Photo: WildLife Works Mount Pleasant
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.
"We don't know how to tell you this, but the "coyote" escaped last night. We are devastated, and we know you all will be devastated too. No one feels worse than Morgan," Wildlife Works Inc. wrote in the Facebook post.
"When she got up this AM and went to her hospital building, she was met with the horrifying site of a destroyed empty cage and a trashed hospital area (see photos). There were scratches on the walls, especially below the window; the window seal was chewed until he was able to force the window open, then he tore through the screen. Not in our wildest dreams did we expect something like this!"
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.