The Voyageurs Wolf Project posted trail-camera video one month ago showing a “wolf-dog like animal wandering forests of northern Minnesota.” The scenes were captured last winter and the release of the video garnered considerable media attention — with some organizations offering competent reporting and others maybe more focused on a clickbait headline than careful attention to detail. A new version of the video, embedded above, pokes fun at some headlines that emerged after the initial video was released.

The video’s description on the Voyageurs Wolf Project YouTube channel offers this explanation:

The “Minnesota mystery beast” who is stalking the Northwoods! Now the footage is pretty interesting…but we couldn’t help but chuckle at two particularly humorous headlines from this weekend about this unique-looking canine we captured on camera this winter.

The first headline by TMZ is by far our favorite with the Daily Mail headline a close second. But the journalism in the articles, especially the Daily Mail article, were even better. In particular, we learned that Jack London has risen from his grave and now writes our social media content.

The article states: ” ‘This was one of the stranger observations we had this winter,’ Jack London of the group posted on Facebook on August 20.”

The AI that we suspect wrote this article didn’t realize that in our original post we included a quote from Jack London’s Call of the Wild … Jack London didn’t write the post!

Ah well! Maybe they will get it right next time!

Anyway, for those who did not see our post about this peculiar animal a month ago: we documented a wolf-like, dog-like canid of sorts roaming the area this past winter. It sort of looked like a mix between a wolf and a malamute or something.

Our first two observations — Feb. 29 and March 3 — were of this animal and two actual adult wolves roaming around. But none of the wolves in this pack were part of a resident pack in our area (i.e., they were just a wandering group).

We then had 10 observations of this animal by itself from March 11 to March 20 all across the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem so this animal was roaming substantially (and likely left the area as we had no observations of the animal after March 20).

Notably, we have never seen a “wolf” that looks like this but we suspect that either this canid is a wolf with some strange mutation that makes it super fluffy and extra large (seems unlikely but trying to think through the options) … or it is a wolf-dog hybrid.

Since we have seen no evidence that wolves are breeding with dogs in our area or heard of this occurring in northern Minnesota, we think it most likely — if it is indeed a hybrid — that the animal is a hybrid that was either released or escaped.

Of course, this is all speculation and your guess is as good as ours. Just trying to think of the most likely explanation.

The Voyageurs Wolf Project is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in Voyageurs National Park, about 140 miles northwest of Duluth.