Eastern Gray Wolf in Western Massachusetts

[kfactor]

This came out last week, but in case you haven't heard, I thought I would post about this.

A male Eastern Gray Wolf was shot and killed in Shelburne, MA in October 2007. It seems a local farmer found that some of his lambs had been killed and half-eaten by some predator (poor little lambs!). The MA Wildlife folks came out to the farmer's property and examined it. They informed the farmer that he had the right to shoot any animal that was killing his livestock.

The next day the farmer killed the creature - a wolf-like animal... But nobody knew for sure if it was a purebred wolf or a coyote/dog/wolf hybrid. Results of DNA testing confirmed that it was, in fact, an eastern gray wolf.

The nearest known eastern gray wolves are in Ontario, Canada, though one was killed in Northern Maine in 1993 (I believe).

Rather exciting, since wolves have been gone from Massachusetts since the early-to-mid 19th Century... I believe even by Lizzie's day, there weren't any wolves around.

Here is a link to the story: http://www.fws.gov/news/NewsReleases/sh ... 009EB7199C