Wisconsin duck hunter shoots and kills one of five gray wolves surrounding his cabin

A 19-year-old Wisconsin duck hunter shot and killed a gray wolf at close range while hunting on public land in Oneida County on Sept. 21, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said. Chase Melton, who was with two other teens at the time, told reporters he had no choice but to pull the trigger. Melton said their duck house was surrounded by the wolf pack, and when a wolf came within about 10 yards of him, he shot it with his 12-gauge, killing it.

“I probably could have touched it with my hand, that was really scary,” Melton said WJFW News Tuesday. “This wolf came within 15 yards and I thought, he’s still coming, he’s still coming, he came within 8 to 10 yards and that’s not what I wanted to do, but protect us and protect them… I pulled the trigger [on the closest wolf].”

A WDNR spokesperson confirmed this with Outdoor living that a game warden and a biologist investigated and confirmed that the animal Melton had shot was a wolf.

“The investigation is ongoing and we cannot share any further details at this time,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

Melton told WJFW that he and two hunting friends, ages 13 and 14, arrived at their hide near St. Germain around 3:45 a.m. Saturday morning. opening day of the waterfowl season in the northern zone of Wisconsin. Sometime around sunrise, the 14-year-old told Melton he saw a deer approaching their cabin.

“So I stood up and looked around and it was a wolf,” Melton said. “I tried to make some noise, I was clapping, stomping, breaking some sticks, whatever. This wolf turned to me and we looked at each other, and he came toward us, not like a walk, but like a jog almost … So I started to panic a little bit, they started to panic too because they’re younger kids and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got wolves around us.'”

A witness who was hunting nearby said WJFW News They saw at least five wolves surrounding the cabin, along with four other wolves nearby. The witness said they heard the wolves barking, growling and howling as they approached the teens’ duck cabin.

Melton, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, allegedly shot the nearest wolf in the face with a load of non-toxic shotgun pellets, killing the animal, according to WJFWHe then called WDNR and reported the incident as the pack retreated.

“This [one] wolf … went into the woods, came down and then grabbed this wolf that I had shot by the neck and started dragging him away,” Melton told the news. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Read more: Hunter who accidentally killed a wolf hundreds of miles from its habitat will not face charges

The DNR’s investigation focuses on, among other things, whether Melton acted in self-defense when he shot and killed the wolf. Gray wolves are listed as federally endangered in Wisconsin, although the state’s gray wolf population currently numbers around 1,000. This status may change, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a an appeal to a federal court to delist the species. For now, however, it is still illegal to kill a wolf in Wisconsin for any reason other than “in defense of human life,” according to the WDNR.

And because gray wolves are still federally managed, the USFWS will likely be involved in the DNR’s investigation as well. The federal agency is still investigating a similar incident that occurred in northern Wisconsin on Dec. 25, when a retired game warden killed a collared wolf that was hanging around his yard; he also claimed self-defense when he reported the incident to the DNR.