Famed wolf “Echo” has been killed by a coyote hunter in southern Utah who mistook the wolf, identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as 914F, for a coyote and subsequently shot it to death.
In Utah, it is legal for anyone to hunt coyotes.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s Michael Robinson indicated in a press release that wolves and coyotes can be distinguished between “if one pauses for a second before pulling a trigger,” as there are consequences for shooting before identifying the target.
Wolves and coyotes are distinguishable if one pauses for a second before pulling a trigger […] There are consequences for pulling the trigger when you don’t know what you’re aiming at. It’s important to have justice for this animal.
Robinson said in the release that “Echo came to a heartbreaking end, but her odyssey through forest and desert shows that excellent habitat still remains for wolves in the American West,” the Huffington Post indicated in a report.
The female wolf named Echo achieved notoriety when she became the first gray wolf seen in the Grand Canyon in over 70 years. She traveled hundreds of miles from Wyoming to Arizona to pull off this impressive canine feat in what federal officials indicated was likely a search for or a mate or food.
Geneticists compared DNA from the wolf accidentally killed by a hunter in Utah with some samples that were previously taken from Echo and the results confirmed that the dead wolf and Echo were one in the same. She was killed about 200 miles north of the Grand Canyon in the Tushar Mountains outside of Beaver, Utah.
The rate at which hunters mistake wolves for coyotes is a major issue, according to the SF Gate.
Wolves are typically twice as big as coyotes, have rounder ears and snouts, bigger feet and longer legs, according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resource’s Kim Hersey.
Can you tell the difference between a coyote and a wolf?
