A wolf raided a crab trap. Was it tool use or just canine cunning?
Elie Dolgin • November 17, 2025
Scientists remain split on whether rope-pulling ingenuity counts as tool use.
One damp spring evening last year, a wolf hauled a crab trap ashore off the central Pacific coast of British Columbia. The rangy animal made a delectable meal of the bait inside, and unknowingly launched a healthy debate about her feat.
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) had been recorded on a motion-triggered camera installed by environmental wardens — known as Guardians — from the Haíɫzaqv Nation Indigenous community. The wolf’s trap-pulling behavior may be the first evidence of tool use by a wild canid, researchers report November 17 in
Ecology and Evolution.
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