A little more than a month after the deed came down, a DNA analysis has confirmed that the gray wolf killed in Utah was indeed Echo, the same wolf that was seen, photographed and tracked near the Grand Canyon last fall, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported Wednesday.
 The analysis was done by the University of Idaho.
"Geneticists from the university’s Laboratory for Ecological, Evolutionary, and Conservation Genetics compared the DNA from the wolf killed in Utah with samples taken from the wolf near the Grand Canyon," the service said in a news release. "The results were conclusive that it is the same wolf, identified by the Service as 914F, which was collared near Cody, Wyoming on January 8, 2014 and spotted in the Grand Canyon area in the fall of last year."
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The investigation into the wolf's killing is still ongoing, the service said. The gray wolf in southern Utah is listed as endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act.
After the killing occurred, Utah wildlife officials announced that a coyote hunter accidentally shot the wolf in southwestern Utah after mistaking it for a coyote. But environmentalist Robin Silver of Flagstaff was skeptical of that story.
"Echo had a collar around her neck. But I guess all coyotes in Utah have collars, right?," said Silver, board chairman of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. "The hunter knew exactly what he was doing."
