if Wotan and Wolfgang had not decided to drag her around by her paw. As it was, the injury was serious enough that it decided for us: Ayla needed to be removed from the pack so that her paw would have time to heal unimpeded by "friendly help" from the brats.
We do try to weigh all our options. If Ayla had not sustained an injury but her harassment had continued to escalate, we might have chosen to remove Wotan or Wolfgang, or Kailani, or even all three, from the pack, instead of Ayla. Indeed, we have had instances in which we removed a single aggressor (Ursa comes to mind) rather than an "aggressee." Removing the Brats and Kailani would have relegated three wolves to to East Lake--rather than just one--and it might have solved Ayla's problems. If we removed just the Brats, Kailani would have still picked on Ayla; removing Kailani would leave the brats picking on Ayla; removing all three would leave three wolves from the main pack in favor of leaving one in. (For various reasons, we prefer to give as many of our wolves as possible the option of living in the large Turtle Lake enclosure.) Removing Ayla made the most sense--it definitely solved the problems, and it removed the smallest number of wolves possible from the main pack.
Rank, order, and the trials and tribulations inherent thereunto, is a part of life in a wolf pack. As in any group of personalities--be they wolf, fox, coyote, cat, horse, chimpanzee, or human--there's always going to be somebody on the bottom. Wolves do not yet come with helpful signs on their foreheads which tell us just which one is going to end up where--or, if they do, we cannot yet read them. Until then, we carefully watch everyone in our care, and try to make decisions which result in the best possible lives for our charges.
If you have more questions about why we removed Ayla from the pack, please feel free to email us at wolfpark@wolfpark.org.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 500
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - 1:15 pm: | |
Have made an appointment to visit Ayla this Saturday afternoon. Searching frantically for the household digital camera.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2084
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - 4:39 pm: | |
Hope you find it - I'd like to see some pics of her. Have a good time!
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 501
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 10, 2007 - 8:09 pm: | |
Got to the park late due to delays on the 90-mile drive yesterday, so had to reschedule our meeting with Ayla for next weekend. Did find out that the gift shop now has Ayla T-shirts and photos of her as a puppy. Also avaialble for your amulets: genuine wolf hair. See www.wolfpark.org
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 2012
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 4:23 am: | |
Ah we have a wolf sponsorship program here in Alberta too Bartholomewcm. Even here in the great outdoors they are under siege. Saw two this year so far, but more bears. A recent elk re-location program has decimated the pack here.
Thanks for the stories and the link.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 502
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 18, 2007 - 10:27 pm: | |
From the Wolf Park newsletter for Spring 2007:
Ayla served as proxy to a number of sponsors this winter. We typically do not take sponsors or seminarians in with the pack during January and February because of the increased hormone activity and thus increased grumpiness with humans, but Ayla welcomed visitors. She welcomed more than one seminar in with charming grins and wiggles, and delighted several people by posing for photographs with them. Many wolves lose a little interest in people after they pass puberty, but Ayla is still happy to meet almost anyone, and verty enthusiastic in her greeting. She likes to rub, cat-like, against people's legs, and gaze up into their eyes--of course, since this is Ayla, she is considering jumping up and bopping her new friend hard on the nose.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 506
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 12:25 am: | |
The Ayla Diet: Update from Wolf Park, July 2007:
Ayla appears to miss the pack in the same way most humans miss migraines. Although most humans who are not having migraines do not try to neener neener neener at things that trigger migraines, Ayla definitely “neeners” at the pack.
She appears and ordinarily very happy to see people, but numbers count. After her very nice response to the February seminarians, though, she has been more reserved with groups of strangers. She can handle groups of familiar people just fine. After watching her cautiously single out a seminarian or two on the periphery of the group we decided to scale back on the number of new people we take in with her at any one time. Large seminars can be broken into smaller groups. Sponsors and interns, introduced in ones and twos, should be no problem.
Meanwhile, we try to visit her often. In late April, which was way back when we had rain, we took some sponsors to visit Ayla. It was mudluscious and puddlewonderful in the front of her pen. Ayla was so happy to see sponsors that she tripped Dana and put her on her but in the mud. She gave paw to me repeatedly and muddily. I kept catching or deflecting the muddy paw of good fellowship and got thoroughly spattered, including my eyelids.
While she has been getting as much food as we would ordinarily give a single wolf, Ayla stayed on the thin side. It may be that it has been so long since we have had a single wolf so young and active to feed, but when we cleaned up in early May, it was obvious that in spite of the regular and, we thought, plentiful food, she was still on the thin side. As we cleaned she approached and dove into my bucket. Usually we dump and bag the contents of a cleanup bucket before taking it into the next pen to be cleaned. I jad not dumped my bucket first, and Ayla found and crunched up some carrion I had in there (which someone else had ignored so long that I decided it could be discarded). After eating she still looked and acted hungry so Dana went and got her
About six juvenile hens (pullets)
A goat leg
And two rabbits
The rabbits and chickens were already dead of course (so was the goat). Ayla ate all the chickens first, including a lot of the feathers and all of their scaly yellow chicken feet. Then she crunched the bunnies’ heads. She piled all her loot together first before she began eating and she pounced at the fence as if guarding when anyone outside came near the section of the fence where she piled the food.
Since then we have given Ayla more food at each feeding. She is still quite slim, but this is a good thing in very hot weather. Thin canines are more comfortable than plump ones because they find it easier to dump heat load. We will continue to give her some extra food but our goal is to fill her up, not to fatten her up while the weather is hot.
She greets the prospect of “walkies” exuberantly, and the expanded possibilities available to her on a walk excite her so much that walking her is like walking a 70 pound June bug.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2113
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 12:40 am: | |
Very funny report. 
Good to hear that Ayla is quite happy without the pack. She's a spirited girl! Did you get to see her, Mike?
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
|
Living like Ayla