Researchers with the Voyageurs Wolf Project have captured what they believe is the first video documentation of a wolf scavenging a mountain lion kill in Minnesota, and likely in all of eastern North America.
The footage shows a wolf returning to a mountain lion’s kill site multiple times over several days. Wolves are highly effective scavengers and will take advantage of available carcasses, particularly during snow-free months when calories are more difficult to obtain.
Researchers are careful to note that this is almost certainly not the first time the behavior has occurred. Interactions between wolves and mountain lions in the eastern United States have likely happened repeatedly in recent history, but have gone undocumented until now.
The observation has added urgency to the project’s efforts to better understand mountain lion activity in the region. Unlike black bears, lynx, coyotes, and bobcats, cougars are the only predator in the Voyageurs study area that competes directly with wolves in a significant way. Both species rely on the same primary prey, deer and beavers, and each species is known to kill the other.
The other predators in the area overlap with wolves only briefly, during the period when deer fawns are young and vulnerable, because they do not hunt the same larger prey that wolves target. The footage was made possible through funding from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and support from more than 10,600 private donors.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project is currently running a fundraising campaign through the University of Minnesota, with a portion of proceeds designated for ongoing mountain lion research and documentation of wolf-mountain lion interactions. You can support the campaign here.
