Wolf launches attack on beaver in extraordinary nighttime footage

A group that studies wolves in Minnesota stated Friday that capturing trail-cam footage showing a wolf ambushing a beaver was so extraordinary that it was “like winning the lottery.”

The accompanying footage, captured at night by a camera operated by the Voyageurs Wolf Project, was edited for brevity. But it shows the wolf detecting, crouching, and launching its attack.

The wolf disappears into the darkness, but audio reveals splashing and other sounds as the attack moved onto land. The next scene shows the wolf returning toward the camera with “a full belly” and beaver tail in its mouth.

More scenes show the wolf without the beaver tail, which it had apparently stashed, then later with the beaver tail again between its jaws.

Voyageurs Wolf Project stated: “To our knowledge, there are only a handful of videos of wolves hunting and killing beavers — our project has captured 3 of those instances…this is the fourth!”

The group, which studies wolves within the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, was clear that wolf predation on beavers is not uncommon. But capturing footage of such events is extremely rare.