‘Mystery’ wolf-dog hybrid spotted on trail cam in northern Minnesota

A team of wolf researchers spotted a uniquely large and fluffy wolf-like animal trotting through their trail camera footage, which they think could be a hybrid between a dog and a wolf in northern Minnesota.

The Voyageurs Wolf Project, which sets up trail cameras to study wolf behavior in and around Voyageurs National Park, said the animal is “one of the stranger observations we had this winter” in a post on X. The large animal was first recorded traveling near the park on Feb. 29 and March 3.

The video shows two purebred wolves traveling south of the park along with a larger brown-coated animal with unique color patterns. The researchers’ post described the animal as a “wolf-like, dog-like canid of sorts roaming the area.” Tom Gable, project lead for the Voyageurs Wolf Project, said he is still uncertain what the animal is.

“I don’t know for sure what the story is, but it definitely looks different than typical wolves in our area,” Gable said.

He noted that it’s possible a wolf could have mated with a dog to create this animal, or that it could have been born with a mutation.

“We would surmise the options are either it’s a wolf with some physiological issue that made it have giant fluffy fur and really big, or it’s got some amount of dog in it,” Gable said.

After the initial two sightings south of the park, the animal left the two wolves it was traveling with, and was seen 10 more times on its own between March 11 and 20. The sightings were “all over the place” in the Voyageurs study area, Gable said.

“It’s just an interesting discovery, and a mystery that we’ll probably never have the answer to,” he said.