Nymeria with a bloodied right ear after fence-fighting with her neighbor and family member, Shae, of Shaggydog Pack.
It was just before 8AM on a Sunday when I received a radio call that Nymeria, a member of Ghost Pack, a pack of four high-content wolf-dogs, had been in a fight and required attention. While I reached out to Wild Spirit’s Director to inform him of the situation and request his help, my boyfriend, Chadley, who had made the radio call, entered the habitat and two other staff members on radio immediately responded by going to meet him at the scene.
Nymeria was bloodied. The vast majority of the right side of her bottom lip was torn off, and her paws were bleeding. The day before the incident I had reported seeing Nymeria fence-fighting with her neighbor, Shae, the only female in Shaggydog Pack, a group of four wolf-dogs from the same family. My first thought was that Shae had been involved, as I had seen both Nymeria and Shae up on the fence biting at each other’s faces. Chadley checked the fence lines for blood. Though there were spots of blood along the ground, none of the rescues in the two adjoining habitats had traces of blood on them. They did not appear to have been involved. Nymeria’s pack mates, however, Ghost (the only male), and her two sisters Arya and Brienne, all had traces of blood on their fur.
Upon seeing this, our director and animal care supervisor determined that Nymeria had been in a fight with her pack, and that the fight was not yet over. Due to the severity of Nymeria’s injuries, the pack’s history of fighting, and the fact that all three of the girls in Ghost Pack were in heat, we decided to remove Nymeria from the situation immediately.
It was only three months before this incident that the three females of Ghost Pack killed their alpha female, Lady, days after she was re-introduced to the pack after having been removed for a little over a week to under-go and recover from a tumor removal surgery. Lady’s death was shocking, unexpected and extremely painful for all of us. Though we had watched carefully for three days after Lady was re-introduced, and the pack dynamics appeared to be fine, even welcoming and joyful, we were wrong. Lady was killed overnight and there was nothing we could do about it. We knew Nymeria had been a primary culprit and was quite possibly the instigator of that fatal fight. After a few months passed, it appeared she picked a fight with her shy and lower-ranking sister, Brienne, who had successfully defended herself. It was not surprising to us that the rest of the pack would have joined in.
When working with these wild animals every day we tend to focus largely on the positive aspects of the wolf’s energy, the social, family loving, intelligent, self-sufficient and regal aspects of the wolf. Yet, there is a very dark side to the wolf that humans have seen and feared for thousands of years. Lady’s death reminded us of the reality of our work, that each day we care for wild, carnivorous predators who act out of their own will for reasons we don’t always understand.
Ghost Pack, formerly known as Westeros 5. From left: Arya, Nymeria, Ghost (not facing camera), Lady, Brienne.
When I think about Nymeria’s psyche and her actions, two things chiefly come to mind: self-preservation and self-destruction. Before diving deeper here, it is important to share the pack’s history. The Iowa 10 (originally the Iowa 12), now known as our Westeros Pack (named by George R.R. Martin and his wife Parris Martin after the characters in Game of Thrones), were rescued in 2012 from a private home in Iowa after their owner, who had been ill, passed away. After the owner’s passing, a family friend stepped in to care for the animals and to find them a new home. Beric Dondarrion, a male who lived alone, Ghost Pack, a group of five that initially consisted of Ghost, Brienne, Arya, Nymeria and Lady, and Shaggydog Pack, a group of four wolf-dogs consisting of Shae, Shaggydog, Jon Snow and Summer, each lived in six-foot high 10x20 cages with roofs and concrete floors for years before the sanctuary heard about their plight. The night the Iowa 10 were released into their new homes at Wild Spirit was the first time their paws touched dirt in three years. The sensation was so foreign to them that it was initially uncomfortable, and they would often be found gathered onto the concrete pads at the entrance to their habitats huddled as if on a security blanket.
In their former home, the Iowa 10 were left un-socialized for years after their owner fell ill. Neighbors and family were frightened of them, and thus, no one entered their habitat for several years. They lived in their own urine and feces. None were spayed or neutered, and there are stories of them birthing and eating their own pups out of their own self-preservation – there was no room to nurture additional lives, and not enough resources to share with a litter. Though infanticide is something that naturally happens in wild wolf packs from time to time, the situation with the Iowa 11 is particularly sad. Wolves love babies. They cherish nurturing and rearing their young. It is a pack activity that everyone participates in. Knowing they had to kill and eat their own young in order to survive and protect themselves sheds a great deal of light on who they are psychologically, and the deep pain and fear they must have endured in their former home.
Watch this short video about the Westeros Pack’s rescue to learn more about their story.
Instincts surrounding self-preservation are built into all of us. Though we need them to survive, they can lead toward self-destruction when we try to preserve ourselves, or something in our lives out of non-essential reasons. To me, Lady’s death is a representation of how Ghost Pack’s female pack members clung to their self-preservation. It was evident by viewing the pack’s interactions that Nymeria, in particular, wanted to be higher ranking. There is a strong hierarchy in wolf packs, which usually consists of alphas, betas and omegas. Being ‘an alpha’ refers to the pack members that typically breed. It is most often the case that only the alpha male and alpha female breed, though pack dynamics can shift over time and it is not unheard of for packs in the wild to drive off or kill an alpha. For Ghost Pack, Lady’s return disrupted the shifting hierarchy that was starting to take place. Whatever the other girls’ motivations, it was clear that they desired Lady’s spot, and with her gone they got a taste of it. I see the fatal attack on Lady as manifested out of the Ghost Pack girls’ desire to preserve the new pack dynamic, and likely, Nymeria’s desire in particular. In Nymeria’s case, her actions born out of self-preservation ultimately led to her self-destruction.
Wolves are neophobic, which means they fear new things. Change is the only constant in our lives, but often we shun, fear and attempt to avoid it. What I learn from Nymeria and Lady’s stories is that trying to preserve how things were in the past, or trying to force something to be the way we want it to be, even when it no longer fits, is a negative approach. Instead, we must strive to embrace change and the present moment.
When I think about Nymeria’s lessons of self-preservation and self-destruction I am drawn to think of them in both personal and global terms, macrocosmically and microcosmically. I think about how we, humanity, continue to abuse, destroy, and consume our global resources in the name of immediate gratification and self-preservation, when such habits will ultimately lead only to our own demise. On a human level, we tend to think solely of ourselves and fail to view each other as one, part of the whole, and to see each person for being at their own stage of development, carrying their own lives and sorting through their own stuff. On a personal level, the lesson reminds me not to be self-destructive in the name of the ego’s self-preservation, and not to allow myself to give into procrastination, stagnation, self-doubt and other forms of self-sabotage. And it reminds me again on a personal level to be kind, cultivate compassion and understanding for others, who they are and what they are going through. This includes cultivating compassion and patience for myself.
This photo of Ghost Pack was taken a little over a week after Lady was killed. Nymeria had been fence-fighting with her neighbor, Shae, and lost the tip of her right ear. From left: Arya, Ghost, Nymeria and Brienne.
Change is both necessary and unavoidable. Yet, the morning we found Lady I was angry, disturbed and sickened. I was angry at the pack for killing her. I was angry at us for not having seen the signs, for not being able to stop it. Maybe if they had lived in the wild Lady wouldn’t have died. Of course, we will never know what kind of lives the Westeros Pack would have lived if they were born in the wild where they belong. It all seemed such an injustice: her death, their suffering in the terrible conditions they were kept in as ‘pets’, and their being forced to live the rest of their lives in captivity due to being non-releasable. The trauma manifested in me in hives that erupted over my body, lasting for over a week. I felt guilty that she had perished under our watch without us realizing there was an underlying issue, and I felt personal shame for having witnessed a negative interaction between Lady and one of her female pack mates that I failed to properly report. I had to contend with all of those feelings. But with time and acceptance, understanding and compassion, I was able to let go and to learn. I no longer have to carry the pain of losing Lady, but can instead carry her memory and her story.
I feel for both Lady and Nymeria. No one wanted Nymeria to get hurt, just like no one wanted Lady to be killed. Of course, we do not want anything negative to happen to any of the animals in our care. I am deeply grateful that we were able to get to Nymeria in time. As for her personality, what I have learned about Nymeria as an individual over these incidents is that she is extremely strong willed, perhaps sometimes despite herself. After she was beaten, bloodied and injured she was still seen pacing the fence line inviting a fight from her neighbors, and soliciting for Ghost to breed with her. Though her adrenaline-fueled response to the fight seems to consist of one part insanity and one part brash bravery, her will nonetheless commands respect and admiration. There is something to learn from that side of her, too.
A few days after Nymeria was separated from her family she was taken to the vet. Forty stitches reconstructed her lip. With time, she will heal, but she will never return to her pack. It is unsafe for all of them. The rest of Ghost Pack was moved to a habitat directly behind where we hope to place Nymeria once she has fully recovered, in a nice, quiet habitat at the back of our compound with an older wolf-dog named Lakota. The family will share a fence line allowing them to interact from a safe distance. If it works out, it will be the best-case scenario.
Lady’s death and Nymeria’s injuries will stay with me as memories that continue to remind me to look closer, dig deeper, avoid becoming complacent, listen to my intuition, and to strive to act from a place of integrity and compassion in everything that I do.
After the fight with her family, Nymeria was moved into Lakota's sub-enclosure where she is healing from her reconstructive lip surgery. This photo was taken before she went to the vet, and a piece of dead lip skin can be seen hanging from the front of her mouth. Lakota (in the background) continues to show interest in her. We are hopeful they will make a good pair.