A grey wolf was spotted in Kentucky last March. This was the first grey wolf seen in the state in 150 years... so they shot it.
It’s a wildlife mystery.The first documented free-ranging wolf in Kentucky’s modern history was shot and killed by an unsuspecting hunter, state wildlife officials have announced.
No charges are expected to be brought because there’s no reason for any hunter to expect a wolf to be in the state, since they haven’t been here for more than a century, according to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
The shooting occurred in March — and state officials said they were at first skeptical, Mark Marriccini told me this morning. When state officials first heard about it, they thinking it might have been someone’s German shepherd, he said. But they crossed all their t’s and dotted all their i’s in an effort to confirm the animal’s identity, sending DNA samples out for confirmation.
DNA analysis performed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Wildlife Research Center in Colorado determined the 73-pound animal was a federally endangered gray wolf with a genetic makeup resembling wolves native to the Great Lakes Region. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory in Oregon confirmed the finding.
How the wolf found its way to a Munfordville hay ridge at daybreak in March remains a mystery, the agency reports. Wolves have been gone from the state since the mid-1800s.
Wolves have been in the rebound in the northern Rocky Mountains and in the Great Lakes region — and they sometimes are known to roam great distances. But Marriccini said this one showed some signs of possibly having lived part of its life in captivity.
It had a large amount of plaque on its teeth — a characteristic common of wolves that have been in captivity. A largely carnivorous diet requiring the crushing of bone as they eat produces much less plaque on the teeth of wild wolves, officials said.
“We just don’t know,” Marriccini said.
The wolf was taken by a hunter near Munfordville in Hart County on March 16, officials said. A hunting forum features some photos purportedly of the animal. Caution: they are a bit graphic.
State officials identified the hunter as Hart County resident James Troyer, and said Troyer shot the animal from 100 yards away while predator hunting on his family’s farm. Troyer, 31, said he had taken a coyote off the property just two weeks earlier, according to state officials. But when he approached the downed animal he noticed it was much larger.
“I was like – wow – that thing was big!” he recalled. “It looked like a wolf, but who is going to believe I shot a wolf?”
Wolves resemble coyotes, except they are much larger. From a distance, the size difference is difficult to determine, officials said.
Troyer convinced Kevin Raymond, a wildlife biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, to look at the animal. Once Raymond saw the animal was twice the size of a coyote, he contacted furbearer biologist Laura Patton, who submitted samples to federal officials for DNA testing.
Because state and federal laws prohibit the possession, importation into Kentucky or hunting of gray wolves, federal officials took possession of the pelt.
Gray wolves have been on the federal endangered species list, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service this year declared them recovered, and proposed taking them off the list.
http://blogs.courier-journal.com/watchdogearth/2013/08/15/yes-it-was-a-wolf-in-kentucky/
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