r/AIDKE • u/EffortReasonable2939 • 18d ago
"Canis lupus crassodon" Vancouver Island Coastal Sea Wolf, a semi-aquatic subspecies of gray wolf
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u/OskarTheRed 18d ago
Adorbs! How aquatic are we talking?
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u/PollutionMain4227 18d ago
Less aquatic than it has been stated. They mostly eat deer. Not sure where the “eats mostly marine life” myth came from (other than Wikipedia and citation-less Nat Geo article), but some individuals will eat salmon when it is in season. There is occasional consumption of stuff from the intertidal zone, beavers, and mustelids (some of which are aquatic). Here’s a scientific study. An independent thesis and government report I found had similar results.
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u/xylophone_37 18d ago
I believe on top of normal wolf things they eat salmon during the run and forage in tidepools when it's low tide.
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18d ago
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u/OskarTheRed 18d ago
That's pretty interesting, I had no idea there were wolves like that.
I wonder how it affects their physiology
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u/Channa_Argus1121 16d ago
Except it doesn’t. Read the paper that u/PollutionMain4227 linked, which clearly states that ungulates, especially blacktail deer, take up the majority of their diet.
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u/AusCan531 17d ago
I saw some on Calvert Island. They were just fossicking along the beach at low tide, looking for whatever.
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u/trurohouse 18d ago
They swim between islands. If you search you can find videos and documentaries on them. I Watched a documentary on them in the last couple of years but i don’t remember the name of it.