\n \u201cThe traps were starting to get damaged, and the damage did look like it could have been a bear or a wolf,\u201d said Kyle Artelle, an assistant professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and coauthor of a new study<\/a> about the discovery.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor the traps that are in shallow water, that makes sense \u2014 a bear or wolf could just walk up to them. But some of them were in really deep water and not exposed even on the lowest tide. The assumption was it couldn\u2019t be a bear or a wolf, because they don\u2019t dive. So, who could it be?\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n To find out, the researchers set up motion-triggered cameras, thinking they might see an otter or a seal. Instead, one of the cameras captured a wolf swimming to shore with a buoy in her mouth before dropping it on the sand. Next, she grabbed the line that was attached to the buoy and pulled it until a trap emerged from the water. The animal continued to haul the trap toward the shore until it was in a shallow area, and then she broke open a canister containing the bait \u2014 a piece of herring.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe were amazed. It was not what we were expecting, to say the least,\u201d Artelle said. \u201cFolks who are lucky enough to spend time around wolves know they\u2019re super smart, so the fact that they\u2019re capable of doing highly intelligent things, in and of itself, isn\u2019t surprising. But this kind of behavior has not been seen before.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The researchers don\u2019t know how many wolves have learned this behavior, but they did film another interaction between a different wolf and a trap. That recording, however, failed to show whether this wolf extracted the fully submerged canister.\n <\/p>\n \n Artelle said he believes that the wolves might have found out about the traps by seeing humans drop them from boats \u2014 or they may have accessed one that was in shallow waters due to low tides and then figured out how to retrieve progressively deeper traps.\n <\/p>\n \n What\u2019s remarkable about the interaction is that the wolf had to put together a series of steps to get to the bait, Artelle said. \u201cIt\u2019s a sequence of behaviors that ultimately gets her towards that goal. It\u2019s problem-solving, and it\u2019s problem-solving exactly the way humans do it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe would have done the exact same thing if we were trying to access that trap from shore.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The wolf\u2019s actions also appear to be completely intentional despite the submerged trap not being visible at all, Artelle added. \u201cShe isn\u2019t randomly pulling,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t look like she\u2019s playing. Anyone with a dog knows what it looks like when they\u2019re playing. This is very focused. She is being perfectly efficient. She\u2019s even staring at the end of the line as if in anticipation of when that trap is going to show up.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The ability of the wolf to come up with this behavior might be related to the conditions found in the Heiltsuk territory, one of the few parts of the world where wolves are not heavily hunted or trapped, according to Artelle. \u201cThe question that it raises for us is: Might this behavior develop here because the wolves aren\u2019t so preoccupied with having to look over their shoulders?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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biodiversity project, opens the door for adding more animals to the growing list of species that use tools.” class=”image_large__dam-img image_large__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_large__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1066″ width=”1600″ loading=’lazy’\/><\/p>\n