Woman bled to death

Sandra L. Piovesan was killed by her own hybrid wolves.

An autopsy on the Salem Township woman revealed she bled to death after being mauled by hybrid wolves she raised as pets, according to the Westmoreland County Coroner's Office.

Piovesan's body was found Monday by her daughter inside an electrified pen Piovesan erected more than a decade ago at her Croft Road home to contain the animals, which were part dog and part wolf.

The autopsy by Dr. Cyril H. Wecht quelled speculation that Piovesan, 50, might have fallen ill after entering the pen to feed the animals and was then attacked.

"There is no evidence, in my opinion, of a heart attack, stroke, or any other condition involving a natural death that would have rendered her unconscious or cause her to become incapacitated," Wecht said Tuesday.

Wecht said the most serious injuries were to her scalp and legs.

"It appears they (the wolves) stopped their attack," he said. "It's curious."

Wecht said Piovesan probably died within minutes of the initial attack.

Westmoreland County Humane Agent Elaine Gower repeated her concerns about the dangers of raising hybrid wolves as pets. Gower said she warned Piovesan that it was only a matter of time before the unpredictable and dangerous animals turned on her.

Other animal experts agree with Gower that hybrid wolves pose a greater danger to humans than wild wolves. Wolves fear humans. Hybrids don't and are more likely to attack.

Gower said a friend of Piovesan was attacked by one of the animals about two years ago, but the victim did not lodge an official complaint.

"We were all scared that someday, somehow, those wolves would escape that pen and hurt some child or someone," Gower said.

Piovesan had licensed the animals at the county treasurer's office as mixed-breed dogs, according to county records.

"With Sandra, the problem we had was when we were looking into something, she identified them as dogs. But when she sold the pups, they were identified as wolves," Gower said.

Gower said she doesn't know how many pups Piovesan sold nor does she know the identities of the buyers.

The eight hybrid wolves in the pen on Piovesan's land were euthanized so authorities could retrieve her body from inside the pen.

"They had to be killed. There was no way of knowing which one killed her," Gower said.

Two adult Rottweilers, owned by Piovesan and kept inside the house, were confiscated and will be placed in an animal sanctuary, Gower said. The Rottweilers were not the dogs that had been bred with the wolves to produce the hybrids, officials said.

A person answering the phone at Piovesan's home yesterday refused to comment.

Piovesan's death is one of a number of mauling incidents across the nation involving hybrid wolves.

Last July, a 13-year-old boy from Arizona barely escaped when he and his parents were visiting a hybrid wolf breeder in New Mexico.

"We were lucky they didn't kill that little boy," said Cosy Balok, director of the McKinley County Humane Society in Gallup, N.M.

The family escaped but sustained serious injuries, Balok said.

All 12 of the animals were later euthanized, which Balok said angered many in the New Mexico town.

"They thought we should have found homes for them," Balok said. "There are quite a few people here who own them. They don't realize they are not made for pets."

Monty Sloan, a veteran staff member at Wolf Park, a 75-acre nonprofit education and research facility in Lafayette, Ind., said he has been following news reports of the Westmoreland County attack.

He said it's possible Piovesan was killed when one animal tried to assume dominance in the pack.

"It's plausible. Wolves will test people for dominance, but dogs will do this, too," Sloan said. "But no one will probably ever know what really happened."

"Maybe she tripped or fell. Or maybe there was a fight between two animals and she tried to break it up, and one of the animals may have decided that was not acceptable behavior and attacked her," he said.

Sloan noted that at the wolf refuge, where 20 wolves are maintained, no person ever enters a pen alone.

"It's too dangerous," he said.