Newspaper Clippings
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The Valley Zoo has two new residents: four-month-old Arctic wolf pups named Shila and Kayok.
Published: Wednesday, August 3rd 2007.
Written by the Edmonton Journal.
Both pups have been raised by humans and are comfortable with human contact. They have been bottle fed and are now eating large-breed commercial puppy food and meat.
Shila and Kayok are both females, born March 31 at Parque Safari in Hemmingford, Que. They arrived at the Edmonton zoo on June 19 and had been in quarantine, although keepers worked with them daily to ensure easy transition to their new environment.
Shila, right, and her sister Kayok, at back, four-month-old Arctic wolf pups explore their new home at Edmonton's Valley Zoo.
The Valley Zoo took the pups because it was looking for Arctic wolves to include in its coming Polar Extremes exhibit.
Normally, only the dominant female in the pack will breed. The mother of Shila and Kayok was a secondary female. The pups were removed when the dominant female and other wolves in the pack started abusing them.
Arctic wolves, which feed on Arctic hare, caribou, musk oxen and almost anything else they can catch, stand about three feet tall. A full-grown male can weigh between 100 and 150 pounds, with females weighing slightly less.
They live in the icy tundra of North America and Europe and hunt in packs of seven to 10, although some packs are as large as 30.
Because of their remote location, they are rarely seen by humans.
"Wolves in general have been under threat throughout history," Valley Zoo officials said in a news release. "The Arctic wolf is the only sub-species still found over the whole of its original range. This is largely because it rarely encounters humans."
Wolves usually have litters of between three and 12 pups. At birth, they weigh only about a pound and are deaf, blind and totally dependent on their mothers. They live in a cave or den with their mothers for five months, although at three weeks are allowed out to socialize with other wolves in the pack.
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