This doe was quite literally in a race for survival with a young, grey wolf hot on her trail.
Nature can be a brutal place, and as you’ll see in this video below of a wolf doing its best to close the gap between itself and a deer, the hunt for a meal knows no bounds. You see… when a wild animal is frantically running (you’ll see what I mean in just a second), it’s almost 100% certain that something is running after it.
In this trail camera footage shared by Daniel Alexander (who goes by DannyBoyWildlife on socials), that’s exactly what was playing out between a white-tail deer and a grey wolf. Of course, deer are a cornerstone of the diet for wolves so this shouldn’t come as a massive surprise. But it’s still fascinating to see the chase play out in real time.
Deer are able to reach sprint speeds of 35 to 40 miles an hour. That comes in handy when they are trying to avoid predators, and unfortunately, they have to utilize their speed a lot. As for grey wolves, they too can sprint at 35 to 40 miles per hour, but they gain an advantage on prey because they are built for stamina.
They can run for hours on end without tuckering out. On the flip side, deer aren’t so gifted in the stamina department.
Maybe that’s why I can’t help but notice that the two animals in the video are expressing very different emotions. The body language of the doe is communicating fear and panic, and understandably so. On the other hand, the grey wolf is bouncing down the exact same trail that the deer was using with what looks to be a smile on its face.
Check it out:
“Young grey wolf on the hunt.”
It didn’t look like the deer had that much of a head start on the wolf. We don’t know how this high-speed chase wrapped up, but if you were “Team Deer,” let’s just imagine it made a couple of nifty moves (maybe zigged when the wolf expected it to zag) and got away. If you consider yourself “Team Wolf,” let’s be honest… it looked like the canine was closing in on the doe.
Maybe the deer pulled out some evasive maneuvers and got away? We also can’t rule out the grey wolf giving up on the chase and deciding to expend its energy on something else? All we do really know is that… the wolf looked to be having the time of its life as it ran down that trail.
I wasn’t the only one that noticed. Social media users that stumbled upon this incredible trail camera footage said the exact same thing:
“That wolf sure is happy prancing like that.”
“He’s just having fun dude.”
“Chasing for the love of the game.”
“That wolf is hunting with pure joy and happiness.”
“The wolf jogging cuz he knows that deer is gonna be tired in a few hundred yards.”
Not exactly what “Team Deer” wants to hear, but it could be the truth.
