{"id":302058,"date":"2025-11-23T16:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/302058\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T16:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:42:14","slug":"wild-wolf-seen-using-tool-in-stunning-first-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/302058\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Wolf Seen Using Tool in Stunning First : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a wild wolf encounters a potential meal, its instinct is usually to pounce \u2013 but researchers in western Canada have recorded at least one wolf taking a strikingly different approach.<\/p>\n

The behavior captured on video in a remote part of British Columbia province shows a wolf completing multiple steps to retrieve a crab trap from deep water, sophisticated behavior researchers say marks “the first known potential tool use in wild wolves.”<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when we opened up that camera,” said Kyle Artelle, an environmental biologist at the State University of New York.<\/p>\n

Related: Scientists Have Trained Bumblebees to Understand a Form of Morse Code<\/a><\/p>\n

The discovery, detailed in the journal Ecology and Evolution<\/a>, came partly by accident.<\/p>\n

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For several years, crab traps have been submerged in deep water in the area as part of a program to eradicate European green crabs, an invasive species.<\/p>\n

Researchers, working in collaboration with the Heiltsuk First Nation, observed that the traps had mysteriously been dragged ashore and the bait removed.<\/p>\n

Because the traps had been set in deep water and never exposed during low tide, they assumed a marine predator was involved.<\/p>\n

They set up cameras in May 2024 and quickly solved the mystery.<\/p>\n

A female wolf was recorded swimming out and dragging the buoy attached to a trap to shore.<\/p>\n

She then pulled in the line attached to the trap. With the trap on shore, she chewed through its netting to access the bait.<\/p>\n

\"fourStills extracted from remote camera video of a wolf in Ha\u00ed\u026bzaqv Territory pulling an initially submerged green crab trap to shore to access the baited cup within. (Artelle & Paquet., Ecology and Evolution, 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It was a “carefully choreographed sequence,” the researchers said \u2013 not a wild predator aggressively pursuing food.<\/p>\n

Artelle said it was “incredible behavior.”<\/p>\n

“This wolf showed up and she just saw a float and she knew the float was attached to a trap. She knew how to pull the trap up. She knew if she pulled the trap onto the beach, she could get food\u2026 Really intelligent, really incredible, sophisticated behavior.”<\/p>\n

\"Win<\/a><\/p>\n

The researchers, who included University of Victoria geography professor Paul Paquet, conceded they do not know how pervasive such levels of sophistication are among wild wolves.<\/p>\n

Related: Scientists Discover a Rare Example of Insects Using Tools to Capture Prey<\/a><\/p>\n

They noted the wolf may have figured out how to get the trap on shore through trial-and-error, stressing that wolves in the remote area are less exposed to danger \u2013 including from humans \u2013 and therefore may have more time to experiment.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a wild wolf encounters a potential meal, its instinct is usually to pounce \u2013 but researchers in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-302058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}