Wolf Poacher Pleads Guilty, Sentenced

An Eagle man has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of shooting a wolf in a closed season and shooting from a public road. Randy R. Strickland of Eagle shot a young wolf about 6 p.m. September 6, 2009, in the McCall-Weiser wolf zone, which was closed to wolf hunting at the time. Witnesses told Idaho Fish and Game conservation officers they had seen Strickland shoot the wolf while standing in the road at the back of his pickup truck. Strickland called the 24-hour wolf harvest reporting line the morning of September 8 and reported the wolf killed in the Sawtooth wolf zone. Later that day he checked in the wolf at the Fish and Game office in the Nampa. He told officers he thought he had been in the Sawtooth wolf zone until he looked at a map back in camp on the evening of September 6. The wolf was a small female, still a pup. It was shot in Sand Creek, big game unit 25 east of Landmark in Valley County within the McCall-Weiser zone. Officers seized the wolf hide and skull, a rifle, camera and tag. Strickland was arraigned September 22 in Valley County on misdemeanor charges of taking a game animal illegally and shooting from or across a public highway. Initially he pleaded innocent to both charges. On May 20, he changed his plea to guilty. He was ordered to pay a total of $1,064 in fines and costs, including $400 in restitution to Idaho Fish and Game. He also was sentenced to six months in jail with five months and 28 days suspended and he may do 40 hours of community service instead of jail. His sentence included one year of unsupervised probation, and his hunting privileges were suspended for one year. He asked for and received a withheld judgment and will get his rifle and camera back.