Jon Heggen, chief of law enforcement for Idaho Fish & Game, says, "We want to treat the wolf hunt like we do any other big game hunting season, no different than we would bighorn sheep or an elk or a deer case." And what they've done - issued two poaching citations, with serious penalties - is exactly that, he said. Way back, Heggen used to work as a game warden out of Yellow Pine, covering the very area where the wolf pup poaching occurred. "I have issued citations 15 years ago in that same area for people hunting elk doing the same thing - claiming they were in the open area and being on the closed side," Heggen said.

He noted the offense of shooting from a public road is simply a crime, it's not even necessarily a poaching offense. "It's not even necessary to be hunting - just shooting a firearm from a public road would be a violation," Heggen said. He added, "That's not hunting. You know, a hunter's going to know where they are, they're going to follow the rules and they're not going to do things like shoot from the road and shoot in areas that are closed. That's not hunting. In layman's terms, it could be being lazy, not wanting to follow the rules. It's wrong, is what it is."

The only reason the poacher hasn't yet been named is because the charges haven't yet been turned over to the prosecutor and filed in court, at which point they become public record. "It'll happen by the end of the week," Heggen said. "It's just a matter of tidying up some loose ends and getting a report written."

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