Lone Wolf
Bertie Gregory captured this photograph of an alpha female standing along the coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, in 2011.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BERTIE GREGORY, NAT GEO WILD
Unlike their interior cousins, coastal wolves of Vancouver Island live with two paws in the ocean and two paws on land.
They move like ghosts along the shorelines of Canada’s Vancouver Island, so elusive that people rarely see them lurking in the mossy forests.
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Photo Gallery: Life on the Shore
Photographer Paul Nicklen visited British Columbia and captured the delicate relationship between the wolves and their environment.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
Tides dictate coastal wolves’ foraging habits on British Columbia’s ocean islands. What morsels will wash ashore? Tide pools offer crabs, clams, barnacles, and other tidbits. A whale carcass can feed a family of wolves for a week.
Photograph by Ian McAllister, Pacific Wild
This wolf took a break from eating herring roe to investigate a half-submerged object: the photographer’s camera.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
Smaller than their inland kin, wolves like this once roamed much of the West Coast. Today they’re found only in British Columbia and southeastern Alaska.
Photograph by Ian McAllister, Pacific Wild
An island pack devours a dead sea lion. Wolves can’t catch sea lions and seals in the water; instead they swim out and snag them as they’re hauled out on rocks. These wolves, unlike inland ones, don’t need to rely on deer for food but will hunt them where they’re plentiful.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
Relatives babysit youngsters at rendezvous sites, and their parents bring them food until they’re old enough to hunt—and beachcomb—with the pack. Coastal wolves can get as much as 90 percent of their food from the sea.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
The wolves will scarf down whole salmon but often eat just the nutritious brains. Biologist Chris Darimont says salmon offer more protein and fat than deer—and they don’t kick.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
A wolf is well camouflaged in cedar boughs at the forest’s edge. Scientists have shown that larger islands are more likely to hold coastal wolves at any given time, but another key factor is the length of shorelines—rich in marine offerings.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
Gangly and tentative, a young wolf hones its fishing skills. Unlike the more adept black and brown bears, wolves mainly fish in the mouths of shallow creeks. After catching a salmon in their jaws, they pin it with a paw and chow down.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen
Coastal wolves live mostly unmolested in a wild landscape—for now. Sixty percent of Great Bear Rainforest’s old growth is open to logging, and energy giants want to send huge oil and gas tankers through the coast’s winding channels.
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Filed under: 2016, animals Tagged: coastal island wolves, sea wolf, wolf, wolf seafood, wolves by the sea