Animal Not Seen In Decades Pops Back Up In New York

When I was still a small town radio DJ in southern Arizona, we got some major news. A Wild Grey Wolf had been shot and killed in the Huachuca Mountains, just a few miles from where we were located.

This was huge, as this is an incredibly rare species, and should be protected at all costs. Who knew the story would follow me to New York...

Finding Something Strange

In late 2021, a hunter came back home with something odd. A massive animal that slightly resembled a coyote, but could have been something else entirely. After thorough research in 2022, the animal was identified as a wolf, a strange occurrence in these parts.

That's not the whole story, however. It took three more years to truly find the origin of this animal, and it shook researchers to their core. This wolf isn't native to New York, in fact, it's not native to the Northeast at all...

Why is This Significant?

The study conducted this year proved that the wolf had 99.9% of its ancestry traced back to the Great Lakes region, specifically from Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. That means the wolf likely had to migrate over 750 miles in order to reach Cherry Valley (where it was shot).

This is the first time one of these wolves was found south of the St. Lawrence River in decades. As such, the hunting of these animals is prohibited in New York State. Luckily for the hunter, this particular wolf was nearly indistinguishable from a Coyote, and he immediately reported the hunt to the Department of Environmental Conservation to aid in the study.