The first-ever regulated trapping season for wolves is under way in Idaho.

Some 500 trappers are trying to outsmart one of the most wary predators on earth.

The first trapper to succeed is from Pennsylvania.

George Mohr of Mount Joy to be precise.

Mohr, 53, a self-employed contractor who has trapped 128 coyotes in Pennsylvania — including 12 in Lancaster County — caught the large 80-pound female gray wolf on Nov. 16, the first time he checked his trap line.

Since then, trappers have taken four other wolves. Hunters have shot 157 wolves.

That's a far cry from what Idaho wildlife officials hope to cull in the first year since wolves were removed from federal protection.

The state wants to bring the statewide wolf population down from an estimated 1,000 wolves to about 150, or 15 breeding pairs, the lowest number possible before the predators would again fall under federal protection.

The state says 150 would be a "robust population."

Idaho's wildlife officials, legislators, hunters and ranchers are solidly behind removing as many wolves as possible. They say wolves are decimating the elk herd and kill too many livestock.

But it's a highly controversial campaign and wolf supporters are livid.

The federal government spent 14 controversial years re-introducing wolves to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as part of the Endangered Species Act. The predator had been nearly intentionally wiped out in the 1920s and 1930s by shooting, poisoning and trapping.

The wolves rebounded so well that they were removed from the endangered species list in 2009. But in 2010, a federal court reinstated protection of the wolf. Earlier this year, Congress got involved, circumventing the Endangered Species Act in removing protection in Idaho, Montana and parts of Oregon, Washington and Utah.

This spring, Idaho used sharpshooters and helicopters to begin culling the wolf population. Only five were taken. Wolf advocates were enraged.

Asked about where he stood in the controversy, Mohr says, "I just love trapping, that's the reason I did it. Just trying to outsmart them. Wolves are the smartest predator there is."

But after his return from 21 straight days of running his trap line, he observes, "I didn't talk to anybody out there the whole time who liked wolves. The ranchers, all the hunters — nobody likes them."

Mohr began trapping around age 7, tagging along to trap muskrats and other furbearers with older brothers, including Stephen Mohr of Bainbridge, a former Pennsylvania Game Commissioner.

To help defray college expenses in the 1970s, he stepped up his trapping of local foxes, whose hides still brought a decent price at the time.

After another lull, he started running trap lines again when Pennsylvania allowed limited trapping of bobcats in 2000.

The next year, he caught his first coyote and was hooked.

He spends two solid weeks trapping coyotes and foxes in Potter County each fall, working 80 to 100 traps over 130 miles.

In addition to the 128 coyotes he's caught so far, he averages 75 to 80 foxes each year.

So when a friend, Fred Shank, formerly of Bainbridge who lives part of each year in Idaho in a house he built, called to alert Mohr that Idaho had just announced it would allow trapping wolves in the fall in about a quarter of the state, "my mind was made up before he finished the message," Mohr recalls.

Soon, he had ordered $1,500 worth of large leghold traps and bought a plane ticket to Idaho.

The traps, weighing 5 pounds each, are 8 inches wide with a tension set to target only wolves. Lighter coyotes or other animals would not spring the trap.

Mohr contacted the Alaska Trappers Association since Alaska has been the only state to have wolf trapping. He purchased a 120-page primer and a DVD.

The Idaho trapping season would begin Nov. 15. Mohr had to fly out several days earlier to attend a mandatory eight-hour trapping orientation that emphasized ethics and how to avoid catching other wildlife and domestic pets in traps.

Of the 500 trappers certified so far, at least a handful have been from non-Idaho residents.

Trappers were required to check their traps at least every 72 hours. Mohr checked his every 24 hours.

On the opening day, Mohr and Shank climbed into a four-wheel-drive pickup with chains on each tire. Then they drove 30 miles into the remote Gospel-Hump Wilderness Area in the Nez Pearce National Forest near Riggins, Idaho.

Mohr set out 15 traps that first day high on the mountains at about 7,000 feet elevation.

Mohr and Shank looked for wolf tracks and scat to set their traps. All they saw that first day was coyote tracks. But Shank had spent time that summer in the area, along with his wife who was panning for gold, and they had seen plenty of wolf signs.

Mohr buried the traps a couple inches below the 10-inch snow pack. They also sprinkled fox urine on the traps to hide the human scent and to arrest a wolf's curiosity.

The next day, Nov. 16, Mohr and Shank drove around checking their traps for the first time to see if any were sprung.

Approaching the fifth trap, they saw fresh wolf tracks heading in the direction of the set.

When they got there, they found only peat moss and snow shards. "We knew we had something," says Shank.

The wolf had dragged the trap and anchor chain out of the snow and had gotten hung up on a log in a small pine thicket.

Mohr dispatched the wolf with a rifle shot to the lungs.

"First we were whooping and hollering like a pair of teenagers," recalls Shank. Then they took lots of photos. Then they took the wolf home and skinned it out.

The 80-pound female is about as large as female gray wolves get. Game officials extracted a tooth to age the wolf, but results won't be back for months.

The wolf will be mounted full-size by Conoy Township taxidermist Tony Heisey. Mohr knows it will reside in his basement with four differently colored coyotes he's caught through the years. He doesn't yet know what pose the predator will take.

With a wolf caught on the first day, Mohr had every reason to believe he might get to use all three of his wolf tags.

But weather soon played its card. Twenty inches of snow fell over two days and Mohr had to pull his upper-elevation traps.

He then spread out an additional 31 traps and checked them for 20 consecutive days. A typical day would begin at 5 a.m. and involve 120 miles of driving and checking.

One day, they crossed fresh cougar tracks. Shank borrowed his neighbor's hounds, treed and shot the 78-pound mountain lion.

But Mohr did not catch another wolf. Once, what they believed to be the same pack from which they had caught the first wolf returned to the spot a week later.

But an overnight thaw had melted the camouflaging snow, exposing the trap. Mohr thinks the wolves may have had a good laugh over that.

Mohr remains ecstatic over the magnificent animal he trapped.

"My goal was to get one," he says. "I was happy to get this one."

acrable@lnpnews.com.