Friday’s pup check went great. The three pups gained a lot of weight and gave us little reason to be concerned. However, I said there was sad news. Our goal with this blog is to let you into the world of the Animal Department at the Museum and respectfully share whatever the news may be.

Since F2062 had the pups in the den with the camera we’ve been able to get glimpses of movement, nursing, and activity. It was noticed on Saturday that one of the pups was separated from the other two. After we confirmed the pup hadn’t moved for a while, we went in the exhibit to check things out.

Sadly, the female pup was dead. Even though I know that death is a regular part of this process, and the first month of life is very fragile, it was quite shocking and heartbreaking. A necropsy was conducted. Numerous samples were taken. We hope to learn in the coming days to weeks what caused this apparently healthy pup to die.

We spent Saturday focusing on the remaining wolves. It may sound counter-intuitive, but less is more.The more we engage the more things escalate. We shut down the exhibit area and tried to make things as quiet for the family as possible. F2062 would need to figure out how she was going to tend to her remaining pups, and we wanted the environment as calm as possible. By the end of the day, F2062 had the remaining pups moved and was nursing them both in the hollowed out log in the exhibit.

We’ll keep the exhibit area closed for now. We’ll keep the area closed for as long as we think best for the wolves.

I hope our next posts share positive news.