HUNTING -- Wolves are legal to hunting Idaho during specified seasons and with the proper hunting tags.  As with other game hunting, it's against the law to break the rules.

A North Idaho man who shot and killed a wolf on Dec. 30 found this out this week. Forrest Mize of the Rathdrum Mountain area must pay $165 in court costs and $35 in prosecution costs and was sentenced to six months on unsupervised probation.

The Coeur d’Alene Press reports that Mize, 54, was convicted by a jury Thursday with misdemeanor possession of a wolf without a tag. He can petition to remove the crime from his record if he completes his probation without violations.

In January, he opted for a jury trial.

Mize says he shot the wolf to protect his dogs while walking on Rathdrum Mountain. He later decided to keep the pelt, bringing it to a taxidermist and buying a tag.

Defense lawyer Michael Palmer says Mize thought he was killing a coyote.

Mize told the Press:

"I went to court nine times and wasted countless hours over killing one wolf - a transplanted nuisance predator that Idaho spends $450,000 a year to shoot from helicopters," Mize said. "This is not the system I suited up for every day for 20 years to support and defend."

Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor Tony Clinger argued in court that the case came down to the fact that Mize didn’t have the required tag before he shot the wolf.

The jury of three women and three men included three hunters, the Press reports, indicating that the public isn't necessarily going to turn its back on the law to support a person's cultural biases about hunting and wildlife.