Idaho man cited for poaching wolf pup

Idaho Fish & Game has issued two poaching citations to an Eagle man for illegally shooting a small female wolf pup on Sunday evening. The shooting was in the McCall-Weiser wolf zone, which is not yet open for wolf hunting. The man shot the wolf from a public road; witnesses told officers he shot it while standing in the road at the back of his pickup truck. He called the 24-hour wolf harvest reporting line on Tuesday morning and reported that he’d killed a wolf in the Sawtooth hunting zone, which is open for wolf hunting. But later in the day, when he checked in at the Fish & Game office in Nampa, he said he’d thought he was in the Sawtooth zone, but looked back at a map Sunday evening in camp and discovered he was actually in the McCall-Weiser zone.

Fish & Game officers seized the wolf hide and skull, a rifle, camera and tag; their investigation is ongoing. They issued two citations to the man: Shooting a wolf in a closed season, and shooting from a public road. Because Idaho’s wolf hunt has specific limits on the number of wolves that can be taken in each hunting zone, one will be deducted from the limit for the McCall-Weiser zone to account for the poached wolf.