Couple convicted: Nelson County pair broke the law to save the bears

In trying to save the bears they also broke the law.

But a Nelson County couple ’fessed up in court Wednesday and came away with a “good Samaritans” label alongside their misdemeanor convictions and fines.

Barbara and David McGann, who live on property bordering Wintergreen Resort, went to bat for a band of renegade bears last summer by feeding them and luring them away from the resort where they had rankled residents. After one bear brazenly entered a Lexus and shredded its seats, and others were found inside homes, the Wintergreen Police Department grew more vigilant in trapping and killing the bears, including a “mama and two cubs.”

That killing, the McGanns testified, wasn’t right, and didn’t meet common bear hunting practices. The couple was soon dropping bread, donuts and chocolate for the bears on their property in hopes of luring the bears and ending Wintergreen disturbances.

Hot on their heels: officers with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, who put in 418.5 hours of surveillance between June 23 and August 16 to bring 18 charges against the couple in Nelson County General District Court. In the end, each was fined $250 for two bear feeding convictions. An additional charge of filing a false report and the remaining bear feeding charges were taken under advisement by Judge Joseph Serkes. The couple will not be penalized for those pending good behavior for a year. The couple was found not guilty of illegal chasing, baiting and hunting.

Motion-activated surveillance cameras recorded the couple dumping food that successfully attracted the bears, DGIF Sgt. Chris Thomas testified. Officers even faced off against one bear at the baiting site.

“We ran him away from the bait four different times ... he had no fear of humans,” Thomas told the judge.

That was the problem. Besides bear feeding being a Class 3 misdemeanor, the McGanns were also inadvertently training the bears to not fear humans, testified DGIF Biologist Daniel Lovelace. And, ultimately, they failed to feed them enough, instead attracting more bears who continued to roam on resort land when they remained hungry.

“I think you were sincere in what you were trying to do ... [but] you enhanced the problem,” the judge told David McGann. “You made a mistake on this.”

The case struck a nerve with the McGanns, in part because “people who live [at the resort] knew it was bear country, but now that nature’s being nature, they’re freaking out,” Barbara McGann said. It’s an argument not disputed by Russell Otis, executive director of the Wintergreen Property Owners’ Association, who said bears are attracted by people doing “silly things.” Along with the DGIF, Otis educates owners and resort guests.

“The last thing we want is to see a bear euthanized or destroyed,” Otis said. “[Mr. McGann has] been helpful for us for 20 years, not just with bears … I don’t see him as adversarial to us at all. I think that his intentions were good. Clearly the judge found he had violated the law.”

In the simple Nelson County courtroom, with wood benches, faux wood wall panels and a United States flag on a pedestal often bumped by defendants, McGann and defense attorney Frank Mika also got a chance to speak face-to-face with officials about DGIF trapping and killing.

McGann, who hunts bears but considers them “wonderful, fascinating” animals, grew impassioned when speaking about the Wintergreen killings that “just weren’t right.” He also wondered how officials could know they were euthanizing the bears actually making trouble.

“In the past, the agency has trapped and relocated bears,” Thomas said. “Our policy changed. Bears that are continually causing problems are euthanized.”

“We have nowhere else to take bears,” Lovelace said.

Officials provided different estimates for the number of bears euthanized or removed in the past two years, in part because DGIF and Wintergreen police keep separate tabs. The number is less than 10. And officials agree the sow and two cubs were killed by Wintergreen police in May.

“We think that the bears that learned bad habits have been removed and we don’t anticipate problems moving forward,” Otis said, adding: “We’re not unilaterally making decisions … we’re doing it in regular communication with [DGIF].”

As for targeting the correct bears, McGann said he has long advocated the use of paint ball guns to mark the bad bears.

Police tried that, Otis said, and “even tried to use pink to embarrass them to go away,” he joked. But the paint often washed away.

So officials will continue to educate residents and encourage them to latch their Dumpsters, Otis said (the bears had learned to open latches, according to Lovelace).

And David McGann and his hunting club may start killing more bears next season.

It’s a far cry from when Wintergreen was first established, a period in which the bear population was almost completely wiped out, McGann said.

From many bears, to few bears and back to many bears, officials have never stopped monitoring the population and the big appetites that come with it.

For now, the McGanns promised not to feed the bears, but ideas were still brewing for Barbara—if only those ideas were legal, maybe the bears could stay fed.

“I wish we could afford a helicopter,” she said, “to drop fruit and nuts right when they come out of hibernation.”