We are very excited to share the first-ever camera collar footage from a wild wolf to our knowledge. We hope you enjoy seeing the world from a wolf’s point of view!
What is particularly fascinating is that this wolf (V089, a lone wolf) knew how to hunt and catch fish. He can be seen eating three different fish, which were all killed and consumed at the same spot along the Ash River.
Based on the amount of time this wolf spent in this spot, it is clear this wolf killed more than three fish. However, the collar only took videos for thirty seconds at the beginning of every hour of daylight meaning we only got seven minutes of video footage each day (14 hr of daylight x 30 seconds per hour). Seven minutes of footage a day is not that much. Luckily, we still captured some really neat stuff!
Up to this point, we had only documented wolves from a single pack (the Bowman Bay Pack) hunting and killing fish at the same small creek. However, this footage clearly demonstrates that other wolves in our area know how to hunt fish and they do so in different areas.
This revelation—in addition to some other info we learned in 2020 (i.e., we had another wolf from the Paradise Pack that went fishing…more about this soon!)—provides insight into the genesis and persistence of unique predation behaviors in wolf populations!
We used a Vectronic-Aerospace camera collar for this footage. The collar worked great and we are excited to deploy more of these camera collars in the future!
I want to put a camera on your neck and see what you’re doing all day.
On whose? The biologists or Snowbrains? Skiers already wear cameras in their heads