A final update on Wolf V083, the beaver specialist. From May 1 to October 29, V083 killed a whopping 42 beavers, which is 14 more than any other wolf we have studied. Put another way, Wolf V083 was killing one beaver every 4.2 days. (1/8)

V083 is fascinating because he seemed to have an ability most other wolves in our area simply do not have. While many wolves in our area eat beavers, none have been even close to as efficient at finding and killing beavers. (2/8)

A typical wolf only kills a beaver every 12-14 days, which equates to an average of 13-15 beavers a summer. And this naturally leads to a question that has intrigued us for years: given the crazy amounts of beavers in our area, why don’t wolves kill and eat more of them? (3/8)

The answer: beavers are not easy to kill. When we started, the consensus was that beavers were easy to kill. In fact there was almost the impression that beaver ponds were nature’s vending machines: show up to a pond, hit button A1, and a beaver would be dispensed. (4/8)

But that is not the case. Beavers spend relatively little time on land, stay close to water, and where they will be on land on any given day is surprisingly hard to predict. So finding a beaver on land is likely quite challenging for wolves. (5/8)

Then there is killing a beaver. Beavers are football-shaped hunks of muscle with sharp teeth and incredible bite strength. Adult beavs can be >50-60 lbs - the size of many wolves in our area. And beavers don’t have a neck so how do you grab a beaver if you are a wolf? (6/8)

Perhaps most importantly, beavers do not need to fend off a wolf to avoid being killed but rather just make it to deep water. And generally beavers are never far from deep water. Thus, it is likely a challenge to kill a beaver while preventing it from getting back to water. (7/8)

Because of all of this, beavers are not an easy meal, which is why V083’s beaver-killing abilities are so exceptional and fascinating to us. (8/8)