Hungry like the wolf: watch extraordinary moment wild beast goes fishing | World | News
A clever wild wolf imitates a human going fishing in a world filmed for the first time.
Extraordinary footage shows a hungry female monster stalking the badlands of British Columbia, Canada, expertly prying a crab trap out of the water to eat the bait inside.
This action, which has never been documented before, is the first time a wolf has used human tools to such clever effect.
The accidental discovery came after traps set to stop the spread of the European green crab, an invasive species that is devastating local ecosystems, were damaged.
Researchers working on an environmental program were convinced that this was not the work of bears or wolves because some were at depth and neither species could dive.
Motion-triggered cameras were set up to uncover the mystery and reveal a surprising surprise.
“We were prepared. It wasn’t something we expected in the least,” said Kyle Artelle, an assistant professor at the State University of New York School of Environmental Science and Forestry.
“People lucky enough to spend time around wolves know that they are super intelligent, so it’s no surprise that they are capable of doing extremely clever things on their own. But this type of behavior has not been seen before.”
The video captured the extraordinary moment when a wolf with a buoy in its mouth swam towards the shore and then dropped it onto the sand.
He then grabs the rope attached to the buoy and slowly pulls it until a trap emerges from the water. The monster proceeds to pull him to shore before crawling into a tin can holding a piece of herring used as bait.
One theory is that the wolves may have learned about the traps by watching humans knock them off boats. If this is true, the learned behavior indicates a remarkable and previously unthinkable level of intelligence and understanding.
Prof Artelle said: “It doesn’t pull at random. It doesn’t look like it’s playing. Anyone who’s had a dog knows what it looks like when it’s playing. It’s very focused. It’s perfectly efficient. It even looks at the end of the line as if it’s predicting when the trap will appear.”
“The question this raises for us is: Could this behavior evolve here because wolves aren’t as busy looking over their shoulders?
“It’s a set of behaviors that ultimately lead him to that goal. It’s problem solving, and it’s problem solving exactly the way humans do it. If we were trying to shore up that trap, we’d do the same thing.”
“We recognize that we have probably only scratched the surface in terms of understanding this incredibly complex species relative.”
The Heiltsuk region is one of the few regions in the world where wolves are not intensively hunted or trapped.
European green crab traps were established by the Heiltsuk Nation, an indigenous people living on the Central Coast of British Columbia whose name means “to speak and act rightly.”
The project was initiated to examine the ecology, behavior and biocultural context of coastal wolves living in Canada’s westernmost province and to inform conservation in the region.
