Brian Scott screamed, pointed his .30-06 rifle, saw hair through the scope, and pulled the trigger once.

Scott shot and killed a gray wolf while elk hunting in rural Union County on Oct. 27. The experienced hunter notified state police of the incident and told the responding trooper, Marcus McDowell, a harrowing tale of self-defense.

Authorities agreed and declined to prosecute the wolf killing, the first reported instance of a protected wolf being shot and killed by a hunter who feared for their life.

Scott could not be reached for comment on this story.

The 38-year-old Clackamas resident told McDowell those details on Oct. 27, hours after the shooting. More details emerged Friday one week after the incident.

McDowell determined the bullet entered the animal’s front right side and exited through the left.

In a Thursday press release, the agency said “based upon the available evidence” the hunter acted in self-defense.

According to the three-page police report obtained through a public record request, Scott was hunting last week in the Starkey hunting unit of Union County near La Grande off of a forest service road where he was camping with several other hunters. At about 7:15 a.m., he left to hunt, and a little after leaving camp he saw animals moving around him.

“I could not identify what was moving around me,” he told McDowell. “There are a lot of coyotes out here.”

Scott hiked into a nearby timber stand and sat for 20 or 30 minutes. After leaving the trees and heading into a meadow, he saw to his left what he assumed was a coyote.

“He was running at me, which is very odd,” Scott told the trooper.

A second animal was behind the first.

A third animal “was running directly at me,” Scott said.

“I definitely felt like she had targeted me,” he said, “and was running at me to make contact.”

He told the trooper he feared for his life. “It was unnerving.”

Scott shot the third animal from roughly 27 yards away and watched the other two run into the timber near a forest road.

The other wolves howled, according to the police account.

An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife official, Leonard Erickson, later arrived to the scene and helped recover the animal. One of four additional hunters at the camp transported the wolf, an 83-pound female connected to OR-30.

The pictures and police report paint a different picture, according to wolf advocacy group Oregon Wild.

The animal’s death also comes on the heels of five recent approved wolf shootings in eastern Oregon. It is illegal to kill a wolf unless it’s caught red-handed killing livestock — a rare occurrence that has happened just once in 2016 — or in the event of self-defense. Legally, animals can be killed if they are confirmed to have repeatedly attacked livestock.

Steve Pedery, the nonprofit’s conservation director, said in an email that he’d like to see further investigation of the hunting incident. He’s not convinced the animal was running at the hunter, and questioned why the wounds are on the animal’s side.

“How can a wolf that is moving away from someone be a threat?” Pedery asked, “and why would ODFW sign off on a report that is directly contradicted by the evidence?”