These wolves have figured out how to get a free seafood dinner.
Coastal wolves are an interesting subspecies of the gray wolves. The wild canines are generally known to be opportunistic hunters, but the wolves that live on the coast – like this one off the western coast of Canada – have taken opportunistic to a whole other level.
A recent study out of Oregon State University (in partnership with the National Park Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game) discovered and concluded that wolves living in coastal habitats have adapted to hunt marine wildlife like seals and otters. Before, it was generally believed that they’d only consume those types of creatures through scavenging. Video evidence collected over five years proved otherwise.
All that really means is that wolves are great at adapting to their situation and circumstance. If the wolves are living on the coast, and there’s a certain type of prey that’s plentiful, they might try to take advantage of that, even if hunting in the water isn’t their strong suit. And now, thanks to some footage captured off the coast of western Canada, we’re seeing that wolves are becoming so adapted to their environment, they’re even starting to utilize tools.
Now to be clear, wolves aren’t whipping up tools in their own dens. Instead, they are apparently finding out that they can make use of pre-existing tools. For instance, the Heiltsuk Nation in British Columbia noticed that there was damage to the traps they were using to catch invasive green crabs. They weren’t sure what the cause of the damage was, so researchers eventually stepped in and set up a camera at the sight of the traps.
They then caught a female wolf on video walking up to the buoy attached to the trap, pulling it to the shore, and then eating the crab bait that was set inside. Researchers Kyle Artelle, of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and Paul Paquet, of the University of Victoria in Canada, led the way in the study, which was eventually published in the journal of Ecology and Evolution.
Those researchers concluded that it might be the first ever documented use of a tool for the canine species:
“This sequence appears to demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the multi-step connection between the floating buoy and the bait within the out-of-sight trap.”
Pretty wild, right?
It might seem simple, but this is a huge revelation. The wolf utilizing the trap wasn’t a one-off. It repeatedly went back to the trap, pulled it out of the water, and ate what was inside. The wild animal was able to understand and remember that the buoy was attached to a device that either already had food in it, or collected more of it… and came back again and again to take advantage of the free dinner.
Talk about opportunistic.
Here’s the video that was collected below. National Park News shared the footage, and explained how rare of behavior this is to see out of wolves:
“A wolf was spotted on camera pulling crab traps in from the waters off the western coast of Canada. Scientists say this might be the first time ever that wolves have been documented using a tool. In the video, a female wolf is seen swimming into the water, biting a rope linked to a buoy, dragging the trap to shore, and then eating the bait inside.”
