Suspect In Polar Bear Shooting, Meat Abandoning Pleads Guilty

In July, a Kaktovik man charged with killing a polar bear but abandoning the meat.  This week, the man agreed to a plea bargain after pleading guilty.

Here’s Alaska Public Media with more:

Chris Gordon will accept a maximum prison sentence of four months and a $4,500 fine, according to a plea agreement filed Friday that was signed by his attorney and federal prosecutors. Gordon, a whaling captain, also agreed not to harvest any marine mammals for a year after his sentence, with the exception of bowhead whales. …

Gordon was charged in July of a single count of “wasteful taking of marine mammal.” Prosecutors alleged he shot the polar bear in front of his house after it was attracted by butchered whale meat in his front yard, and they said he left the carcass there for five months without salvaging any of it.

Gordon, in Friday’s plea agreement, acknowledged that those allegations were true.