Shy wolves or what?

Research Blog, 21.09.2008, Kurt Kotrschal

Along the "shy-bold" (reaktive-proaktive) continuum, Kaspar is certainly on the "shy" side, whereas Aragorn is rather "bold" (without being aggressive). But is it that simple? Our wolves teach us about the importance of the context.

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Over the last week the wolfs respond ever more strongly to visitors approaching their enclosure. They already become vigilant towards every human at a formidable distance and remain nervously pacing at the rear part of the enclosure, but calm down quickly wheen the group of visitors remains in front of the enclosure for a while.

But it would be wrong to believe that the wolves would simply become increasingly shy towards people. Towards us they are approachable and relaxed as always and strangers at the “visitors table” (particularly when female) are inspected and soon our wolves take food from them.

So, what is going on? Seemingly wolves are now, at 4 ½ months of age, in a developmental stage wen they take over more and more responsibility for their own safety. At the moment it seems very important for them to distinguish between different people. Even I cause an initial retreat when I enter the enclosure, followed by a friendly welcome in the rear part. It fits this pattern that the are increasingly reluctant to remain, and work, in our small rooms. Yesterday, for example, during steady rainfall, I called them in twice and they readily came to take food, train some commands and fool around. Shima and Kaspar were as close and trustful as if they would be just 8 weeks old. However, quite often they had to peep out of the door, not anxious, just interested. And they left the room after a few minutes. Except for Taya, they do not use the room any mor for resting, not even when it rains.

It fits that we stopped spending the night with them in this room a week ago, because they would not stay inside anyway. And maybe the strong interest of our wolves in approaching humans is also in the context that the pack is sizable with respect to its human members, but only few are present at any time, which may not fit their psychological dispositions as pack animals.

We had similar experience in our work with ravens, who also are fearful, when not knowing what is going on around them. They tend to be unconcentrated in closed experimental compartments and responded with fear when visitors were passing the aviary. Thomas Bugnyar solved the problem ingeniously by simply cutting windows into the experimental compartment which he covered with curtains. Whenever necessary, the raven in the test situation could now fly up, lift the curtain and peep out of the window, resulting in calm and concentrated ravens.

We will learn from our wolves as we go. Clearly, we have to enlarge the enclosure pretty soon, allowing them to get at a greater distance to the visitor, which will probably help them calming down. And second, it appears that a closed experimental room - no matter how large is not wolf-adequate. We simply have to create an environment which allows wolves to concentrate at their work. This may not be closed standard test rooms. We are not dealing with pigeons or mice, after all.

PS.: Sept. 22nd Bea returned and Sept. 23rd the wolves nearly ceased to pace nervously upon the approach of visitors. Calm, well-educated handling and social trust clearly changed this behaviour to the better.