A Wolf, a Crab Trap, and a Lesson in Wild Intelligence
On a gray morning along British Columbia’s ragged central coast, a motion-triggered camera blinked awake and recorded something that made scientists rub their eyes—and then watch the footage again, slowly, as if savoring a secret told twice.
It wasn’t the usual drama of wolf-on-beach: snarling, sprinting, the raw, staccato business of predation. This was a sequence of patient, precise acts—like watching a locksmith at work. A lone female wolf swam out into the cold surf, seized a wavering float, towed it to shore, tightened a line, hauled a submerged crab trap up from the depths, then chewed through its netting to reach the bait inside.
For the researchers who set those cameras in May 2024 as part of an eradication program against invasive European green crabs, the footage read like an unexpected page in a nature documentary. “I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time we saw it,” said an environmental biologist involved in the study. “It was deliberate. It wasn’t brute force—it was problem-solving.”
The Scene: Salt, Stones and Science
The cameras were not there to study wolves. They were there because crab traps baited and sunk in deep water had been turning up empty onshore. The traps were part of a coordinated effort with Heiltsuk Nation partners to remove Carcinus maenas—the European green crab—a tiny invader that punches above its weight, gnawing at eelgrass, outcompeting native shellfish and unsettling coastal food webs.
Green crabs are on the IUCN’s list of the world’s 100 worst invasive species for a reason: across the globe they’ve altered estuaries and coastlines, damaged livelihoods that depend on clams and oysters, and strained conservation efforts. In British Columbia, communities and scientists have been mobilizing to keep these crabs from taking hold.
So when bait disappeared from traps sunk well offshore—places never exposed at low tide—researchers assumed a marine predator was to blame. The remote cameras offered an answer they hadn’t expected: a terrestrial carnivore making marine-minded moves.
The Act: A Different Kind of Foraging
Watch the clip and you see rhythm and economy. The wolf does not thrash. She swims with the efficient body roll of a predator accustomed to water. She bites the buoy, not the trap itself, and with measured tugs swims the apparatus toward the strandline.
On the sand she alternates between pulling and pacing, testing tension in the line as if gauging how much strength the contraption demands. When the trap clatters onto the beach, she clamps her jaws around the webbing and works, patiently chewing a hole large enough to extract the bait.
“It was a carefully choreographed sequence,” one co-author of the paper told me. “You watch and realize this isn’t random. This is learned technique.”
Why this matters
Tool use has long been a marker scientists point to when discussing cognition in animals. We expect it from primates, certain birds, and marine mammals: chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites; New Caledonian crows bend hooks; sea otters use stones to crack open shellfish. But canids—wolves, foxes, dogs—have rarely been observed applying objects to purpose in the wild.
This footage, published in the peer-reviewed journal Ecology and Evolution, is being called “the first known potential tool use in wild wolves.” If this interpretation holds, it nudges open a window on canid problem-solving that many of us didn’t know existed.
Voices from the Coast
In the small community of Bella Bella, home to the Heiltsuk Nation, elders and fishers have always watched the shoreline closely—both for weather and for stories. “Our people have known the land and the sea are connected,” said a Heiltsuk community member involved in the project. “When animals teach us something new, it’s another reminder that we share these places in ways we’re still learning to read.”
Local fishers, who’ve hauled crabs and set traps for decades, offered a rueful chuckle. “We thought seals were the usual scavengers,” said a long-time commercial harvester. “But the wolf—pulling a trap? That’s a trick I didn’t expect from a dog.”
Learning, Culture, and Coastal Life
One of the striking possibilities the scientists raise is that this wolf’s behavior may have developed through trial-and-error in a landscape where human danger is low and marine resources are abundant. Coastal wolves—often called island or coastal wolves—are known to incorporate fish, shellfish, and even intertidal invertebrates into their diets in ways their inland cousins do not.
That means opportunities to experiment. A pup observing an older wolf tugging at a float might learn a useful trick. A trick over years can calcify into culture—socially transmitted behavior that travels through the pack like folklore.
“How do we define innovation in wildlife?” asked a behavioral ecologist who reviewed the footage. “If one wolf figures out a method and others copy it, that’s culture. It changes how a population interacts with its environment.”
Other animals that use tools
- Chimpanzees: sticks to fish for termites and rocks to crack nuts.
- Crows and ravens: hooks fashioned from twigs and wire to extract grubs.
- Sea otters: rocks used as anvils to open shellfish.
- Dolphins: marine sponges as protective tools when foraging on the seafloor.
The Broader Picture: Invasion, Stewardship, and Respect
This story sits at the intersection of several global threads. There’s the ongoing battle against invasive species—how do you protect fragile coastal ecosystems from a small crustacean that can reshape a shoreline? There’s the conversation about animal cognition and what it reveals about non-human minds. And there’s Indigenous stewardship, the collaborative science practiced with the Heiltsuk Nation, which blends traditional knowledge with modern monitoring techniques.
It also prompts a question that stretches beyond a single clip: what else are animals figuring out as human footprints recede from some wild places and intensify elsewhere? The coastal wolf’s ingenuity is a reminder that intelligence in nature is not confined to faces that look back at us; it’s woven into movement, experimentation, and adaptation.
Final Thoughts
Next time you walk a shoreline and watch a buoy bob, consider the possibility you’re not the only one who sees its promise. This wolf’s work—swimming, hauling, chewing—reads like a line in a long conversation between sea and land, between species and place. It asks us to listen a little harder.
And it asks something of you, the reader: when you look at animals in the wild, do you look for the familiar story of hunting and fleeing, or are you ready to be surprised by a different narrative—one of problem-solving, culture, and shared lives on the edge of sea and shore?
