Some sad news about wolves (?) and PHOTOS of them

Hi!

I must say I am a bit nervous I visited ZOO Brno few times in last few weeks and I see that one of three oldest pack members is not fluffy yet ZOO Brno's oldest wolves are Atila (male) and Alex and Clair (females, sisters). Arctic wolves live only some 7 years in the wild, but can have much longer life in ZOOs. But while Atila still looks nice and fluffy, both females look somehow... "used" this year maybe it is because they gave birth to so many pups and they also used to have some fight (at least one serious two years ago). When you look at their faces, they start to remind of those photos of very very old wolves you can see here on dA and one of the females (I do not which one of them is Alex or Clair) starts to lose fur, her back and hips are moulted

Last time I was watching wolves, ZOO guide came, saying "Do you see that moulted wolf there? It is one of our breeding females. Poor one "už to má asi za sebou"." Saying "už to mít za sebou" is quite rough way how to say in Czech, that somebody is close to death or already dead she said it in a SAD, not cynical tone, but I still think she could choose another way how to speak about it....

I am afraid that the female might not survive winter with so short fur But I hope I am wrong..... I really like oldest members of ZOO Brno's pack, I prefere them to young ones. I would miss them...




Some photos. The first one presents Atila, other ones taken with SLR camera show current look of Alex and Clair. And the last photos taken with Canon Powershot (last 4) are old ones, showing the females, when they were younger