The Denton Mystery Canid: the Wolf-Like Creature Shot in Montana

Denton is a small town in Fergus County, central Montana. Ranch country. In 2018 the state was home to about 900 wolves. Under Montana law, anyone who kills one must report it to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, known as FWP.

Wednesday, May 16, 2018, on a ranch outside Denton. An animal moved through a private pasture with livestock and came within several hundred yards of the rancher's animals. He shot it, and reported the kill to FWP as a wolf. His name was never published, and his own account of the living animal never appeared. Everything the world knows about the creature comes from its body, and from the photographs FWP took of it.

The photos showed a shaggy, wolf-like creature with long grayish-brown fur, a large head and a snout. The ears seemed larger than average. The legs and body looked too short for a typical wolf. To some, it looked like an Ice Age animal.

Several FWP wolf specialists studied the images. They collectively doubted it was a purebred wolf. In their words, "the canine teeth were too short, the front paws too small and the claws on the front paw were too long." Ty Smucker, FWP's wolf management specialist, put it simply: "There's just something off about it."

An FWP spokesman went further. "Something was not right about the animal. It does not look like a wild wolf." Information manager Bruce Auchly would not guess. "We have no idea what this was until we get a DNA report back."

On May 22, the North American Dogman Project tweeted a photo. "Unusual Wolf hybrid from Denton Montana," it read, followed by tags for dogman, cryptid, Bigfoot, paranormal and werewolf. The creature was soon called a werewolf, a dire wolf, a dogman, a "Franken-dog," a chupacabra and "Big Foot's baby." Some reached back further, to the Shunka Warak'in, Montana's classic mystery canid, killed in the Madison Valley in 1886.

Tissue samples were taken at the FWP Wildlife Health Lab in Bozeman and sent to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service forensic lab in Ashland, Oregon. FWP's working theory was a wolf-dog hybrid. Others suggested a wolf-coyote cross, or an abandoned pet. Smucker recalled an earlier animal in eastern central Montana, one that was "killing sheep like crazy." It had turned out to be a hybrid.

On June 18, 2018, the answer arrived. The lab had compared the animal's DNA with thousands of samples from wolves, coyotes and dogs. The verdict: "this animal is a gray wolf from the northern Rocky Mountains." A closer inspection in Bozeman had revealed a relatively normal looking, dark brown wolf. She was a non-lactating female, 2 to 3 years old, 45 inches from nose to rump and 84.5 pounds.

FWP put the confusion down to the animal's condition and to the photos, which seemed to show short legs and big ears. Experts added that any unusual features were likely shared by her family members. USFWS geneticist Mary Curtis was unsurprised. "Within species there can be variability that's not surprising at all." Warden Zach Norris found the shooting lawful.

The mystery was solved. The comparison stuck. In 2025, Distinctly Montana called the Denton animal "an interesting but by no means definitive sequel" to the 1886 kill later mounted as the "ringdocus." Even so, the magazine accepted the science. "The creature was a grey wolf, plain and simple."