Where Do Wolf Babies Come From?

"He had normal sperm, so I went up and sat and watched when there was a mating," Asa goes on. "And you could see that when he tried to penetrate, his penis would just go off to the side: It was running along her hip rather than intermitting. Which must have been driving them both crazy! So it was clear why they weren't getting her pregnant: He had a crooked penis."

Besides teaching classes in animal behavior at Washington University and endocrinology at Saint Louis University, Asa is the author of more than 100 scientific papers. Over the years she has found time to establish a conservation project, located on the border of Nicaragua and Honduras. She travels there once a year, journeying by canoe to a nature reserve where she studies whether the indigenous residents are engaged in sustainable living and hunting practices.

She's so successful in her field that others sound almost bewildered in their praise.

"She's amazing to work with," ventures the Canid Center's Kim Scott. "I have no idea how she actually accomplishes everything she does. She's a part of so many committees, research projects, she has countless students. Her energy is boundless."

Asa was hired by the zoo as a reproductive biologist in 1988, at a time when American zoos were shedding their reputations as ersatz circus sideshows and solidifying their efforts to work together in regard to animal conservation. Of course, merely capturing endangered animals from the wild and giving them a safe place to live isn't enough. They have to breed -- or be bred. And while Asa's goals are almost universally lauded, her techniques aren't.

"PETA is opposed to holding animals captive in zoos, period, so we're certainly opposed to all the convoluted and manipulative efforts that are made in order to breed the animals," says Lisa Wathne, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "If the only way that Mexican grays are going to survive is if we are manipulating them in this way, then I'd say humans certainly don't deserve to have them around. Efforts to save endangered species need to be focused on preserving habitats of animals in the wild, and stopping poaching."

Asa believes the zoo's mission is compatible with the well-being of endangered species. "We are simply doing the best we can with the resources and knowledge available to us to preserve species that have been endangered by human activities," she maintains. "We believe it's the least we can do."

Though not specifically familiar with Asa's work, Wathne takes issue with the use of electrified probes to stimulate ejaculation. "Electro-ejaculation is not a pleasant procedure for these animals," the animal-rights activist argues. "It's not a procedure that most human males would subject themselves to, and to do it to any other species is abominable."

The probe Asa uses looks not dissimilar to the sexual devices people use. But unlike employing, say, a vibrator, which makes use of an electric motor to buzz its way to orgasm, Asa manipulates her wolves with a device that forces ejaculation by applying an electrical current directly.

Which isn't to say that all humans are entirely unfamiliar with the concept. That fact is money in the bank for Eric Forbes, owner of Eros Tek, a Felton, California, company that markets electro-stimulation -- or "e-stim" -- products to the sexually adventurous. Devotees of e-stim say it's a unique, high-tech way to get off. "Some people are into play where they want to control someone else -- so we have a box for that," says Forbes, mentioning its popularity in BDSM circles. "And then some people just use it for themselves." The types of electrodes used vary, depending on how they are to be used. "Do they want something on the surface? Do they want something inserted? We have both."

Forbes' e-stim devices operate on very quick pulses, transmitting peak voltage for only milliseconds at a time. But it can take a prolonged jolt of up to 150 milliamps to induce ejaculation in a wolf. If you apply that kind of current to your finger, it feels about as disconcerting as a strong static shock from a doorknob in the winter. But taking it in the rectum is a different story.

Forbes says the vast majority of his clients use e-stim to enhance orgasms, not force them. He's familiar with the type of equipment Asa has and knows people who've used it, but he says they're in another league, fetishwise. "There are only rare cases where you find anyone who would raise their hand and say, 'Yeah, I'd like to have that wolf ejaculator put in my butt and be forced to come,'" he says. "It's just a brute force trying to get the animal to come. In a human male, that would be really painful. Some people want to submit to that -- there's no understanding of human sexuality sometimes."