WORLAND, Wyo. When he and his hunting partner topped a rise south of Yellowstone National Park last week in search of a moose, they heard coyotes howling and yapping. Jerry Kysar was determined to shoot one.
''It all took place in less than 30 seconds,'' the Worland man said in an interview Tuesday with the Billings Gazette. ''I jumped off the saddle, grabbed the gun out of the scabbard, chambered a round and shot.''
At about 150 to 170 yards, using a rifle stand, he aimed at the lead animal, the biggest one of the four or five, and fired as it ran through a gap in the timber.
After the creature fell, Kysar and his partner, Lynn Robirds of Powell looked it over. It wasn't a coyote, which are open to hunting in Wyoming and which Kysar said he often shoots for sport.
It may have been a wolf. If so, it would be the first one of the endangered species reported killed in the Yellowstone region since 1923. And the first physical evidence that wolves are now back in the area, biologists say. Federal authorities are still investigating the death of the animal.
Wyoming Game and Fish Department Assistant Chief Warden John Talbott doubted that Kysar would face any charges since wolves have been thought to be absent from the region for decades.
''It was like shooting a dinosaur,'' agreed Kyser, 34.
It had eyes that were ''the kind of piercing yellow you read about in books,'' he said, and large pads on its feet.
