Wild wolf outsmarts scientists, uses tool to steal fish in first-ever recorded case

A viral video shows a wild wolf using a tool to steal fish from waters off Canada’s west coast, marking the first-ever documented case of its kind.

Footage published in the Journal Ecology and Evolution shows a wolf pulling crab traps from the water to forage for food.

The study states that the government in the Canadian province of British Columbia has placed crab traps to capture green crabs which destroy eelgrass habitats supporting marine life.

They recently observed that some of their traps were torn but the culprit wasn’t known; however, many theories blaming marine mammals, bears or wolves existed.

A team of researchers led by Kyle Artelle, a professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, and Paul Paquet, an adjunct professor at Canada's University of Victoria, installed remote, motion-triggered cameras and within a day, they caught the culprit.

The video showed a female wolf diving into the water, getting the fish float out of water and then pulling the trap to the shore with the help of an attached rope. She then shredded the trap to eat fish inside.

This marks the first time that wild wolf using tool to get food, a feature previously distinctively linked to humans.