MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – A 92-pound canine killed by a coyote hunter last year in Troy was a wolf, but scientists say it’s unlikely the animal reached Vermont on its own.

DNA testing on the animal’s carcass by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showed its genetic makeup was that of the gray wolf of the Northwest and a subspecies of wolf found in the upper Great Lakes, said Kim Royar, the fur biologist for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Based on the fact that interbreeding between these distinct populations has never been documented in the wild, they believe it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible, this animal was a result of natural breeding,” she said.

Still, there is mounting evidence that wolves from northern Quebec are finding their way on their own into the area south of the St. Lawrence River, including Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Over the last decade or so there have been a handful of confirmed cases of wild wolves being found in the region. Other cases, including the 1997 recovery of a large canine from Glover, are being retested for wolf ancestry, said Michael Amaral, an endangered species specialist for the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service in Concord, N.H.

The possibility there could be wolves in the wild is great enough that Royar and Amaral both warned coyote hunters in the region to be sure about the animals they shoot. A hunter who kills a wolf, which is listed as an endangered species, could be prosecuted in federal court.

“If you’re coyote hunting and you look through your scope and see a 35-pound coyote, pull the trigger,” Amaral said. “But if you look through your binoculars and say ‘Wow, look at the size of that animal, that is the biggest coyote I have even seen,’ I would pause and I would look for other features.”

Trying to determine if wild wolves are in the region is complicated because wolves or wolf hybrids are kept by people.

“It’s always a legitimate question. Where did these animals come from? It’s not that uncommon to have wolf-like animals released in the wild,” said Wally Jakubas, the mammal group leader for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Wolves were eliminated in the northeastern United States in the late 19th century, but ideal habitat for the animals exists in remote parts of Maine, New Hampshire and New York’s Adirondack mountains.

Efforts to reintroduce wolves to the region have gone nowhere, but there are populations of wolves in Canada, just north of the St. Lawrence River, a significant barrier that keeps most wolves from dispersing south. But every few years biologists get reports of large wolf-like animals and as DNA testing improves it becomes easier to identify where those animals came from.

Wolves can travel hundreds of miles as they disperse from where they were born.

In 2004, Canadian biologists said that genetic testing showed than a 62-pound canine killed just north of the Vermont border in 2002 was the first confirmed case of a wolf found below the St. Lawrence in 100 years.

There’s no question wild wolves have reached northern Maine, said Jakubas. Samples from a large animal found in that state in 1996 that were retested this spring showed that it was a Canadian wolf from north of the St. Lawrence.

“I think you’ll probably see occasional animals that are dispersing, but a dispersing animal is a long way from establishing a population,” Jakubas said. “You need a male and a female to find each other and stay alive long enough to breed. It’s just very occasional dispersals that are going on.”

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