Pup Check

Above, the family meets for a little play time. That’s year-old red wolf 2246 relaxing on the ground while his brother 2247 towers over four of their new month-old brothers and sisters. The smallest of the litter is between 2247’s front legs. The family seems to be getting along well. Rats are a favorite food of the wolves. Though it’s early to be weaned, the new pups don’t hesitate to attempt big wolf food. They’re growing fast so if youRead more

Moving Day

If you’ve been to the Red Wolf Enclosure recently you may have seen our adult female lying down with her six pups on the left side of the enclosure near the base of the ridge. She has at least three favorite sites to nurse here pups. One, is in the manmade den, visible on the monitor in front of the overlook. The second, as described above, is out in the open and visible from the overlook (best seen through binocularsRead more
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The Week in Pictures

A quick pictorial trip back to the past week. Flowering dogwood is in bloom (above). Over the past week I began to see aquatic turtles very near the shoreline of our wetlands, peeking up from the water to the shore. I suspected they were searching for safe places to come ashore and lay eggs. The next day I saw two yellow-bellied sliders walking along the path. It’s nesting time. The tadpoles, products of the American toad breeding spree of March,Read more

Red Wolf Update

In the above photo, the wolves anxiously await the departure of the animal keepers. The keepers enter the enclosure to do a daily poop-scoop followed by a distribution of food which usually consists of meatballs and or dead rats. Today it looks like all meatballs. (Top photo, left to right; Female 2062, Juv 2246, M 1803, Juv 2247, notice how the female is the lead) While in the enclosure, the keepers (always two or more keepers) keep a watch onRead more
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The Wolves ID’d

After posting to this blog recently in regards to red wolf identification and my inability to confidently discern our young wolves from one another here at the museum “…whatever differences the two pups had which distinguished them from one another have disappeared, at least to my eyes. I can no longer tell one from the other,” and experiencing a bit of ribbing and ridicule (light-hearted, of course) from fellow staff and volunteers about my observational failings, I decided to setRead more