The Sounds of a Wolf Hunt

A pair of northern European wolves.

Wolves' wild boar hunting (Canis lupus lupus) by nordicnature


The annotated sound tape, above is of a pair of wolves in Sweden hunting, first an elk and then, when that did not go so well, wild pig which appeared on the scene. From the web location where this audio was found comes this description from Håkan Olsson, who recorded it:

I was out photographing/recording. It was late, but the full moon helped lighting up my surroundings. I had the recorder in rec/pause and my headphones on, so all sounds around me was amplified like I usually have.

Since I was trying to photograph animals. I had my camouflage clothes on. I rarely use a hide. Suddenly I heard that the ducks, lapwings and other birds to the left of me flew up in the air worried about something. I looked in that direction with my binocular and then I saw two wolves coming in my direction. They were about 200m from me. The female (smaller) was about 50m ahead of the male. She stopped when she was about 40m from me a little to the left. She probably “sensed” that I was there… She sat down and looked around. The male wolf came straight at me since he was to the right of the female from my view. He stopped at about 30m from me. He stared at me or in my direction for 5 minutes… I was leaning to the left in a not so comfort position so I said to myself, please go now… my back hurts, but he didn’t. Instead, he lay down in the grass… and he continued staring at me (or my not camouflaged mic). I was completely still and after a few minutes he started to look around instead. The female passed him and lay down further away to the right of me. After 10-15 minutes he joined her. They changed positions a few times and seemed to be in no hurry. Then the female started to target a red deer bull. She crawled on her stomach closer and closer. The male followed about 30m behind her. She got closer and closer and when she had about 50m left to the red deer she got in to full attack. The male wolf followed and they both attacked the red deer bull. The deer defended himself really well with his big horns. He attacked the wolves so they had to back off a few times. The wolves continued their attack from two directions for a while, but then they gave up and lay down in the grass. After a while they tried again, but the deer still defended himself really well. He didn’t make the mistake to try and run. They gave up again and the walked away to the edge of the field and lay down just inside the forest. After about 20 minutes I heard a familiar sound. Wild boar heard was incoming…

Here my posted recording at soundcloud starts, since there was just breathing sounds and sounds when wolves and deer move in the grass previously, so not much to listen to.

A very special thanks to Anton Woldhek for sending this to me! Fantastic!

Wild boar crossing road, Sweden.