Trail camera footage from Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota captured a tiny wolf pup’s adorable first attempts at howling.
Voyageurs Wolf Project, a University of Minnesota initiative that studies the area’s wolves, recorded the precious clip, in which the 4-week-old pup practices his best howl several times and then joyfully saunters off screen.
Wolves, which currently are under attack in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, are complex and intelligent creatures with strong family and social structures. They howl to communicate with one another and engage in daily choruses together within their pack, according to National Geographic.
Other trail cameras set up by the Voyageurs Wolf Project show wolves eating blueberries, chasing a bear away from a den with four pups inside, and howling together.
The footage is helping researchers better understand the long-standing mystery of how wolves in northern Minnesota spend their summers, according to the initiative’s website.
How adult wolves’ behaviors impacts their pups’ survival rate is of particular interest to the group, which noted that the animals become more solitary during breeding season when raising their young.
As this fascinating video shows, pups start learning core wolf behaviors at a very young age.
