Wolves on the Alaskan coast now regularly kill and eat sea otters and harbor seals, scientists have discovered. The finding suggests that the coastal wolves can adapt their hunting behavior — and may have developed unique strategies to prey on marine mammals when food on land is scarce.
According to the study, published Oct. 31 in the journal Ecology, the presence of blood indicates the sea otter had been alive when ambushed by the wolves, as opposed to being scavenged which would not produce fresh blood pooling. The findings suggest coastal wolves in Katmai may focus their hunting efforts at sites where prey is most predictable, such as tidal streams or rocky islands.
"This is really exciting documentation of behaviors we believe have never been directly observed by scientists," Ellen Dymit, a doctoral student at Oregon State University, said in a statement."It kind of forces us to reconsider the assumptions that underlie a lot of our management decisions and modeling around wolf populations and populations of their prey, which often assume that wolves depend on ungulates, like moose and elk.