Overview
- Camera footage shows a female wolf swimming to a buoy, dragging the line to shore, hauling up a fully submerged crab trap, and taking the herring bait.
- The finding is published in Ecology and Evolution by Kyle Artelle and Paul Paquet, drawing on a Haíɫzaqv-led program to monitor and remove European green crabs.
- Researchers report the sequence as learned behavior that likely spread through social learning after wolves observed people pulling traps.
- Specialists disagree on whether the rope-and-buoy retrieval meets strict definitions of tool use, but the behavior underscores sophisticated problem solving.
- The monitoring targets a long-standing invasive threat to eelgrass and shellfish beds, and collaborators are weighing trap redesigns to prevent further retrievals.