A wolf caught on camera in British Columbia has become the latest animal to be recognized for using tools, a trait once thought to be unique to humans. The footage, published Monday in the journal Ecology and Evolution, shows a female wolf retrieving a fishing float from a waterway, then pulling on the attached rope until a crab trap surfaces, per the Washington Post. She then tore the trap open and ate the bait inside. The study authors say this may be the first documented case of a wild wolf using a tool. It also solved a longstanding mystery for the Heiltsuk Nation, whose traps targeting invasive green crabs had repeatedly been found damaged or emptied.
Some traps were set so deep in water that researchers initially suspected marine mammals were to blame. "Our jaw dropped when we saw the video," ecologist Kyle Artelle of the SUNY College of Environmental Science tells the Post. A camera also recorded a second wolf pulling a line attached to a partially submerged trap, though the camera turned off before the animal could do any further damage. The videos raise some questions about what it means to use a tool.
Some researchers argue "tool use" only applies to animals that make their own tools, like crows carefully crafting sticks for foraging. Others argue an animal must manipulate or arrange the tool in a certain way to qualify for tool use, and that pulling on an existing rope isn't enough. But "from my interpretation, this is tool use," Artelle tells National Geographic, pointing out humans use tools, like computers, that they don't make themselves. According to NatGeo, the discovery is on par with a 2012 observation of a captive dingo dragging a table six feet in order to climb up and reach an object—but here, it's a wild canid doing the work.
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