A she-wolf used a net to catch fish.
In the Heiltsuk First Nation, a region inhabited by the Canadian province of British Columbia, residents began noticing that someone was damaging their nets and eating their catch. Camera traps helped identify the culprit: a young female wolf.
Scientists from the US and Canada used camera traps to capture a young female wolf entering the water, pulling a net ashore with her teeth, and eating the fish inside.
According to experts, this is the first documented case of a wolf in the wild mastering human fishing tools. Previously, similar behavior had only been observed in captive wolves, where they "tug-of-war for a reward [in the form of food]." "The sequence [of the wolf's actions] demonstrates a complex understanding of the multi-step communication between a floating buoy [of a fishing net] and a hidden bait located within the net," the study's authors write. They note that even such seemingly simple actions indicate that wolves understand cause-and-effect relationships, which they can use "repeatedly and effectively."
