Wolf hobbles around on 3 legs for almost 2 years
For almost 2 years now, this lone wolf has hobbled around the Voyageurs area on 3 legs. The wolf’s front left foot is permanently injured/disabled for some unknown reason.
We shared a post about this wolf in 2023 and since the wolf is still around, figured we would just share an update with some footage we captured of this wolf over the past year.
When wolves lose the function of a back leg, they can still move around fairly quickly because most of a wolf’s power and balance comes from their front legs where most of their bulk and muscle is.
We have seen many wolves on trail cameras over the year that are limping and not putting weight on a back leg that are still moving around pretty well.
However, losing the function of a front leg is much more debilitating because wolves cannot move quickly without a front leg. You can see that in this video.
Nonetheless, wolves are persistent and resourceful. Clearly, this lone wolf has figured out a way to find enough food to live for several years. From what we can tell, the wolf appears to be in decent body condition too.
We can only guess how this wolf would find enough food. We suspect it likely does quite a bit of scavenging (e.g., scavenging other wolves’ kills, roadkill deer, beavers that have been trapped for damming up culverts, and any number of human-created food sources).
During summer, this wolf could likely catch hiding fawns and beavers, both of which would not require chasing prey down. However, we do struggle to see how this wolf would kill adult deer or older fawns during the rest of the year since it is hard to imagine the wolf chasing them down.
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