Wolves Filmed Hauling Buoys and Pulling Lines to Steal Bait — Possible First Wild Wolf Tool Use

On the central coast of British Columbia, members of the Indigenous Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation have been trapping the invasive European green crab to protect shellfish and fish habitat. Community members set baited crab traps with herring and sea lion meat, but they discovered that some traps — even those set in deeper water — were being hauled ashore and emptied.

In May 2024, remote motion-triggered cameras captured the culprits: wolves. Researchers who published the footage and analysis in the journal Ecology and Evolution suggest these recordings may represent the first documented instance of tool use by truly wild wolves. One clip shows a female wolf dragging a buoy to shore, tugging a rope toward land, and biting through netting to reach the bait in roughly three minutes. In another video, filmed nearly a year later, a different wolf pulls on a line attached to a partially submerged trap to reach the lure.

These observations add to growing evidence that wolves and other canids are capable of flexible problem-solving and complex learning. Previous reports have described tool-like behaviors in captive dingoes and in domestic dogs, but comparable tactics have not been well documented in wild populations.

Whether the bait-theft qualifies as tool use depends on the definition applied. Broad definitions characterize tool use as employing an external object to achieve a goal, while stricter definitions require modifying or reorienting an object before use. Some researchers argue that simple rope-pulling should not be counted as tool use, so interpretations differ within the scientific community.

The authors of the study describe the wolves' actions as evidence of sophisticated problem-solving. Local wolves may have detected bait by scent and learned incrementally — first exploiting exposed traps, then developing techniques to reach bait in more secure or deeper traps. Observing human guardians retrieving traps from boats could also have provided a model the wolves adapted.

Ongoing monitoring by the Haíɫzaqv Wolf and Biodiversity Project — a collaboration between the Haíɫzaqv Nation’s Integrated Resource Management Department and partners — uses remote cameras and non-invasive methods to track local wolves and will help determine whether this behavior is widespread or an emerging local innovation.

William Housty, director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department and a descendant of the nation’s wolf clan, suspects multiple wolves are breaking into traps: “Sometimes we forget that the species that exist with us, around us, are just as intelligent as we are.”

Whether labeled tool use or resourceful problem-solving, the footage highlights wolves' behavioral flexibility and underscores the value of continued, respectful collaboration between Indigenous communities and researchers to document and understand wildlife behavior.