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Genetic tests have reveal that an fauna kill in a legal coyote hunt in Michigan ’s Calhoun County was really a grizzly wolf , nation officials say . But experts do n’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 nogray wolves(Canis lupus ) have been spy for over a 100 . A population ofaround 630 gray wolvesinhabits the state ’s Upper Peninsula , 250 mile ( 400 klick ) off , and some wolf have occasionally been spotted in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula — roughly 130 miles ( 200 km ) from Calhoun County .
A gray wolf (Canis lupus) photographed in the wild in Wisconsin.
" While rare , illustration of wolf cover large distance have been document , admit signs of wolves in recent decades in Michigan ’s Lower Peninsula , " Brian Roell , a life scientist and large carnivore specialist with the state ’s Department of Natural Resources ( DNR ) , said in astatement .
The most late reported gray Hugo Wolf sighting in the northern Lower Peninsula was in 2014 , when biologists from the piffling Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians — whose central office are located 220 miles ( 350 km ) north of Calhoun County — spotted a wolf on a trail tv camera during an bird of Jove survey , consort to the statement .
However , the bearing of gray wolves as far south as Calhoun County is extremely unusual , and the DNR is enquire how and why the fauna ended up there .
The gray was vote out during a legal hunt in January . A hunting watch enjoin he mistook the wolf for a large coyote .
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The animal weighed 84 pounds ( 38 kilo ) , which is four time as heavy as a westerly coyote ( Canis latrans ) and double the fair weight of an easterly coyote — a hybrid specie with both prairie wolf and beast parentage that colonised areas of North America after the ablation of wolves in the early 20th 100 .
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It ’s improbable the greyish wolf belonged to an lay down population in the southern Lower Peninsula and there is no need for worry about broader beast presence in this part of Michigan , DNR experts suppose .
" This is an unusual case , and the DNR is actively turn over into the subject to learn more about this particular beast ’s origin , " Roell said .
Wolvesonce roamed all across Michigan , but persecution by European settlers and a bounty established in 1838 push the population out of the Lower Peninsula .
Intense sign in the early 20th 100 threatened the remaining Wolf in the Upper Peninsula , but the population bounced back after lawmakers revoke the bounty in 1960 , and the animals have been under the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act since 1973 .
