It’s an exciting time for wolves and the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC) — it’s the season of romance! Hormones are racing and at least one courtship has already begun. Early this morning we witnessed via webcam Mexican gray wolves F810 and M1133 engage in a copulatory tie!

We will be keeping our eye on four breeding pairs (two red wolf pairs and two Mexican wolf pairs) in hope that we’ll see more promising behavior. Thankfully, we need not rely entirely on eyewitness accounts, our webcams have already helped staff, volunteers, and supporters watch romance bloom between Mexican gray wolves M1133 and F810 and hopefully soon between red wolves F1563 and M1803 too!

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 rebecca@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 WCC’s Facebook page.

And don’t worry, it’s okay to watch!