Fishing Wolves

You've never thought of wolves as fish eaters, but there is now evidence that they catch and eat freshwater fish. The Voyageurs Wolf Project has established that wolves in Minnesota eat fish as a substantial part of their diet. The project studies GPS-collared wolves from 15 different packs in the Voyageurs National Park area of Minnesota.

Researcher Tom Gable first noticed the wolf-fish interaction in April, 2017, when he hiked to a creek where GPS data showed one of the collared wolves was spending a lot of time.

“As I approached the area, I briefly saw a wolf trying to catch a fish before it ran into the woods,” Gable said. He then found fish remains and wolf tracks scattered along the creek.

In the following month the team found the two GPS-collared wolves in the Bowman Bay pack, south of Lake Kabetogama, spent 43 to 63 percent of their time hunting fish around this creek.

Camera traps eventually captured concrete evidence of wolf fishing. The project has determined that wolves will leave deer and moose alone if they can catch beavers. Fish -and blueberries- help to round out their diet when other foods are not available. (via TYWKIWDBI)