Lured by a big reward posted for the killing of the beast, hunters scoured the countryside. Some saw the creature and swore they had wounded it. Others killed any wolf that crossed their paths. Nothing seemed to work. As the panic spread, entire villages were abandoned. By now the episode had become an international sensation. The English periodical St. James’s Chronicle was not alone in speculating that some “new Species” neither wolf nor tiger nor hyena had been set loose in the French provinces.