The coast of British Columbia is experiencing a crab problem. But trying to control the crab problem appears to have surfaced an unexpected wolf problem—one that reveals the surprising capacity of wolves as intelligent crab thieves.
Researchers set up remote cameras to catch a mysterious crab thief, but they weren’t prepared for the scene that unfolded almost immediately after installing the cameras. They watched, stunned, as a wolf swam out of the water with a crab trap in her mouth. From the video, it looked as though the wolf had a remarkably good understanding of how the trap worked, making it—potentially—the first documented instance of a wolf interacting with tools.
A paper published on November 17 in Ecology and Evolution presents a formal account of this novel behavior. As of now, the researchers aren’t certain whether such behavior could be widespread in wolves; accordingly, they describe the incident as “potential” tool use. If confirmed, however, it would add another layer to our understanding of wolf intelligence.
Canid crab thieves
European green crabs are notoriously stalwart creatures, wreaking havoc on local ecology. Since 2021, Canada’s Haíɫzaqv Nation guardians have been setting up crab traps to control the invasive species. But sometime around 2023, they noticed something kept stealing bait from the crab traps, leaving them either completely damaged or slightly torn.
This attack even occurred for traps deeply submerged, leaving the humans involved puzzled as to the identity of the perpetrator. Wolves were included in the list of suspects—bears, marine animals, and the like—but the researchers were nevertheless shocked by what they saw.
“In rapid succession, [the wolf] carried the buoy up the beach, dropped it, descended the beach, picked up the line, and pulled it farther up the beach until a trap partly emerged from the water,” recounted the paper. The wolf then carried the trap further inland and proceeded to chew and manipulate the bait cup until it opened. The whole encounter lasted for around three minutes.
What’s more, the trap was initially fully submerged and invisible from the shore, “suggesting that the wolf recognized that the buoy was attached to a rope, in turn attached to an unseen trap containing edible bait,” according to the paper.
A mystery in progress
So far, the researchers know that there are at least two wolves—the second spotted during follow-up investigations—capable of identifying and breaking crab traps to steal bait. And that’s about all they know. How the wolves learned to do this, or whether all wolves can manipulate tools in this way, remains a mystery.
The researchers have some guesses. For instance, the Haíɫzaqv remove traps by vertically lifting them out of the shore. The wolves could have learned from watching the guardians and replicated this action by horizontally dragging the traps onto shore. Alternatively, the wolves may have observed that traps appear during low tide and retrieved the traps later.
What’s more, these wolves reside in a region with minimal human activity. This raises questions as to whether such sophisticated behavior could be “facilitated by relatively low levels of human persecution,” according to the paper.
That is, are the wolves convinced that stealing bait won’t lead to retaliation from humans? If so, what implications does this have for wildlife management—especially from an ethical standpoint, if these wolves are much more intelligent than previously believed?
“While acknowledging cautions regarding overinterpretation of tool use as indicators of intelligence, the sophisticated intelligence suggested here might evoke reconsideration of common negative perceptions toward this species,” the researchers concluded, adding that they intend to continue studying the region to “further elucidate the ecology, dynamics, and biocultural context of wolves here, including some of the questions raised herein.”
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