Genetic tests have revealed that an animal killed in a legal coyote hunt in Michigan’s Calhoun County was actually a gray wolf, state officials say. But experts don’t know how the animal got there in the first place.
Calhoun County is located in the southern half of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, where no gray wolves (Canis lupus) have been sighted for over a century. A population of around 630 gray wolves inhabits the state’s Upper Peninsula, 250 miles (400 kilometers) away, and some wolves have occasionally been spotted in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula — roughly 130 miles (200 km) from Calhoun County.
“While rare, instances of wolves traversing large distances have been documented, including signs of wolves in recent decades in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula,” Brian Roell, a biologist and large carnivore specialist with the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), said in a statement.
They seem to be emphasizing “legal coyote hunt.” The reality is, any shooter is supposed to identify their target and what is behind it. As a hunter, if you can not 100% identify the animal, you don’t pull the trigger. To the letter of the law (and responsible firearms handling), this was a bad shot. If I have a doe tag and shoot an antlerless buck, I have not made a legal harvest.
The wolf was over 80lbs, 2-4x as much as a coyote would have been.
Definitely a bad shot
I’ve seen some very large coyotes in the PNW, ones that could easily be mistaken for wolves if I didn’t already know there are no wolves in my area. So I can understand why the shooter thought it was a coyote, considering there were supposedly no wolves in their area.
Someone saw a wolf AND an opportunity.