LOS ANGELES, May 12 (Xinhua) -- The Yellowstone National Park announced Thursday that it offered a reward of up to 5,000 U.S. Dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who killed a rare white wolf in the park.
According to the press release of Yellowstone, the first national park of the United States, National Park Service law enforcement believed that the well-known female white wolf was shot on the north side of the park, near Gardiner of Montana and the incident likely occurred sometime between April 10 at 1 am and April 11 at 2pm.
Hikers discovered the mortally wounded wolf on April 11, Yellowstone National Park said, due to the severity of the wolf's injuries, it had to be euthanized. The deceased wolf was sent to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon for a necropsy. The lab transferred the preliminary results to Park Thursday.
"Due to the serious nature of this incident, a reward of up to 5,000 U.S. Dollars is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual(s) responsible for this criminal act," said Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Dan Wenk.
The 12-year old alpha female, one of only three white wolves known to reside within the iconic wilderness park, was also one of the park' s most popular animals, who were sought after by visitors to view and photograph.
Yellowstone National Park, widely held to be the first national park in the the world, located in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The latter two states allowed wolf hunting and Wyoming was scheduled to renew the hunting since from this fall.
