The truth about the “wolf dog” discovered in Antioquia

For weeks, in the municipality of Rionegro, in Antioquia, there has been a shock at the discovery of a confused animal. Although for some it was a dog, for others it seemed to be a wolf. After a genetic study, it became known that this is a cross between the two animals. It was on February 22 when, in the company of the Police and the Oversight Office, the Cornare Forests and Biodiversity Group took the respective biological samples to determine the categorization of the suspected canine.

“We sampled the cells of the cheek from the mouth of the animal for the extraction of the genetic material, it was sent in chain of custody and complying with the technical requirements of the laboratories. Based on the results, we decided that there is a need for a joint stance of all entities and to create a committee that represents decision makers and that will evaluate possible management measures,” explained David Echeverri López, Coordinator of the Cornare Forests and Biodiversity Group, around February.

With the discovery that the animal is a hybrid between dog and wolf, the entities that will take care of it enter the topic of conversation, since, it should be borne in mind that with both species inside, it cannot be considered 100% domestic or totally wild. The organizations to work on the case are Cornare, the Municipal Administration and the National Police. The animal was discovered on a farm in Rionegro, there it was considered as a pet.

“In addition, it was concluded that investigations will continue in order to determine whether there are merits for the imposition of sanctioning measures and those competent to do so,” Cornare said. According to the owner of the animal, it was a Czechoslovak dog that had entered the country legally. The animal, says the one who had it in his home, had even arrived in Colombia on a commercial flight.

“This has been a process resulting from the irresponsibility of a citizen, from which it is already possible to establish that he brought a hybrid and who fails to determine how he entered the country. But beyond establishing that kind of responsibility, what commits us all today is the welfare of the animal (...) We believe that this is a biological risk and potential invasive, which could endanger native species, domestic fauna and the civilian population, and that it will serve as a route for future cases in other regions of the country,” said Rionegro's citizen observer, Carlos Osorno Uribe.

As explained by David Echeverri, a biologist at the autonomous corporation Cornare, we must wait to hear the decision of the Mayor's Office of Rionegro and the Police to determine the procedure to follow now with the animal. “It is an animal that cannot be part of a rehabilitation program to return to wildlife because it becomes a genetic risk to wild wolf populations, so it can never be released,” he said.

According to information from local media, the animal was brought from the United States 7 years ago and baptized by its adoptive family as Winter (winter, in Spanish). The owner insists that it is a domestic species. The farm where the animal arrived is located in the El Tablazo village, located near the José María Córdova Airport in Rionegro.

At the end of December last year, it was an animalist foundation that made the complaint. In a video, the animal was seen, howling, tied around the neck with a chain. “This is the pain of a wild animal, which has always lived in freedom (...) after being marketed, was brought to Colombia and is located in the municipality of Rionegro Antioquia vereda el Tablazo. The animalist community in Antioquia and around the world is outraged by the persistence of human beings to enslave any species there is. These chains add to the pain of abuse and loneliness, knowing that he lost his freedom and even more so of sharing of his pack, since we know that the wolf is a monogamous being and highly attached to his family, because he defends it to death”, the complaint reads.

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