If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ve no doubt noticed that one of our favorite topics is puzzle-solving animals. In the past, we’ve discussed examples of puzzle solving in cats, dogs, crows, cockatoos, octopuses, bees, pigs, and squirrels.

It’s possible we’ll be adding another mammal to the list today, given reports coming out of British Columbia about wolves interfering with crab traps.

Allow me to explain.

European green crabs are an invasive species in both British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the US, and locals have been setting up baited traps to capture them.

But in one particular area — the Haíɫzaqv Nation of British Columbia — they noticed traps broken into and damaged by a mysterious thief, who had been making off with the bait intended for those crabs. This happened not only to traps closer to the surface, but to deeply submerged traps as well.

This had been going on since 2023, so naturally, they set up remote cameras to finally solve the mystery and identify the culprit.

You can imagine their surprise when the cameras revealed a wolf swimming out of the water with a crab trap in tow!

The wolf then manipulated the trap until it could get the bait from the bait cup. The entire operation took only three minutes! That’s Ocean’s Eleven-style efficiency.

Now, is this just a matter of wolves observing humans and replicating the action?

Did the wolves observe the traps at low tide and come back for them at high tide, remembering their positions even while submerged?

Is this as simple as wolves being like dogs and loving nothing more than yanking on a rope toy and seeing what happens?

Or is this deduction, where a wolf sees a rope connected to a buoy and deduces there is something to be found underwater connected to that rope?

The researchers say there are at least two different wolves they’ve observed puzzling the bait out of these traps. Is this something one wolf taught another, or are all wolves capable of this level of tool use and puzzly thinking?

At the very least, this is a potential sign of the sort of problem-solving thinking we regularly see from crows and octopuses.

So it’s entirely possible that we’ll need to make some room on the puzzle-solving animal podium for these clever canids.

Only time will tell.