Not my usual groove

You were probably thinking that I slacked off yesterday and didn't write about Red Wolf Sanctuary like I always do on Tuesdays. The thing is, I wasn't slacking. I was babysitting, which is paid employment and very important to a college student. So I had to move my Red Wolf Sanctuary Day to today. But besides the change in weekday, everything else was very routine. We started the morning off by feeding the bears and cleaning their enclosures. As per normal, this chore lasted all morning. Next was the normal lunch - PB&J, applesauce, and a cheesestick. I believe this is the same packed lunch I have been having since I was in fourth grade. It is still delicious, in case you were wondering.

After lunch, there was Rosie time. Rosie has officially moved out into the outdoor enclosure, which is a big change for everyone. She can make a mess and run through tubes and dig as much as she want, and we can use the bathroom without having to worry about a fox slipping out or jumping on us while using the facilities. She was showing off her new home for the camera, which was very sweet of her. If you can't tell by these photos, she really loves her new tunnel. 

Keys prove to be even more alluring than the tunnel

When Rosie time finally had to end, it was off to go do battle with the weeds. Weeds like to grow up all around the fences, where they constantly short out the electric fence line. So, our mission was to spray the weeds with a rain of death. I was driving the 4x4 while my friend was in charge of raining death upon the culprits. It sounds simple enough, but add in the fact that the weeds are thorny and that the ground is not level most of the time, and you have two girls who are either hanging on for dear life to a precariously tilted 4x4 or trying to dodge prickly weeds or both. It was an interesting experience. I was sure I was going to tip the 4x4. I emerged with only a few minor flesh wounds (I ran over the offending weeds) and no traumatizing flipped-vehicle experiences. Also, I had a lot of pine needles down my back because I kind of sorta ran into/under a pine branch. Oh well.

So, that's it for the day. Hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do.

Wolf Intensive Weekend

Hello All!
This weekend I was lucky enough to attend a 3-day Wolf Intensive Weekend at Wolf Park in Battle Ground Indiana. It was pretty cool, but before I go into details I will provide a brief overview. So, here is wolf park:

I believe Wolf Park is approximately 75 Acres in total. The large red enclosure is where the main pack lives. Right now, the main pack consists of three males (Wolfgang, Reudi, Wotan) and one female (Dharma). Darma and Wolfgang are the parents of six puppies that were just born at the beginning of April. These puppies live in the enclosure that is highlighted in yellow. The enclosures highlighted in orange is jokingly referred to as the "retirement community", which is where older wolves go once they get too old to endure the rigors of the pack. Two coyotes (Twister and Willow) reside in the pink-highlighted enclosure, while two foxes (Ember and Devon) live in the enclosure highlighted in indigo. The empty circle is the location of the new education center which must have been added so recently that google earth isn't aware of it. They also have a few resident bison that live around the perimeter of the park.

Wolf Park was started in the 1970s by a Dr. Klinghammer with the goal of studying wolf ethology and educating the public about wolves. Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior. Wolf Farm started out with just two wolves. Nowadays, it is called Wolf Park and is home to 20 wolves. Besides hosting various researchers and their wolf-centered projects, Wolf Park also hosts seminars, howl nights, and many public wolf demonstrations.

The seminar I attended had a total of twenty attendees, ranging from people who simply loved wolves to dog trainers who were trying to gain a better understanding of wolf (and by extension, dog) behavior. There were several lectures a day, with breaks that included interacting with the adult wolves and even the wolf pups! The lectures covered things such as wolf physiology, ethology, mythology, safety, and recovery. I don't want to recap everything I learned, because it would be rather long and probably more than a little dry. So, I think I will just limit myself to three facts:
1) The presence of wolves can effect the trees in the ecosystem. This is not because wolves eat trees. In fact, the presence of wolves actually helps the trees due to a phenomenon known as a trophic cascade. Think about it for a moment. When you remove wolves from an ecosystem, the population of ungulates grows rapidly and noms all plant life in sight. Trees do not benefit from this over-nomming. Put wolves back into the system, and the population of elk is controlled. The young trees get a break from being pruned to death by elk teeth. This doesn't only pertain to trees. The whole ecosystem is thrown out of balance when any animal (but especially a predator like the wolf) is removed from an ecosystem. Here is a lovely little illustration demonstrating how reintroducing the wolf to Yellowstone changed (healed) the ecosystem:

2)Wolf heads are 30% larger than dog heads. This is basically because dogs don't need the large brains like wolves do. A brain is really expensive in terms of energy requirements, so if an organism doesn't need a big brain it doesn't have one. Dogs are fed by humans, with no need to hunt or take down prey. Wolves, on the other hand, need a big brain for hunting behavior and a big skull for taking down large prey.
3) Wolves will stop howling if they lose their hearing, but will continue to howl if blind or mute.

As interesting as these lectures were, my favorite part was going out and actually observing and interacting with the animals. I have a few photos, but the on-site photographer Monty Sloan took a whole bunch of photos and is sending a CD packed full of them to the participants. Also, wolves liked to nom cameras, and I didn't want to put Nick Canon (my camera) in danger. I will post a few of my photos now and then Monty's once I get the CD.

Dharma and Reudi

Wotan showing off "upsy pupsy"

PUPPIES!

Kiri, who is 19 years old

Woton posing

I came to an important realization while at Wolf Park. I was very conflicted about our interaction time with the wolves. Of course, I loved being able to go into an enclosure and touch a real wolf. It was absolutely amazing. But I also felt a little bit sad that they weren't wild wolves. After all, that's why we have dogs to pet and not wolves. If I did decide to go into wildlife biology, I'd like to study wild animals and then come home and pet my dog. I don't think I could work at a research facility, even one as nice as Wolf Park, because fences make me sad. In their defense, studying wolf behavior in wild wolves is incredibly difficult. These socialized wolves at Wolf Park provide researchers with the valuable opportunity to study wolf behavior up-close and personal. Hopefully this research will help uncover a better understanding of wolves that will in turn help the wild wolves.

Camera Bop

So this is what happens when you let your camera get too close to an over-inquisitive little fox. Now I have a nose-shaped smoodge on my camera lens. But that's okay, because cuddle time with Rosie is always worth the mess.

In other news, it was a gorgeous day at Red Wolf Sanctuary today, and a very productive one besides that. We fed all of the animals, cleaned the bears, played with Rosie, cleaned the big cats' enclosures, and built a new fox pen for Miss Rosie. Paul was giving a tour this morning, so he left the division of meat to us Junior volunteers. Let me tell you all about Paul's method for feeding - there is none. Most of it is guess work and judging the weight of the food buckets by "feel". I am good at neither of these processes. To make matters worse, the meat that was donated included quite a bit of pork sausage and links that can actually harm the animals because of all of the spices and salt. Through in the added factor that I was the most experienced volunteer present at the moment (I had been to Red Wolf a total of 6 times, and only fed once before...), and you have one very confusing morning.

 Once we got too confused and fed up to continue trying to figure out meat rations, we retreated to the bears. At least shoveling poo is relatively straightforward. Taking care of bears effectively took up the rest of the morning. Tuck and Pokey decided that they thought it would be really fun to lunge at me every time I passed by their cages. Also, the other volunteers thought it was a hoot to stop the hose every time I went into an enclosure to rinse. So that was fun.

Bears took up the rest of the morning, and then it was Rosie time. I took quite a few photos, and Rosie was being very photogenic, as usual.

Rosie running the office!

After we wore Rosie out, we ate lunch outside at the picnic table because it was so pretty and breezy outside. We gobbled our lunches down and then split up. The boys went to feed the animals (we found out later that they lost a ham...it escaped down a steep hillside) and Indre and I went to take care of the cats. Taking care of the cats involved disposing of maggot-infested carcasses, cleaning blood stains, and sweeping up large quantities of maggot pupae (it looks like brown rice, if you are curious).

Midway through cleaning the cat enclosures, Paul pulls up with a Fox 19 New guy in tow. As Paul likes to say, nothing is every planned at Red Wolf Sanctuary...Paul told Indre and I to go collect some extra fence from the fox pens down the hill and then went to be interviewed by the news man. Now we get to the entertaining part.

Part one is that there was some confusion on exactly which fences pieces we needed. Naturally, I go running down the lane, waving my hands and trying to get Paul's attention so I can ask my question. What I did not realize is that the Chanel 19 News guy is filming the very same lane that I am frolicking down, waving my arms like a goon. So that was fun (In the end, they decided to retake the shot. Can't imagine why).

On to part two. Now we know which fence sections we need. So the two guy volunteers, Justin and Kirk, drove Paul's big truck to the fox enclosures so that we could drive the extra fencing back to where we are building Rosie's temporary home. The fence is longer than the bed, so the plan was to drive backwards up the hill with the fences in the bed of the truck. Otherwise, we risked the fence sliding right off the bed and back down the hill. It was a good idea, in theory. However, add in some sandy soil and two guys trying to give each other directions on how to drive out of being stuck down a hill, and you get one very funny situation. Indre and I considered trying to offer help, and then decided against it. We had a very good view of their misadventures and I was feeling a little vindictive from the whole hose situation earlier today. So about fifteen minutes of struggling later, the boys end up in the exact same spot they started in, but they looked very pleased with themselves none the less. To make a long story short, we got the fence where it needed to go and built the pen. It is not quite ready for Rosie yet, as it still needs to be escape-proofed and get some soil put down on the floor, but we're almost ready to free Paul's bathroom from the clutches of the fox!

I was on the news, though. You could see me walking away in the background. I checked, and got really excited when I saw my blurry self walking away looking relatively normal.