A wolf in Canada got some attention recently when it decided to take the highway instead of the scenic route to dinner... 

Commuters on a highway near Alberta's Peter Lougheed Provincial Park got to witness an unexpected chase scene last week, when a fleeing herd of bighorn sheep appeared along the left shoulder.

"I was thinking it's kind of strange for [the sheep] to be running," Kananaskis local Christine Campbell told CBC News. "And then the wolf just jutted out to the side."

Both predator and prey took their chances running across the highway, and Campbell managed to film the moment the predator landed its target on her iPhone.

It's important to note that the sheep were not farm animals – bighorn are wild in the area. Perceived conflict with livestock has historically been one of the driving forces behind wolf control programmes, but studies have shown the two can live side by side if careful management strategies are in place. Less than 1% of Canadian livestock is taken by wolves. 

A subspecies of the gray wolf, the northwestern wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis), also known as the "Rocky Mountain wolf", roams the region from the Mackenzie River Valley all the way to Central Alberta. Among the largest wolves living today, these skilled hunters live primarily on a diet of hoofed animals, and have been known to hunt in packs numbering as many as 30 wolves.

Their size comes in handy when bighorn sheep are on the menu. The animals are heavy – really heavy – with males reaching 120 kilograms (279 lbs). While the unlucky sheep in the video appeared to be a juvenile, taking down one of these animals is no small feat, even for a large wolf like this one.

For Campbell, witnessing the hunt was not without some sadness for the sheep's fate, but her instinct told her not to intervene. "The wolf needs to eat too and maybe [it] had wolf cubs to feed," she said.