A trail camera in British Columbia recorded a wild wolf swimming out to a buoy and hauling a fully submerged crab trap up the beach by its rope, then working the bait cup open — three minutes of foota

Key Points:

• Researchers captured footage of a female wolf in British Columbia swimming out to retrieve a baited crab trap tethered to a buoy, then tearing into the trap’s netting to access the bait, an event documented in a paper published in Ecology and Evolution in November 2025.
• The behavior, described as focused problem-solving, suggests the wolf used the trap as a tool, although experts debate whether this qualifies as true tool use since the wolf exploited a human-made connection rather than creating one herself.
• These coastal "sea wolves" are known for their marine-based diet, and this incident represents a novel method of accessing food rather than a new food source, demonstrating the wolves' foraging flexibility in unfamiliar contexts.
• The observation is based on a single confirmed incident and a second less clear case, so researchers caution that it is not yet indicative of a widespread or socially learned behavior among the wolf population.
• The invasive green crab monitoring program that recorded the footage will continue, with researchers adjusting camera placements to better capture such unexpected wolf interactions with submerged traps in the future.