If you were to ask a cryptid enthusiast about the Shunka Warak’in, chances are they’d respond with a question of their own: what is that?
This obscure cryptid began as a black-and-white photo of a missing taxidermy mount found in a few cryptozoology books.
The subject of this photo is a strange-looking canine resembling something of a cross between a wolf and a hyena that Montana rancher Israel Hutchins shot in the winter of 1886 – ’87, the hardest winter the Madison Valley had ever seen, preceded by a dry and fiery summer. These conditions brought the odd-looking predator directly into the path of the ranchers in the valley, including Hutchins.