PALMER — As a summer of high bear activity wraps up across Alaska, a Wasilla man has been accused in seven citations of setting up an illegal bear-baiting station near Willow, only a third of a mile from a neighbor's cabin.
Attracting black bears using pungent lures like dog food, grease, berries or popcorn is legal in many places around Alaska, provided hunters pass a state course and follow the rules. Those rules include making sure the station is at least 1 mile from homes, schools, campgrounds and cabins — places where baited bears could encounter people.
Alaska Wildlife Troopers took a year to cite 36-year-old Joshua Yundt for misdemeanor charges, including failing to register, and then to remove the bear-bait station in the Rolly Creek area.
Yundt's citations, issued last week, all related to a bear-baiting station: Two counts accused him of establishing a bear-bait station without a permit or registration; two counts accused him of establishing a station within 1 mile of a permanent structure or cabin; two counts accused him of failing to remove a bear-bait station after season; and a single count accused him of failing to mark or identify a station.
He's scheduled to appear in Palmer District Court on Oct. 3.
Yundt did not return a call placed to a Fairbanks pawn shop in which he holds a managing interest.
Bear baiting is a common practice in parts of Alaska, if it's done legally. The two game units that cover much of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough have 250 registered bait stations from the Knik River to Willow Creek and north to the Talkeetna River, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
A cabin owner in the area alerted troopers to the bait station in late August 2016, said Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Brent Johnson. The man provided specifics including GPS coordinates that helped troopers pinpoint the location, where they showed up in October to find a barrel and some dog food, but no identifying markers.
Johnson checked an internal database of registered stations in the area and found one nearby that Yundt registered in 2014. Then, the trooper said, he learned Yundt had a cabin in the area.
The evidence troopers needed for the citations came from a game camera installed near the station in mid-April and retrieved in June, Johnson said. Among the images was one later identified as Yundt putting out bait after an ATV arrived with dog food and grease.
Yundt cleaned up the site after he was cited and is cooperating with troopers, Johnson said. There's no evidence he killed any bears there.
Johnson credited the person who reported the station, in such detail, with helping track down the illegal site.
"There are only 80-something wildlife troopers in the whole state," he said. "We really rely on the public to call and give solid information … it makes pursuing these things that take a little longer more worth our time and effort."