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Wildlife Investigators: Poison Killed Colo. Wolf

DENVER (AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says a gray wolf that strayed from the Yellowstone region into Colorado where it died in 2009 was illegally killed by the poison Compound 1080.

The agency is seeking the public's help to pinpoint the source.

The only legal use for Compound 1080, or sodium fluoroacetate, in the U.S. is in collars used to protect sheep and goats from coyotes, but the poison is illegal in Colorado.

Gray wolves are considered endangered in Colorado.

The wolf that died was a female from Montana's Mill Creek pack and was wearing a tracking collar as part of an effort to improve wolf-monitoring techniques. Her collar indicated she broke from her pack and wandered about 1,000 miles to Colorado, to Eagle County.

(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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