British Columbia Wolf Uses Rope to Open Crab Trap in Rare Footage

A remarkable three-minute video captured by trail cameras on the central coast of British Columbia shows a wild wolf exhibiting unusual behavior: swimming out to a submerged crab trap, towing it back to shore, and then skillfully opening it to access the bait. The sequence was recorded in Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation territory near Bella Bella by researchers monitoring invasive European green crabs. The footage, detailed in a November 2025 paper in the journal Ecology and Evolution, has sparked debate among experts regarding whether it constitutes tool use.

The primary incident occurred on May 29, 2024, when a female wolf swam out to a buoy attached to a fully submerged crab trap. The trap, tethered to the buoy by a rope, was not visible from the shoreline. The wolf grabbed the buoy in her jaws, pulled the entire rig onto the rocks, and proceeded to tear at the trap's netting to reach the herring and sea lion bait inside. Researchers described the animal's actions as highly focused and indicative of problem-solving. "We were amazed. It was not what we were expecting, to say the least," said Kyle Artelle, a co-author of the study with joint appointments at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department. "It’s problem-solving, and it’s problem-solving exactly the way humans do it."

William Housty, a Haíɫzaqv hereditary chief and director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department, noted the striking visual comparison to human actions. "You normally picture a human being with two hands pulling a crab trap," he told Global News.

Debate Over 'Tool Use' Classification

While the footage is compelling, its classification as true 'tool use' is subject to scientific interpretation. Biologists typically define tool use in stricter terms, often applied to primates or corvids. Bradley Smith, a canid behavior researcher at Central Queensland University who was not involved in the study, told CNN that this instance wasn't a traditional or advanced example of tool use because the wolf did not create the connection between the rope and the trap. Instead, she exploited a connection already made by humans. However, Marc Bekoff, an animal behavior researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, offered a contrasting view to Science, suggesting that if a chimpanzee had displayed similar behavior, it would readily be accepted as tool use.

The paper's authors themselves are cautious, using the title "Potential Tool Use by Wolves" and emphasizing that they are reporting an observation rather than a definitively established behavioral pattern. A second, less conclusive event involving a different wolf was recorded in February 2025. Researchers frame this novel foraging method as an extension of the known flexibility of these coastal wolves, sometimes referred to as "sea wolves," into new challenges, rather than evidence of a fundamentally distinct cognitive ability. These wolves, inhabiting the specific stretch of coast, are already known for their reliance on marine resources. Research dating back to the early 2000s indicates that these animals derive up to 90 percent of their diet from marine sources, including salmon, beached whale carcasses, and intertidal invertebrates.

The crab trap incident represents a new method of obtaining food, requiring the wolf to solve a mechanical problem – locating the buoy, connecting it to the unseen submerged object, and then breaching the trap's defenses. This contrasts with foraging for salmon in streams or scavenging carcasses on the tideline, which do not involve such complex problem-solving. The researchers are keen to observe whether other coastal wolf populations, or other individuals within this population, will replicate this behavior. The network of cameras monitoring the European green crab traps remains active, providing an ongoing opportunity to observe such adaptations.

The invasive green crab monitoring program, which prompted the camera installations, will continue regardless of the wolves' interaction with the gear. However, the unexpected behavior has already prompted researchers to reconsider their camera placement strategies, as a raid on a submerged trap was not an anticipated event in their monitoring protocol. The question of how common this behavior is or if it's socially learned among British Columbia wolves remains open, with scientists eager to gather more data from the ongoing monitoring efforts.