Have you ever wanted to watch a wolf hunt freshwater fish? Thanks to the Voyageurs Wolf Project from the University of Minnesota, you can see it on YouTube any time you like.
The researchers with the project trapped V089, a lone wolf, sedated him, and then strapped on the Vectronic-Aerospace camera collar. The collar recorded video in 30 second bursts during daylight hours, for a total of 7 minutes a day.
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The footage is very cool, though some of it is obscured by V089’s fur. (“The wolf’s beard needed a little trim… lesson learned,” one video caption says.) They found that V089 was clever enough to hunt near a beaver dam, going after fish that were trapped by the obstacle.
“Up until recently, wolves hunting and killing freshwater fish is something that people didn’t even really know happened,” researcher Thomas Gable told Gizmodo. The Voyageurs Wolf Project documented wolves hunting freshwater fish in one pack a few years ago, but assumed that it was just a weird quirk. “The fact that this wolf started doing this is evidence that it’s not a one-off thing.”
Other highlights of the footage include the wolf chewing on a deer bone, tromping through a river, and eating a fish. Who’s a good boy? V089! Who owns the copyright? Probably the Voyageurs Wolf Project, unless PETA gets involved.
