- So through here? - Yes.
- Are you ready? - Yeah, I think I'm ready.
- All righty, there's some deer fir
that you're sitting in right there.
(wolf growling) No, she's checkin' you out,
there's somethin' else fuzzy there, yep.
- Oh, she's got my hood.
(intense music)
(wolf howling)
The gray wolf is considered the largest on the canids.
Males can reach 150 pounds, and while they do grow larger
than the females, a lady wolf
only weighs in at around 90 pounds.
My first encounter will be with the wolf known as Orenda.
Like all wolves, Orenda is always on high alert
with her senses firing on all cylinders.
Front facing eyes provide an incredible
field of vision with highly tuned depth perception.
Ears perked, this wolf can hear sound frequencies
from many miles away, and can detect
a multitude of sounds human ears can not.
But Orenda's most powerful tool is her nose
which contains roughly 300 million olfactory receptors
making her sense of smell
40 times greater than that of a human.
I mention these senses because they immediately
allow Orenda to tune in with foreign objects
like cameras and bearded strangers
that are about to enter her home.
Now Darlene said I need to take off the majority
of my outer clothing, that's so that the wolves
don't grab onto my hood, as you can see,
this jacket has some fir on it
which looks like a great thing for a wolf
to grab onto and play with, and they're extremely powerful.
The last thing I want to happen is for a wolf to grab me
and start dragging me somewhere, so I'm gonna also
take off this vest, and then I'm gonna
put on my wolf warrior in training vest.
Now Darlene did also say to take off my hat
because the wolves may take it but it's keepin' my head warm
right now so I think we'll just see what happens.
And I think at this point I'm ready
to enter into the enclosure and become one of the wolf pack.
Here we go, a coyote meeting wolves.
All right Darlene, I'm geared up.
I kept the hat on, if they take the hat
I feel like I'll be okay with it.
- [Darlene] Okay, sounds good.
- All right, so through here?
- [Darlene] Yes, are you ready?
- Yeah, I think I'm ready. - All righty.
- I'm excited. - Okay, so I'm gonna
let you in first then I'm gonna shut the door after you.
- [Coyote] Okay.
- It's a double gate system. - Okay.
- Secure, all right, so this is our second gate here,
it's a big step down so be real careful
it's icy out here in January.
Okay, so the white one up there is our little Arctic wolf.
His name, he's a male, is Isha.
- Hi, Isha! - And the we have Orenda,
that's over here.
- [Coyote] All right.
- [Darlene] That's the female.
There she is!
So she probably likes you to get down on her level there.
- Okay. - As you can see,
there's some deer fir that you're sitting in right there
and palm up with her, awe, she's givin' you some kisses!
- All right, hi how are you?
How are you?
This is amazing, my first
face-to-face encounter with a wolf.
I see your paw, it's so big!
Wow, it's amazing being right next to a wolf like this.
They're a lot bigger than you would think,
especially those paws.
I'm just lettin' her check me out right now.
Yeah, I see!
Is it okay for me to be in here?
Now what's the best way for me
to seem submissive to this wolf, Darlene?
- Always be down on her level. - Okay.
- [Darlene] And when you go to pet them,
you want under the chin instead of on top of the head.
- Okay. - 'Cause she can see
your hand that way - Okay.
- [Darlene] Because it can make 'em nervous
if you're goin' over the top of the head.
Good girl! - So how old is she?
- She is two years of age. - Okay.
- [Darlene] So she's pretty much still a pup.
Look at those beautiful yellow eyes that she has.
- But she's pretty much full size right now, correct?
- Yeah she is, she has her full winter coat on,
weight on her would probably be around 80 pounds.
- Okay. - 70, 80 pounds.
And she is a gray wolf or also known as timber wolf.
- Yep. - Gray wolf and timber wolf,
same thing, just depends on where you live
and what you call 'em.
- I would say she's the most quintessential look,
when you think wolf, she is sorta that perfect color design.
They come in multiple different color phases,
there's this gray mixture, black, white,
is there any other that mix in there as well?
- Your typical is gonna be what we call
a silver gray like what you see there,
they can be in shades of black, black and sort of a cream,
they can have some reddish tones in there,
but that is your most typical.
When you think of a gray wolf or a timber wolf,
that's sort of what you think of.
- Orenda, Orenda!
So is there a key word or a phrase
that you use to bring her in closer to you?
- She likes high pitched voices
and if you say treats really high,
she definitely is treat motivated so she likes that as well,
and she knows I have a couple in my pocket.
- I see.
- And so she's checkin' you out
and she said, "Oh, there's somethin' else fuzzy."
- She's got my hood, she's got my hood.
Well. - She wants somethin' fuzzy
so I'm gonna try to, yep so what you wanna do
is make sure that she's not getting behind your neck there
because she'll wanna steal that.
Awe, she said, "I'll give you a kiss!"
- Now I did grow out this beard just for you guys.
(wolf growling) - No!
- None of that, what is she saying
with that little growl there?
- She's saying that she doesn't want you to lay down,
she wants you to sit up like that.
- I see, okay. - Yeah.
And she's probably wanting your jacket
and so she's saying, "I want that jacket."
- [Coyote] I see.
- She could be a little bit nervous
because there's a lot of people in here,
she don't know what's going on, and I have meat treats
and she's wanting that and not wanting you
to take it away from her and that could be--
- That is the full wolf kiss right there.
- Yes it is, yes it is, and I'm glad
that she has good breath and she hasn't ate a roadkill deer.
- Yes! - So I'll bring her
over here, see how fast she is?
- Oh yeah.
- Here you go. - Okay.
There you go, oh yeah, it makes you nervous
to feed a wolf pieces of meat.
You don't want your finger to end up in there
so as soon as she goes for it, I try to keep my hand--
- It's callin' eat like a wolf.
- Yeah, eatin' like a wolf, it's amazing how fast she's--
- Very fast and you gotta be very careful with your fingers,
so very fast, there we go.
- Yeah, there we go. - That's gone that quick.
- Yeah, I see what you're doing, you're letting her
kinda dig in like that a little bit,
I'm a little nervous that she would grab on to my thumb.
- The way she is right now I would probably
just do a flat hand there and what I'm trying to do
is get her away so you can just see how quick she is,
and if it falls on the ground, let her
- Let her go for it. - Let her pick it up, yes.
- Woo, that definitely gets your heart racing a little bit.
As soon as she lunges like that, you can just see the power
and the strength and the speed is just incredible!
- It is, isn't it. - I can imagine
what it would be like to see wolves in the wild,
a pack of them taking down something like a moose.
You think about how big an ungulate like that is
and how they work together as a team
to bring somethin' down.
Just being this close, seeing that power
within this proximity, you can understand
how they're able to move so quickly
to throw that animal off balance,
be able to work together as a team
to then take down larger prey.
- [Darlene] Right, absolutely, good girl!
- Now when it comes to the pack structure here
within the individual enclosures,
I noticed that there's two wolves per enclosure.
Now, are they both considered alphas
within their own little domain?
- [Darlene] What happens is we try to pair them up,
usually in a male, female combination there.
I have had up to a six pack together,
but because you've changed all the dynamics
in a captive situation, that does change
whereas out in the wild, they can disperse from a pack,
in captivity, that doesn't happen and so eventually
it keeps dwindling down
to where you have two compatible pair.
- Well I think we've had the great chance
to be up close and personal with a wolf
and now as I understand it, you guys actually
have a roadkill deer that we'll be able
to bring into one of these enclosures
and actually see how wolves eat.
- [Darlene] Absolutely.
- Okay, well I think I'm ready if you're ready.
- Yes! - Let's feed some wolves!
- Let's do that!
(intense music) - Stay tuned coyote pack,
our epic encounter with wolves continues this weekend.
Dinner is served, boys and girls!
Make sure to subscribe and ring the dinner bell
so you can help us feed the pack!