I posted before about wolves after beavers. New data has come in.
A super-duper, amazingly lucky trail camera capture: we finally caught a wolf hunting a beaver on video!!! Check it out! We cannot overstate how rare such observations are. Of course, you might think we are exaggerating here so let us explain… In 2015, Dr. Dave Mech—one of the world’s foremost wolf experts—and colleagues published a book which was a comprehensive overview on how wolves hunt various prey. The section on beavers was 4 paragraphs long and the author’s concluded: “We found no actual descriptions of wolves hunting beavers”. Then, through some amazing stroke of luck, someone in Quebec in Fall 2015 observed and recorded a wolf hunting and killing a beaver on a logging road! The first recorded observation of a wolf killing a beaver we are aware of. Given how rare this was, we worked with the person who recorded the video and wrote a scientific paper on the observation trying to glean as much insight as we could from it (you can read that paper in the link below). And we have yet to see any videos of a wolf killing a beaver since this 2015 observation in Quebec. Since 2015, we have had a few folks send us trail camera photos they got of a wolf attacking a beaver but they are usually just an image or two, and it is hard to get any unique insights from those observations. What is amazing is that wolves regularly hunt and kill beavers across a wide swath of the North America, Europe, and Asia and yet so few people have ever actually seen this happen. In sum, a super common event that is rarely observed. As a result, the mechanics and nuances of how wolves hunt and kill beavers remains largely a mystery…one we are slowly trying to unravel using indirect evidence from kills, GPS-collar movements, etc. However, direct observations such as this provide rare insight. Although we have had many cameras on beaver dams, we have never captured anything remotely like this before. So you can imagine our excitement when we saw this. And what are some of the insights we can glean from this video? A few initial thoughts/observations from us but would be curious to hear what others think as well! 1.) The wolf was barreling toward the beaver and yet the beaver did not move until the wolf was super close. Could possibly be related to the beaver’s poor eyesight and inability to determine what was coming at it until the wolf was right there. Or the dam blocked the beaver from seeing the wolf. 2.) The wolf got within a few inches or less of the beaver and tried to bite the beaver’s tail yet the beaver escaped. Wow! A near miss! Makes us wonder how often beavers “encounter” wolves throughout the year and how many of them escape once chase. 3.) We have long thought that beavers on the downslope of dams are vulnerable to wolves because they would have little time to get back over the dam into the pond should they encounter a wolf. In this instance, the beaver was able to escape into deep water in a small pond below the dam. But if there wasn’t that pond, the beaver would have been in trouble. And given wolves propensity to travel across beaver dams, seems like the downslope of dams could be a risky place for a beaver. We could continue going on and on here because this kinda stuff really gets us jazzed but this post is getting long and is much longer than we initially expected. But hope you enjoyed seeing this! You can read the scientific paper we wrote on the 2015 observation of a wolf killing a beaver in Quebec here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wil…
Turns out, having 99.99% of a cattle ranch fenced in is not sufficient to keep wolves out. The last 0.01% is critical…you can see why in this video.
For background: In 2021 and 2022, our project, the rancher and his family, and USDA Wildlife Services worked together to install a 7.5 mile “wolf-proof” fence around a cattle ranch in our study area.But this is no ordinary cattle ranch. It is a 1,500 acre ranch in the woods where wolves have killed cattle virtually every year for many many years—and in return, wolves have been lethally removed virtually every year because of the troubles they have caused.But in 2021, we—our project, the rancher and his family, and USDA Wildlife Services—broke ground on this big fence project with the goal of stopping this seemingly endless conflict.We pretty much completed installing the fence by last fall, though there were a few small holes we had not buttoned up. This video shows one such hole that the wolves quickly found and exploited.At the time of this video, about 7.49 of 7.5 miles of fence had been erected so the ranch was, for all intents and purposes, seemingly fenced in. But in reality, it felt like there was no fence because wolves found these hole and used them a LOT to get on the ranch.It quickly became clear that every nook, cranny, depression, crevice, hole, culvert, gap, etc. needed to be sealed off.As you can see in this video, once a hole is sealed off the wolves don’t know what to do and give up on it.So far, the fence has worked exceptionally well and repelled almost all of our collared wolves. However, the breeding female of the Windsong Pack, Wolf O4D, is an exceptional case.She is a tried and true “fencebuster” and is dogged (pun intended) in her pursuit to get on this ranch. We plug a hole she has found with logs and she tears the logs off. We stake the fencing to the ground and she pulls on the fencing with her teeth until she can get under it. She is a unique and exceptional individual.We have spent much of our past month trying to keep her off of the ranch while also learning about her tactics. And while frustrating that she keeps “besting” us, we are learning a lot about how to implement successful non-lethal strategies.
More to come soon on this project, the “fencebuster”, and what we are learning! Pretty fascinating stuff!
7.5 miles of fence!. What did that cost? 7 million? Who paid for it? They make a big deal out of a fencebuster wolf but the video shows a gaping hole. Not exactly rocket science for a wolf. It reminds me of the Bison paddock that was fenced here by a guy I knew. It was 5 miles long of similar materials and there were lots of holes. Ok for bison but a sieve for a lot of things like deer.