The more ya know…
Nature never really ceases to surprise you with something new. And even when you spend a lot of time outdoors, you still find you’re learning new things every day.
Wolves are a spectacle all on their own. Their pack dynamics is one of the coolest things that happens in our woods.
They work together better than any national championship team to survive daily. Yes, alone a wolf is still an apex predator but together, they are organized, detailed, precise, skilled… like the SEAL Team Six of the wild.
We’ve seen two wolves go at a moose, a lone wolf go after an elk, and even a wolf take a bite at a grizzly bear.
But, have you ever seen a wolf fishing? In freshwater?
Nope, that’s what I thought.
I didn’t even realize they actually fished other than finding dead ones on shore until right now.
While some Alaskan wolves have been known to eat salmon, this wolf pack in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota, are the first to be documented fishing in fresh water.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project has known this pack caught some fish as they found evidence and set out to capture it on video. And this trail camera caught it all.
The group summed up the events on their video.
“We captured several instances of wolves hunting, chasing, and waiting-to-ambush suckers this year but no footage of them actually catching one.
We know the wolves were catching fish at the creek as we found plenty of evidence (fresh remains of consumed fish carcasses, wolf scats full of fish scales, etc.) of where wolves were killing fish!
It appears our cameras just weren’t in the right places at the right time!”
The wolves can be seen slashing around in the water and lunging towards fish that are flopping around in the water.
The fish they are after is white suckers. They are spawning in the creek causing them to accumulate in large numbers to a small area. This creates the perfect situation for a wolf to catch one for dinner.
The videos appear to show lots of wolves hunting with a fairly low success rate… maybe they should stick to hunting on land. But the evidence of the kill proved otherwise.
Either way, this is probably the first time you’ve ever seen a wolf fish.
First footage in 2018
More fishing in 2019
Fall of 2021
