Researchers recover video footage from a wolf's collar

Researchers at the Voyageurs Wolf Project have shared the first-ever video footage from a collar placed on a wild wolf. The video shows the world from the wolf's point of view as it runs through the forest and lives its life in the wild. Researchers note that the wolf, called V089, is a lone wolf and knew how to hunt and catch fish.

The video shows the wolf eating three different types of fish, all killed and consumed at the same spot along the Ash River. The researchers say based on the amount of time the wolf spent in the same spot, it's clear it killed more than three fish. However, the collar only takes video for 30 seconds at the beginning of every hour of daylight, creating only seven minutes of video footage each day.

Before attaching the camera to this particular specimen, the researchers had only documented wolves from a single pack, the Bowman Bay Pack, which hunt and kill fish at the same creek. The video shows that other wolves in the area know how to hunt fish and do so in different areas. The wolf wore a camera collar from Vectronic-Aerospace, which the researchers say worked very well and will be deployed on other wolves in the future.

The footage from the collar, which can be seen below, is a bit hard to see due to the fur of the wolf overhanging the camera lens. The researchers say that next time they will shave some of the fur off the wolf in the area to create a better camera view. It's interesting to see the wolf roaming through the woods and hunting.

In one of the scenes, the wolf is seen chewing on a leg bone from a deer. It's unclear if the wolf killed the deer alone or just happened on its remains. It looks like a lot of the footage shows the wolf lying around during the heat of the day. It's clear the wolf spends lots of time at the river fishing.