Into the Wilderness: Trapping a Wolf | Life Below Zero

♪ [Ricko] We have to hunt and kill to survive. Just like the animals out here. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Most likely the wolves came along and hamstringed it, or they're right around here somewhere. I'm traveling along with my snow machine, looking for a place to do some wolf snares, and I come upon a dead, looks like a calf moose. From what I can see, there's some blood. It might have been bit around the stomach or the back leg. And there's a lot of snow right now, the moose are real vulnerable. And, um, I don't think they could survive much if they're attacked by a wolf or a pack of wolves.

So I'm guessing what I'm seeing right here is a, uh, place where moose are getting chewed up by a wolf and just kind of died. If I find something like this, it's unfortunate. I don't like to see this happen to a moose, but it's part of the cycle of life out here, but the wolves will be back, though, for sure. The wolves are most likely right around here is my guess, and they'll be back tonight. This is part of nature out here. There were calves, the weakest ones get killed a lot, especially in deep snow. I mean, you look at the snow out here, if you walk out here, just right off the trail, it's this deep.

And then you go into where the willows are hung, it's, it's this deep out here. And that, that calf really has no chance against predators out here and, um, it's unfortunate. This time of the year, the, the numbers of moose get knocked down and that's what, uh, predators are doing out here is hunting moose. So, I'll keep moving. I'll just leave it the way it is and start looking around for wolf tracks. ♪ ♪

When it comes to food with us Athabascans, moose is number one staple of our diet. And that's number one staple of the wolf, too. You're talking between six wolves and 15 wolves in one area. That's about the standard size pack. And when you have a standard size pack like this, they kill about a moose a week. So you do the math on that, that's a lot of moose they kill over a set period of time. When you have a pack of wolves in your area, or multiple packs, you lose a lot of moose population around your area.

So traditionally, we really have a big part of our culture as wolfing or predator control. Especially in the winter when the moose are most vulnerable. It's kind of like how humans have cattle in certain areas. They have to take care of their cattle. With us, moose is our cattle. So we have to look out for that animal. We can't just hunt moose and not look out for the moose itself. I got one snare up here. I'll check it out. See some fresh tracks going in, so might be promising. ♪ ♪

Tracks going back here. Put the snare kind of far back here. Oh. Trying to punch through. A big old trench. See where they went through the top here? ♪ Oh. Holy, I got one. [Ricko] Holy. Anaa baasee', Dinaahuto. Beautiful wolf. I don't want to rip it away too hard because that's frozen down. That's a good-sized wolf. ♪ Anaa baasee', teekkona. Teekkona is wolf. I got to get this out of here. ♪

When I put out wolf sets, I don't always expect to catch something. And once you're able to have that luck where the animal come to you, you have to really show your appreciation for that animal by saying thank you. Because I know how much it means to my people. There's only a few of us out here that can do that. I feel proud to say I'm one of them. Blessed to have that wolf bring itself to me this way. I really, truly believe that. Let's keep moving, keep checking sets, and when I'm done, I'll start skinning. I got a lot of daylight, it's warm out. Anaa baasee'.