A gray wolf pup yeets a squirrels in a still from a video captured by a Voyageurs Wolf Project trail ... [+]
It’s a wolf-eat-squirrel world out there. But sometimes the squirrel bites back. A wildlife camera captured a video of a wolf pup trying out its hunting skills and facing some serious challenges in the process. The pup attempts to snack on a red squirrel and discovers—multiple times—just how painful a squirrel bite can be. It’s a fascinating window into the behavior of an elusive predator.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project, a research initiative focused on wolves in and around Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota, shared the video on July 8 with the straightforward title “Squirrel bites wolf pup on the nose.” The footage was captured in late October when the pup was around 7 months old. The wolf walking by near the beginning of the video is the pup’s mother. They’re part of the Cranberry Bay pack.
The video is notable for the dramatic battle sequence and how it shows the wolf interacting with its prey. “Trail cameras are really our only tools to ‘see’ or ‘observe’ wolves, and most trail camera footage simply entails wolves walking past a camera,” said project lead Thomas Gable over email. “So when we happen to capture something like this on camera, I get pretty excited because it really requires us to have a camera at the right spot at the right time and that doesn’t happen very often!”
Squirrels are more of an occasional snack for wolves. “Squirrels are a very small part of wolf diets (<1-2%) but wolves will definitely catch and kill them if given the opportunity,” said Gable. “However, they almost certainly won’t expend substantial effort trying to do so because a squirrel is not a big meal for a wolf.”
A gray wolf stares back at the Voyageurs Wolf Project team for a short time before running into the ... [+]
The Voyageurs Wolf Project is focused on understanding how gray wolves eat, reproduce and raise their young during the summer months. It’s a tough task. “Voyageurs is a densely forested area so despite studying wolves for many years, I never really get to observe wolves just being wolves because you simply cannot see them,” said Gable. The wolves tracked by the project typically eat beaver and deer fawns and can easily wolf down those prey animals and leave very little evidence of the meal.
The project tracks wolves using GPS collars. Technicians go out into the field to look for signs of kills. The project also gathers data on den sites and follows pack movements. “By gathering detailed information on both the predation behavior and reproductive ecology of wolves, we are able to connect critical facets of wolf behavior during the summer to important ecological factors, prey populations, and human interactions,” the group said in an explainer.
The wildlife camera only captured part of the interaction, but it’s unlikely the squirrel had a miraculous escape. “We don’t have any video footage of the squirrel after the wolf tossed it toward the camera,” Gable said. “However, I think it is pretty safe to assume the squirrel ended up in the pup’s belly shortly after this video was taken.”
