By Crystal St.Pierre Local Journalism Initiative Reporter “One of our Elders wrote, if there was an emergency, a woman would grab her woolly dog and her child and that’s the only two things,” said Squamish Nation member Senaqwila Wyss, demonstrating the cultural significance of the now extinct woolly dog to the Coast Salish Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest. Wyss was one of several Coast Salish people who worked with researchers from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, anthropologist Logan Kistler and evolutionary molecular biologist Audrey Lin, to conduct a years-long study of a 160-year-old woolly dog pelt called Mutton, which was found within the museum’s vast collection. It’s the only known woolly dog fleece in the world and the researchers sought to pinpoint a genetic understanding of…
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