By RUDI KELLER
It will take three to six months to determine whether an animal killed Tuesday at Franklin Island Conservation Area is a wolf, a large coyote or a hybrid animal with characteristics of both, Missouri Department of Conservation experts say.
A hunter who has asked the department not to disclose his identity was bow hunting for deer at about 8 a.m. when the animal came into range, Cooper County conservation agent Mike Abdon said. Coyotes are in season and the hunter had a permit, so he shot what he thought might be a state-record coyote, Abdon said.
“The reason he shot this animal was that he thought it was an above-average size coyote that would make a good mount,” Abdon said.
By the time Abdon arrived in Boonville — the hunter called to report the kill about 10:30 a.m. — there was a crowd milling around the hunter’s pickup truck.
“I wasn’t quite for sure what it was,” Abdon said. “It looked like a coyote, but it didn’t.”
The animal weighed 81 pounds — the largest coyote on record nationally is 74 pounds — and Abdon ordered it taken to the department’s regional office in Columbia for testing. Department biologists said it was not fully mature, Abdon said.
“My first thoughts of it was just the sheer size of its feet,” he said. “Its overall size was also a determining factor.”
The only thing the department knows for sure about the animal is its weight, that it is a male and that it had no tags or markings that would indicate it had once been a captive animal, said Joanie Straub, spokeswoman for the regional office.
There are no known wild wolves living in Missouri, according to the department. Gray wolves, native to the state, were hunted to extinction here by the end of the 19th century. The department has never attempted to reintroduce wolves or any other large carnivores, said John George, regional wildlife supervisor.
“It is very controversial to reintroduce any type of large carnivore,” George said. “You need huge blocks of undeveloped land when you consider that.”
An increasing number of mountain lions have been found in the state after wandering from their home ranges. The animal killed Tuesday might be a wolf that traveled hundreds of miles in search of new territory, George said. A wolf was killed by a landowner in 2010 in Carroll County, and another was shot in 2002 in Grundy County. Both had wandered to the state from the northwest, George said.
Other explanations for the animal — which the DNA testing should settle, George said — include the possibility that it is a dog-wolf hybrid that has been released or escaped after being kept as a pet.
If the animal is a wolf, the department will dispose of it. If it is a coyote, it will be returned to the hunter to be mounted.
“He had the right permits that he needed to hunt coyotes,” Abdon said. “It was certainly legal for him to be doing what he was doing the morning he was out there hunting. If it turns out to be a coyote, he can have it back.”