Wölfe aus British Columbia haben möglicherweise herausgefunden, wie man Krabbenfallen hochzieht, um an Nahrung zu kommen | Möglicher Werkzeuggebrauch durch Wölfe (Canis lupus): Krabbenfallen ziehen im Territorium der Haíɫzaqv-Nation

Some interesting points from the news report:

>Researchers have captured video footage of wild wolves in British Columbia pulling crab traps out of the sea by their lines to eat the bait inside, in the first evidence of possible tool use by the animals.
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>A report released Monday in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution by researchers Kyle Artelle and Paul Paquet says they placed cameras on the beach aimed at Heiltsuk First Nation crab traps to work out what was repeatedly damaging them.
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>The traps, set up near Bella Bella on B.C.’s central coast, were being used to control the invasive European green crab, and some were in deeper water submerged at all times, leading researchers to believe the damage that started in 2023 was caused by marine mammals.
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>“We were going, ‚Well, what the heck is doing this, right?'“ said Artelle, a researcher with State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, who was involved with the Heiltsuk Nation’s efforts to respond to the green crabs.
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>Within a day of the cameras being set up in May last year, researchers captured footage of a sea wolf emerging from the water with a buoy hanging from its mouth.
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>The footage then showed the wolf dropping the buoy on the beach, picking up the exposed line, and pulling it until the crab trap emerged from the water.
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>The wolf then picked up the trap with its mouth, moved it to shallower waters and ate the bait inside.
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>As for how the behaviour started, Artelle said researchers can only speculate.
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>“We ultimately don’t know, but the two most likely explanations in our minds, one would be that the wolves started doing this with traps that were exposed at a low tide because that’s really easy,“ Artelle said.
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>“There might’ve been this incremental learning that started with the trap fully onshore to traps partly submerged, to then associating the line with the trap and then the buoy with the line … It would make a lot of sense, and that’s often how we learn.“

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Journal link:

[Potential Tool Use by Wolves (Canis lupus): Crab Trap Pulling in Haíɫzaqv Nation Territory](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.72348)

Abstract:

>The cognitive abilities of canids are increasingly recognized, though insights from noncaptive populations are comparatively rare. Recently, recurring damage to crab traps used by Haíɫzaqv Nation Guardians to control a European Green Crab invasion was investigated with remote cameras. A wolf was recorded emerging from the water carrying a crab trap buoy, then sequentially pulling the attached line up the beach until an initially submerged trap emerged from the water. The wolf then extracted the bait cup from within and consumed the bait. The recorded behavior, combined with similarly extracted and damaged traps nearby, suggests a sophisticated understanding of the trap and sophisticated cognition more broadly. This observation raises questions about the context and origins of the behavior and prompts consideration of our relationship with this cognitively complex species.