Happy Easter!

Research Blog, 12.04.2009, Helene Möslinger

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Last week we had an Easter event. The Easter rabbit visited Wolf Park and hid eggs and candy for children and for the wolves. The children enjoyed it and collected as much eggs as they could. The wolves were even very excited about the Easter presents. They climbed even on the trees to get the eggs.

The experiments this week were very good. The last time we tested Ayla in the string pulling experiment she was a bit shy and did not work well but this week she was very good. She was relaxed and she nearly had all trials right. Even in the training for the second experiment she and Marion did very well. I can’t wait to see them in the next training session.

At this time of the year most animals breed and born their offspring. At the university I heard a lot about the Killdeer and its behaviour when a predator comes close to their nest. The female gets up and shows a broken wing in a distance to the nest. With that she wants to lead the predator away from the nest. Here in Wolf Park we have a Killdeer with a nest with four eggs next to the path. Even when a human came close to the nest she gets up and fake a broken wing. If you keep going in direction of the nest she comes back, screams and again shows the broken wing. It is really fascinating to observe her behaviour and her reactions to the movement of the predator (also human) but I think it is very stressful for the female itself.

Yesterday was a howl night. People can come and get some information about the wolves in general and especially about them at the Wolf Park and then it is possible to howl together with the wolves. It was nice and they joined in or responded to our howling. Howling is one kind of communication in wolves. They howl to defend their territory or to communicate among pack members when they are further away. If you try to howl make an “O” you’re your mouth and say “U”.

Happy Easter from Wolf Park!