The mysterious unidentified animal found in Pennsylvania that experts believed could have been a coyote or dog has finally been identified.
WPXI reports the animal, which escaped from Wildlife Works Inc. and ran back into the wild last month, has been confirmed to be a coyote.
Wildlife Works Inc. confirmed the animal left its cage destroyed and trashed the hospital area of the facility before escaping in a post shared on its Facebook account on January 27.
The Pennsylvania facility said the animal hadn’t previously shown signs of aggression and noted that a window seal was discovered to have been chewed prior to its escape.
In January, WPXI reported that a local Fairfield Township woman helped rescue the mysterious animal, which experts had been unable to identify.
“I wasn’t quite sure, but … it was scared and it was cold and all I could think about was this animal needed help,” Christina Eyth told the news staiton.
Eyth said she noticed paw prints outside her home earlier this week and assumed it was a neighbor’s loose dog, so she followed the animal’s tracks and located what appeared to be a small dog outside her basement.
However, WildLife Works Mount Pleasant was unable to determine whether the mysterious animal is a dog or coyote.
“It’s definitely a coyote, no it’s a dog; so with there being so much question, that’s whenever they got the Wildlife [Works] involved,” Eyth said via WPXI.
Eyth said she was able to coax the animal into following her into her basement before she called TJ’s Rescue Hideway, who sent Morgan Barron, a certified wildlife rehabilitator with Wildlife Works Mount Pleasant.
Wildlife Works Mount Pleasant confirmed in a post shared on its Facebook page that it began treatment and collected a sample, which was sent out and returned for the confirmation received this week.
