WOLVES IN THE WEALD ?

During the late ‘90s I received a report from a highly reliable witness named Dave M, regarding an unusual sighting pertaining to a creature that was described as fox-like, but with stilted legs, a black mane on its back and a long snout. The witness said the animal was nosing around in the gutter of a remote country lane, near Chattendean Wood, stared into the headlights and was gone in a flash. The man who saw the animal was startled as he thought it resembled a wolf! Further research pointed at a Maned Wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), not a close relation to the wolf, an endangered animal native to Central and Eastern America which can reach over four-feet in length and stand eighteen inches at the shoulder. Could such an animal have been released from a private collection ? It hasn’t been sighted again.
During the late 1980s, a Mrs Joy from the outskirts of Ashford believed she’d seen a wolf one night whilst looking out of her kitchen window. Although it was dusk, the grey animal clearly stood out as it casually crept along the back fence of her large garden. In 1998 a cream-coloured ‘wild dog’ was sighted by newspaper reporter Rachel Nolan as she pulled out of a car park in Gravesend one night. Just finishing work at 10:30 pm, she was stunned by the appearance of this beast she described as looking like a Dingo, native to Australia. It was eating a discarded sandwich, peered at the oncoming car, and strolled off into the undergrowth flanking the parking area.