In December 2021, an 85 pound wolf was killed less than one hundred miles from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont in central New York State, west of Albany.  It was the eleventh documented wolf that we know of killed south of the St. Lawrence River since 1993.  The hunter notified the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation which subsequently visited and took samples of the animal for DNA analyses.

The NYSDEC officers told the shooter that he would not be prosecuted because “there are no wolves in New York”.  Wolves are protected in New York and were protected as a state endangered species when it was killed.  Wolf advocates also had the animal tested.  Trent University in Ontario, Canada found that the animal was 99.98% wolf.

The NYSDEC sent their samples to a lab in Pennsylvania with no experience analyzing the complex DNA of northeast canids.  Based upon an apparently flawed conclusion, NYSDEC claimed that the animal was a coyote.  Of course, NYSDEC made no acknowledgement of the fact that there is no such animal as an 85 pound coyote.