Ben GoldfarbThe alpha male of the Cranberry Bay wolf pack, dubbed V083 by researchers, is a canine with a singular specialty: killing beavers.
V083 roams Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota, and in the spring and summer, he and his packmates prey heavily on busy rodents, ambushing them along foraging trails and waterways.
This year alone, V083 devoured 36 beavers, the equivalent of seven colonies.Such kills have an outsize impact, according to a new study.
By influencing where beavers live and build dams, the wolves shape Voyageurs’s vast wetlands—an ecological chain reaction that alters the contours of the land itself.