Mysterious wolf-like creature shot in northcentral Montana near Denton

[Mileage Psycho]

Strange looking animal.

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So what was it? At this point, no one is 100 percent sure.

 

"We have no idea what this was until we get a DNA report back," said Bruce Auchly, information manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "It was near a rancher's place, it was shot, and our game wardens went to investigate. The whole animal was sent to our lab in Bozeman. That's the last I ever heard of it."

Grizzly cub? Dogman? Dire wolf? Or what?

"That's a grizzly cub," one commentator wrote. "Under a year and starving from the look."

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"Maybe a dire wolf," wrote another, "because I don't believe they are all gone."

Speculation roamed as far as identifying that animal as a crypto-canid species said to roam the forests of North America.

"That could very well be what’s being called Dogman,"  one poster suggested. "They’re spotted each day and the government quells any and all reports. Several people report being strong armed into keeping quiet about their reports by men wearing black suits. These are just facts. Look into if if you don’t believe it."

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Auchly doesn't.

"First off (dire wolf) was a song by the Grateful Dead from 1971," he said of the prehistoric species speculation. "I know; I listened to it many times. Number two, it's a prehistoric animal, like mastodons and saber toothed tigers; so it doesn't exist."

As for the Dogman theory; there's a regular Friday night YouTube broadcast called "Dogman Encounters" for those who wish to follow up on that line of thought. It comes on right after "Bigfoot Eyewitness" radio.

Nonetheless, there remains an element of uncertainty about the creature, even among wildlife biologists. 

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"Several things grabbed my attention when I saw the pictures," said Ty Smucker, wolf management specialist for Montana FWP. "The ears are too big. The legs look a little short. The feet look a little small, and the coat looks weird. There's just something off about it."

Possible wolf/dog hybrid

Smucker's own speculation runs toward some type of wolf/dog hybrid. He noted several occasions within the last few years in which canid predators, neither all wolf nor all dog were causing problems with ranchers east of the Continental Divide.

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"We've had a few instances of wolf/dog hybrids out there," Smucker said. "One was out somewhere in eastern central Montana killing sheep like crazy. Finally, we caught it and it turned out to be a hybrid."

Wolves and dogs are unique in the animal world, in that they can interbreed and produce offspring that can, in turn, produce their own litters. This is unlike the pairing of a horse and a donkey, which will produce a mule; but mules are always infertile and incapable of producing offspring on their own.

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Wolfdog ownership and interbreeding by private citizens remains controversial.

According to the International Wolf Center, nearly all wolfdogs are bred in captivity. Wolves and dogs can breed in the wild, but this occurrence is very rare; largely because wolves are very territorial and more likely to kill an unfamiliar dog that enters their home range rather than accept it into a pack.  

https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2018/05/24/wolf-dog-dogman-some-mysterious-creature-montanans-look-answers/634379002/