On April 18th Erin and Chetan (yes, Tristan took a back seat this year) presented us with a litter of six healthy wolf pups! The pups were pulled at 10 days of age for hand rearing and this year Erin hardly seemed to mind. Chetan, on the other hand, did spend several days out on the island sniffing in and around the dens. Meanwhile, Erin was more interested in coming up to staff for belly rubs as she was a little uncomfortable for a few days until her milk dried up.

There were six pups in the litter, two females and four males. All were very happy and healthy pups. Once again, Erin did an excellent job.

The two females were picked up by Wolf Hollow staff on the day they were pulled. Wolf Hollow is where Erin and Tristan came from back in 1998 and when a facility such as theirs is set up to do their own hand-rearing, taking the pups just after they are pulled greatly reduces the stress on them. Both girls are doing quite well.

Meanwhile, of the four pups we are raising, we are only keeping two. Their names are Wolfgang and Wotan. Sirius and Fenris will later go to the Dakota zoo where they have just one female, a sister to Eclipse. They will leave later in the summer, probably sometime in August which is about the time we will be introducing the two we keep to the main pack. We actually were going to keep Sirius rather than Wotan, but since we want to keep the two for potential breeding (they can trace their lineage all the way back to the first wolves at Wolf Park) and since Sirius had an undescended testicle, we decided to keep Wotan instead.

On August 13, 2005 we placed all four pups into the main pack's enclosure. There was much rejoicing. Here is what I wrote for the PHOTO OF THE DAY page for that day:

Well, today was the big day. Yes, the pups have been reunited with their pack! All four pups were driven over in Tom's van, each held by a puppy mother or a volunteer and carried into the airlock for the main enclosure. Previously, Erin, Tristan, Ruedi and Renki were all locked up in the holding pen. We did not want to overwhelm the four pups so we locked up the four who would most likely be there at the gate to meet them had we not done so. Chetan, well, he is not the biggest puppy fan and as for Kailani and Ayla, they stayed on their peninsula.        When the pups were released, they immediatly ran about exploring and having fun. After about five minutes we let the four adults out and there was what can be best described as a bit reunion -- a lupine party so to speak, which lasted for well over an hour.        The pups explored everything, and had a lot of fun swimming about in the pond.

On September 15, 2005, the two pups, Fenris and Sirius left for their new home at the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck, ND. They have since been successfully vasectomized and placed in with Luta, the one and only wolf they have at the zoo. Luta is Eclipse's litter sister and was in much need of companionship.

We have also heard that the two female pups who were sent to Wolf Hollow, are also doing great.

To see web pages of previous years' pups, check out the Puppy Pages!