Bear feeder fined $20,000; avoids prison

PALMER — Charlie Vandergaw, made famous in a cable TV series for his love of bears, was ordered Thursday to pay $20,000 for illegally feeding those bruins.

Vandergaw was sentenced Thursday in Palmer District Court at the end of a two-part sentencing hearing to pay $2,500 for each of the eight counts of feeding wildlife to which he pleaded guilty.

The charges also potentially carried prison time, but Judge John Wolfe only included suspended time in Vandergaw’s sentence, meaning that if the former Anchorage school teacher keeps his nose clean, he won’t have to serve any of the 180 days Wolfe imposed.

“I had actually asked for $72,000 as a means to fully divest Mr. Vandergaw of all the illegal proceeds he had received from making the video,” said the prosecutor in the case, Andrew Peterson with the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals. “Under the current sentencing structure the court decided the minimum amount was appropriate.”

Thursday’s hearing included testimony from two witnesses who detailed how the case against Vandergaw came together. There was much discussion of independent British videographer Richard Terry and his work documenting Vandergaw’s life with the bears.

Alaska State Trooper Investigator Todd Machacek testified that Terry hadn’t been very forthcoming until he was confronted with photos of himself feeding bears.

“He changed his demeanor to being more cooperative,” Machacek said.

Machacek bristled when Vandergaw’s attorney, Kevin Fitzgerald, described the exchange as Terry being threatened with criminal charges.

“I made it very clear on tape, very clear, that we don’t threaten,” Machacek said.

Fitzgerald also pointed out that while a lot of evidence seemed to have been collected to show Vandergaw fed bears at his remote cabin in the Mat-Su Borough’s western reaches, there was also ample evidence that other people fed bears there. The implication was that Vandergaw was singled out.

But while others may have fed bears at Vandergaw’s cabin, named Bear Haven, the sheer amount Vandergaw was alleged to have fed the bruins was overwhelming. Machacek said he documented 7,350 pounds of dog food and 844 pounds of dog treats being fed to bears over the course of the summer of 2008 at a rate of 200 pounds per day.

Indeed, the unwritten rule, Machacek testified, was that Vandergaw’s invited guests were expected to bring dog food or money to contribute toward buying more dog food when visiting.

Sean Farley, a research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said he accompanied Machacek and a team of troopers to Bear Haven.

“I had to fire a couple of cracker shells off to drive them away,” Farley said of the bears. “Mr. Vandergaw indicated that he sometimes had to use a pellet gun to shoot the bears in the feet.”

Farley seemed to have something of a grudging respect for Vandergaw’s accomplishments, if not his methods.

“I expect Mr. Vandergaw is one of the world authorities on bear behavior,” he said. When Fitzgerald asked Farley if he admired Vandergaw, the biologist responded, “I don’t think admire so much as some of the things Charlie’s been able to pull off I understand and respect.”

But he would not go along with Fitzgerald’s reasoning that because there was no evidence that problem bears were on the rise around his property, Vandergaw had proved that feeding bears does not make them any more dangerous than they would naturally be.

Farley said while there is no evidence to prove that, there is also no evidence to disprove it. There are a lot of ways people use to take care of problem bears, he said. From year to year, the bear population in the area shifts; some bears come back to the area in the summer, some don’t.

“I don’t know how many haven’t come back because they got shot,” Farley said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.