In the Field

Do You Think It Will Bite? Coastal Gray Wolf Pups With Moon Snail. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 19, 2024.

I find it fascinating that dog pups and wolf pups share so many behaviours, including how they play. Dogs and wolves both evolved (i.e., split) from a common ancestor somewhere around 27,000 to 40,000 YBP, yet they've retained many behavioural similarities, including how the pups play. Here two wolf pups are investigating an object (which turned out to be a Moon Snail) on a beach in the Great Bear Rainforest. Watching them slowly approach this large snail with a mix of curiosity and wariness reminded me so much of how all my young Portuguese Water Dog pups over the years have explored the objects in their environment. It was like they were saying to one another "Do you think it will bite?" 😉

Shortly after this shot was taken the pup on the left (which was the bolder of the two) grabbed the snail and trotted off with it. As you'd expect, once he/she had it in its mouth - and just like with dog pups - the snail became infinitely more interesting to the other pup. And, of course, a chase ensued. It was an absolute classic observation of "object play" followed by "locomotory play" - all in real time!

Three weeks or so before this image was taken I had encountered this same wolf family while leading a previous photo tour. The pups were noticeably smaller then and not exploring the rocky beaches nearly as much as they were this time. Interestingly, during the first session with the wolf pups they were focused so much on the adult wolves they didn't seem to notice our presence. It was as tho' we were outside their umwelten (loosely defined as "...the world they perceive"). But on this visit to the island they were very aware of us...as tho' their umwelten had expanded and we were now well within it (and during both encounters with the pups we were in virtually the same place and at the same distance from them).

Here's a larger version (4800 pixel) of these two curious wolf pups checking out a Moon Snail:

• Do You Think It Will Bite? Download 4800 pixel image (JPEG: 5.3 MB)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. These images - in all resolutions - are protected by copyright. I'm fine with personal uses of them (including use as desktop backgrounds or screensavers on your own computer), but unauthorized commercial use of the image is prohibited by law. Thanks in advance for respecting my copyright!

2. Like all photographs on this website, these images were captured following the strict ethical guidelines described in The Wildlife FIRST! Principles of Photographer Conduct. As such, no baiting or any form of attractant was used and, as always, we attempted to minimize our impact on the ongoing behaviour of the subjects. I strongly encourage all wildlife photographers to always put the welfare of their subjects above the value of their photographs.

3. This image was captured during my Into the Great Bear Rainforest Exploratory Photo Adventure in late August of 2024. Each year I offer trips into the Great Bear Rainforest as well as tours into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary (to photograph grizzlies, of course!). Details about these trips can be found on the Photo Tours page of this website.

Behind the Camera

Do You Think It Will Bite? Coastal Gray Wolf Pups With Moon Snail. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 19, 2024.

High Efficiency* Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 4500.

Nikon Z9 paired with Z Nikkor 800mm f6.3S. Hand-held from a floating Zodiac inflatable boat. VR on in Sport mode. 3D-tracking AF area mode with subject detection on "Animal" mode.

1/400s @ f4.5; -1.0 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Do You Think It Will Bite? Coastal Gray Wolf Pups With Moon Snail. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 19, 2024.

Initial noise reduction and capture sharpening on the .nef (raw) file using the DeepPRIME XD2S algorithm of DXO PhotoLab 8.1 Elite (using the appropriate lens/camera optical module).

Subsequent adjustments to the adjusted linear DNG file (exported from PhotoLab) and conversion to 16-bit TIFF file (and JPEG files for web use) - including all global and selective adjustments - made using Phase One's Capture One Pro (build 16.4.6). In the case of this image the only global adjustments were a slight tweak to overall contrast (using the Levels tool) and a reduction of the highlights. Selective local adjustments performed using Capture One Pro's layers and masking tools. In this case numerous small adjustments and minor tweaks were made on 7 separate layers, with the tweaks being associated with "exposure balancing" and contrast adjustments (such as very minor and highly targeted adjustments to brightness, clarity, highlights, shadows, etc.).

Photoshop modifications included insertion of the watermark and/or text.

Conservation

Do You Think It Will Bite? Coastal Gray Wolf Pups With Moon Snail. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 19, 2024.

Species Status in Canada*: Only Eastern Wolf listed as species of "Special Concern" in May, 2001. Other populations not listed as Endangered or Threatened.

Probably no species alive today has suffered as much direct persecution from humans as has the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus). Once extremely widespread in North America, the Gray Wolf was virtually extirpated from the contiguous 48 states of America and now is regularly found within only a fraction of its historical range in Canada. While the Gray Wolf is currently listed as endangered in most of the 48 lower states of the United States and enjoys the privileges associated with such status (if lack of persecution and abuse can be thought of as a privilege), it is still official policy in much of Canada to rid the countryside of this magnificent keystone predator. As an example, in British Columbia, there is NO closed season on the wolf in most hunting jurisdictions and opportunistic slaughter is encouraged by policy (it is the ONLY fur-bearing species for which NO species hunting tag is required in British Columbia!). Conservation of wolves presents a puzzling paradox. Reduced to the most basic principles, wolf conservation is simplistic: we need only to stop persecuting this species in order for it to survive. Yet accomplishing this invariably proves incredibly difficult - it's as though wolf persecution has been institutionalized directly into government (and societal) bureaucracy.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada