Of Red Wolves

Female Red Wolf 1287 tied with male Red Wolf 1369 (2/17/12).

The photo above was taken on Friday, February 17, 2012 at 11:00 AM. The photo below was taken on Friday, February 15, 2013 at 10:54 AM.

Female Red Wolf 1287 and male Red Wolf 1414 tied together (2/15/13).

If you don’t know what’s going on in the photos, the wolves are mating, or rather, have already mated and waiting for the swelling to go down before they separate, which is normal. The timing of this mating is interesting and may give us a clue as to when to look for this behavior in our wolves in the future.

Also of interest is the fact that both matings, last year and this, started out at the top of the ridge in the Red Wolf Enclosure and ended up on the lower level of the enclosure. Both pairs fell down, tumbled down, the cliff while tied together.

While it’s exciting to see that the current two wolves are getting along well, it’s important to remember that the pairing of the two last year, in the top photo, ended in a false pregnancy, no pups.

So, let’s not count our pups before they birth and wait to see what happens.

However, we can hope for the best!

3 responses to Of Red Wolves

  1. Ranger Greg says:

    The wolves were at it again on Saturday (2/16). With a backdrop of heavy wet snow falling the male repeatedly tried to mount the female, missing his mark each time.
    Finally, at approximately 3:45 PM he succeeded. Once again the pair tumbled from the top of ridge to the lower level of the enclosure.

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