It’s an exciting time for wolves and the WCC — it’s the season of romance! Hormones are racing and hopefully several courtships have already begun. We’re keeping our eye on four breeding pairs (see SSP Update: Busy Breeding Season Ahead!) in hope that we’ll see some promising behavior. Thankfully, we need not rely entirely on eyewitness accounts, our webcams may help staff, volunteers, and supporters watch some romance between red wolves F1397 and M1565 in real time and also Mexican gray wolf pair M804 and F749!

While many of us like to include flowers, candy, perhaps a little vino and Barry White in our romantic rituals, wolves have a different set of behaviors that we should watch for:

• one wolf marking over the other’s mark
• nuzzling
• following one another
• parallel walking
• “prancing”
• wrestling
• mounting
• rear sniffing
• resting one’s chin upon another
• tandem urination conveys the same message as a wedding ring!
• wolves in a copulatory “tie” or stuck together — please contact maggie@nywolf.org ASAP!

If you see any of the above behaviors or something else you find interesting, please share what you’ve witnessed on this blog or on the WCCs Facebook Page. And don’t worry, it’s okay to watch!