Wolf steals fish in a new discovery of animals using tools that was caught on camera

A wolf was caught on camera on the coast of British Columbia in May 2024, in possibly the first documented instance of a wild wolf using a tool. Photo / file

The wolf seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

She leapt into the water, fetched a fishing float and brought it to shore.

She then waded back in and tugged on a rope connected to the float.

She pulled and backed up, pulled and backed up, until a crab trap emerged.

When it was within easy reach, she tore it open and consumed the bait inside.

The scene, caught on camera on the coast of British Columbia in May 2024, may be the first documented instance of a wild wolf using a tool, according to the scientists who published the footage in the journal Ecology and Evolution today.

Although the intelligence of wolves is well known, the discovery adds to an expanding list of animals capable of manipulating tools to forage for food, a trait once thought to be unique to humans.

“It’s not a surprise they have the capacity to do this,” said Kyle Artelle, an ecologist with the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry who published the footage. “Yet our jaw dropped when we saw the video.”

The discovery also solved a mystery.

People of the Heiltsuk Nation in central British Columbia had been puzzled about what was foiling their efforts to capture invasive green crabs along their shores.

The crabs are a real problem - they eat through eelgrass that harbours marine life and they devastate the native clam, herring and salmon populations the tribe relies on for food.

The traps people were setting with herring and other bait kept getting damaged.

Sometimes, there were just minor tears in the nets. At other times, the entire trap was torn to shreds.

Some of the traps were set so deep that, at first, researchers thought the thief must be an otter, seal, or other marine mammal.

William Housty, director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department, wondered whether tourists were tampering with them. The Heiltsuk Nation worked with Artelle to set up a trail camera to record the perpetrator.

A day after the camera was installed, it recorded the female wolf in action.

The efficiency with which she snagged the bait - in just three minutes - suggested to Artelle that the animal had done this before.

“She’s staring exactly at the trap. Every motion she does is perfectly tailored to getting that trap out as quickly as possible,” said Artelle.

In February, the team recorded a second video of a different wolf pulling a line attached to a partially submerged trap.

The camera shut off before it could show whether the animal had learned to finish the job and eat the bait. But afterwards, two traps were seen on the shore with their bait cups removed.

The “weight of evidence”, Artelle said, suggests the female wolf or her full pack are responsible for the pilfering.

The tribal territory in British Columbia is a rare place where wolves are not harassed by hunters, potentially giving them time to learn.

“We’ve always maintained a very respectful relationship with the wolves up here in the territory,” Housty said. The oral history of his people, he added, talks of a time when humans and wolves could shape-shift between one another.

Researchers have seen tool use in captive canines before.

Dingoes, for instance, have been observed opening latches and moving small tables to reach food at a sanctuary in Australia.

And pet owners are familiar with the inventiveness of dogs.

Biologists are witnessing more and more animals brandishing tools.

Crows manoeuvre sticks in their beaks to collect grub from crevices. Pandas grab bamboo to scratch their bodies. Octopuses wield the severed tentacles of other animals as makeshift weapons to ward off predators.

The wolf video raises a philosophical question: What does it mean to use a tool?

Does the animal have to make the tool, as crows do when shortening sticks and peeling off their bark so they fit into crannies?

Or can we call an animal a “tool user” if it uses an existing tool, as the wolf did with the rope?

“I’m speaking to you on Zoom right now. I did not design this computer. I don’t know how it works, but I’m ‘using’ it, right?” Artelle asked.

He said he hopes adding wolves to the list of tool-using animals will prompt some people to see them in a different light - the way public appreciation of chimpanzees grew after Jane Goodall discovered the primates dipping blades of grass into termite mounds to eat the insects.

It is “an intelligence that is so familiar to us”, Artelle said.

“For better or for worse, as humans, we tend to afford more care and compassion to other people or other species that we see most like us.”

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