vermonsta
10-08-2006, 10:02 PM
f you missed the story in Friday's paper about the 91-pound, wolf-looking creature shot in North Troy last week, here's the brief version:
Last Sunday, Charlie Hammond used his .223 to shoot an animal he thought was a coyote on the edge of a farm field. After he had it weighed on two scales at separate big-game check-in stations -- and it weighed more than 90 pounds -- Hammond showed the big canine to biologists at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department office in St. Johnsbury.
Hammond knew it was not an ordinary coyote, which are usually in the 40-45-pound range.
The biologists aren't sure what it is, either. They've sent tissue samples off for DNA testing.
Did Hammond shoot the first known wolf in the Green Mountain State since they were wiped out at the end of the 19th century? And if it is a wolf, what species of wolf is it? Is it a wild animal, or a wolf hybrid raised in captivity and illegally set free?
I have none of those answers, but perhaps later this week, after biologists analyze the stomach contents, we'll all have a better idea of just where this big animal came from.
It's entirely possible what Hammond shot was an animal that was raised in captivity, but Hammond, in a phone interview, said he'd heard word of an extra-large coyote running in the woods around Newport for some time.
"We'd heard about a really, really big animal last winter," Hammond, 49, said. "Residents around here had seen it and the stories would get back to us. Because it had such big feet, I guess if we had seen its tracks in the woods, we would not have thought it was a coyote or a wolf."
Perhaps the pre-eminent wolf researcher in eastern Canada, Brent Patterson of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, has seen digital photographs of the animal Hammond shot and is not ruling out the possibility that it came from the wild.
The DNA testing, if Vermont Fish and Wildlife asks for it on the fast track, could be back by the end of the month.
Last Sunday, Charlie Hammond used his .223 to shoot an animal he thought was a coyote on the edge of a farm field. After he had it weighed on two scales at separate big-game check-in stations -- and it weighed more than 90 pounds -- Hammond showed the big canine to biologists at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department office in St. Johnsbury.
Hammond knew it was not an ordinary coyote, which are usually in the 40-45-pound range.
The biologists aren't sure what it is, either. They've sent tissue samples off for DNA testing.
Did Hammond shoot the first known wolf in the Green Mountain State since they were wiped out at the end of the 19th century? And if it is a wolf, what species of wolf is it? Is it a wild animal, or a wolf hybrid raised in captivity and illegally set free?
I have none of those answers, but perhaps later this week, after biologists analyze the stomach contents, we'll all have a better idea of just where this big animal came from.
It's entirely possible what Hammond shot was an animal that was raised in captivity, but Hammond, in a phone interview, said he'd heard word of an extra-large coyote running in the woods around Newport for some time.
"We'd heard about a really, really big animal last winter," Hammond, 49, said. "Residents around here had seen it and the stories would get back to us. Because it had such big feet, I guess if we had seen its tracks in the woods, we would not have thought it was a coyote or a wolf."
Perhaps the pre-eminent wolf researcher in eastern Canada, Brent Patterson of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, has seen digital photographs of the animal Hammond shot and is not ruling out the possibility that it came from the wild.
The DNA testing, if Vermont Fish and Wildlife asks for it on the fast track, could be back by the end of the month.