A wolf hybrid escaped from Wolf Ledge Refuge and Education Center Sept. 23 and attacked a neighbor’s chicken before the hybrid’s caretaker recaptured it.
Luna, a seven-year-old hybrid, was on the loose for about 15-20 minutes, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jason Nein estimated.
Jim Doughty is the founder and president of the controversial sanctuary and owner of the 42 Crooker Rd. property that is both home to the refuge and Doughty’s residence.
Doughty and the neighbor, Stacey Simmons, offered slightly different versions of the day’s events.
Doughty said he left to go to the Bristol Mills Post Office between 11 a.m. and noon, received a call “immediately” after Luna’s escape and corralled the hybrid inside of 10 minutes.
Doughty alleged Luna escaped when Doughty’s estranged wife entered his home “without authorization” and unintentionally let Luna out. He said he has changed the locks on his home to avoid a repeat incident.
He characterized the escape as an isolated incident at an otherwise secure facility, where fencing restricts the animals’ movements.
Simmons lives at 123 Poor Farm Rd. A single property separates her residence from Doughty and the hybrids.
Simmons said she was extremely frightened when Luna showed up.
“I threw a rug” at the hybrid in an attempt to scare it away from her chickens, Simmons said. “It completely ignored me.”
Luna didn’t growl at Simmons or otherwise threaten her, she said. The hybrid did, however, seize one of her chickens, carrying it into the woods.
The chicken remained missing, presumed dead by law enforcement and Simmons alike, until, the following day, “she miraculously [came] out of the woods… bloody and injured,” Simmons wrote in an e-mail to The Lincoln County News.
“She looks okay,” Simmons said. “She looks like she’s going to make it.”
Luna roamed around Simmons’ property for about a half-hour before Doughty picked her up, she said.
Simmons has opposed the refuge since the planning stages. “It’s a wonderful thing that [Doughty is] doing,” she said. “It just doesn’t belong here.”
Simmons, a mother of a five-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son and a bus driver for Bristol Consolidated School, expressed fears for the safety of her children and the neighborhood children who use her home as a bus stop.
“I’m glad they were in school,” she said.
Doughty said he had been willing to replace Simmons’ chicken before learning of its recovery.
Sgt. Nein said he has completed a report and will submit it to Bristol Animal Control Officer Candace Wall for review and “further enforcement action,” should Wall deem appropriate.
Wall did not return a message left Sept. 27.
Doughty, who owned two hybrids prior to opening the refuge, currently houses four and is licensed for as many as 18.
Last June, during the height of the Wolf Ledge controversy, one of Doughty’s pet hybrids escaped and killed a chicken belonging to another neighbor.
Doughty blamed the 2010 escape on vandals. He told The Lincoln County News reporter someone unlatched the animal’s pen and moved a large rock. Doughty said it would have been otherwise impossible for the hybrid to open the gate.
