First wolf found in Mass. in 160 years, promptly shot and killed

[China]

First wolf found in Mass. in 160 years

March 4, 2008 03:03 PM

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

More than 160 years since hunters drove wolves out of Massachusetts, federal officials have confirmed finding a wild gray wolf in the state.

US Fish and Wildlife Service officials said today that genetic tests performed on an animal killed on a Shelburne farm in October, after it mauled more than a dozen sheep, showed that it was an eastern gray wolf.

"We have no indication that this wolf was ever held in captivity," said Thomas J. Healy, special agent in charge of the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Northeast Region. "But what we don't know about this wolf's origins far outweighs what we do know."

The confirmation is giving wildlife enthusiasts hope that the animal may one day reestablish itself in the forests of the Northeast. Wolves were aggressively hunted by farmers in the early 1800s until virtually none were left. The nearest established populations to New England are in Ontario and Quebec.

While the public often reports sighting wolves, most of those animals turn out to be coyotes or wolf-dog, wolf-coyote mixes, officials say. The last time a purebred wolf that did not live in captivity was found in New England was around 1992 in Maine.

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[GibbsFactor]

Humans, got to love em.

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

Sorta like when the California Condor, which was on the verge of extinction, was released from captivity and shot two weeks later

[SkinInsite]

That'll show them!

[The_cavalierman]

Stay Classy Mass

[Enter Apotheosis]

People are brilliant.

[jpillian]

Damn farmers wanting to keep their livestock alive.

[SpringfieldSkins]

It's global warming I tell ya! Soon enough we'll have polar bears in Mass.

[Big Ted]

Damn farmers wanting to keep their livestock alive.

i was about to say the same thing

[BigMike619]

Damn farmers wanting to keep their livestock alive.

Seriously!!

This thing had a taste for blood. No matter where you put it the thing was going to kill again.

Sorry pet lovers of this board but its a fact. Kill the beast so that the farmer can keep his livestock and livelihood.

[Sticksboi05]

Seriously!!

This thing had a taste for blood. No matter where you put it the thing was going to kill again.

Sorry pet lovers of this board but its a fact. Kill the beast so that the farmer can keep his livestock and livelihood.

Yeah the farmer has to be able to sustain his livestock, BUT it is a wolf so what do you expect it to do? You gotta eat somehow. There is nothing wrong with it killing and eating his animals.

[Rumrunner6900]

mmmm....gray wolf!

[GoSkins561]

Yeah the farmer has to be able to sustain his livestock, BUT it is a wolf so what do you expect it to do? You gotta eat somehow. There is nothing wrong with it killing and eating his animals.

Tell that to the farmer that pays for those animals on his land, that is worth possibly millions of dollars. I love hunting however I am highly against bear hunting in Maryland unless the bears are damaging crops, which is sometimes the case.

One of my favorite things to do when I went to Frostburg was to watch the bears raid a small butchers trash can in the middle of no where. When I say middle of no where, I mean horse and buggie country. Great stuff, those same bears that I loved to watch, would also wreck peoples livlihood, in that case it is okay to kill them.

[prophet]

I have to side with the farmer on this one.

[BigMike619]

Yeah the farmer has to be able to sustain his livestock, BUT it is a wolf so what do you expect it to do? You gotta eat somehow. There is nothing wrong with it killing and eating his animals.

Im not saying that they should go hunting wolfs now in Mass. But that wolf KNEW where his sheep were and kept going back which is why he got 12 of them. He wasnt going to stop with a simple swat on the butt with a rolled up newspaper and the odds of you catching it before it killed again wasnt going to be that high.

it was best that they killed it and ended it before one of their children or grandchildren ended up dead.