Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Old Fart Killing Federally Protected Grizzlies

JANUARY 23, 2024
An 80-year-old Troy man was charged this week with evidence tampering related to the fatal shooting of a grizzly bear on his property in 2020 and the discarding of the bear’s GPS collar in the Yaak River, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Othel Lee Pearson on Jan. 22 was charged with a felony count of tampering with evidence and a misdemeanor count of failure to report taking of a grizzly bear in U.S. District Court. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

“As alleged, Pearson discarded a GPS collar on a grizzly bear and hid the bear’s claws and an ear tag in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution for unlawfully killing a grizzly bear. Such conduct is illegal and, as shown here, will result in the prosecution of a federal felony,” U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said.

According to court documents, Pearson on Nov. 19, 2020 shot and killed a sow grizzly bear on his residential property using a .270 rifle and he cut a GPS collar fitted to the bear and discarded it into the nearby Yaak River.

Pearson also cut paws, ear tags and an identifying lip tattoo from the bear carcass. He then concealed the bear claws and an ear tag in a hollowed-out tree on National Forest land near his residence, records state.

Pearson tampered with these identifying objects to impair the criminal prosecution for the unlawful killing of the grizzly bear. He did not report the grizzly bear killing to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service within five days of the incident.

The parties informed the court that there is a plea agreement in the matter, and it is anticipated that Pearson has agreed to plead guilty to both charges in the information.

The plea agreement calls for prosecutors and the defendant to jointly recommend a sentence of three years of probation and an $8,000 fine. In exchange for guilty pleas, federal attorneys agree not to prosecute another individual in connection with the taking of the grizzly bear, and Pearson agrees to cooperate regarding the skull of a second grizzly bear discovered on National Forest lands near his property.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Tanner is prosecuting the case. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted the investigation.

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On Dec. 2, investigators found the GPS discarded in the river and were able to pull the data off it, which showed the bear died just before 9 p.m. on Nov. 19 about 40 yards from Pearson’s home and on his property.

Investigators served a search warrant at Pearson’s home on Dec. 16, and Pearson originally denied any knowledge of the killing of the bear, according to the affidavit.

But agents found what they called a “shooting room” attached to the home whose windows were removed and which opened out to animal baiting sites outside. The investigators also said they found empty bags of deer feed, feed dispensers attached to the trees, a salt block station and a spent rifle cartridge.

They also found blood in the snow and animal tissue on Pearson’s truck, as well as a bag of meat in his freezer that was labeled “ham.” But the affidavit and criminal information say a forensic analysis of the meat and blood showed it belonged to the same bear that had been killed and dumped a month earlier.

A neighbor also told investigators that Pearson told them he had shot a bear with his .270 rifle, after which the agents seized the gun.

More than a year later, in April 2022, a person hiking on the Forest Service land nearby Pearson’s home found a garbage bag filled with grizzly bear claws and an ear tag inside a hollowed-out tree. When they were tested, investigators found they belonged to the same bear.

Awee…..an old fart BAITER too. POS baiter.

Bragged to neighbor. What a dumbass.

And old farts don’t understand GPS telemetry. Sucks to be old and stupid.

His piss ant yard backs up to Natl Forest land. He assumed it was his God given right to do as he pleased beyond the boundaries of his cat food shack.

Oh and getting a plea deal, how special.

Meh , I'd contribute to his gofundme.
Hope he got a few wolves whilst he was at it.

Couldn’t have made many more boneheaded moves could he?

Osky

He got a plea deal because of the Biden/Harris sticker on his truck.

With a properly selected jury he could be found innocent due to a 270 not being capable of killing a grizzly.

It's gotta be BS. Ever body knos ya kaint kill a bar with a 270.

Dang. You beat me to it.

Hahaha. Tff. Winner winner....

The .270 controversy is the only reason I posted the story.

Earlier stories stated that he incorporated the assistance of a younger neighbor to help him get rid of the carcass making him a accomplice in the crime.

The plea deal is protecting him from prosecution.

Especially if the jury had a few LGBTQs on it.......

JFC. 🤦‍♂️

Osky;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope the day looks to be a decent one out your way, they say more snow for us which I could do without, but it is still winter after all.

The fellow seems like a bit of a poor planner for sure, but it's not up to us to lay out plans for successfully dealing with problem bears on a public forum.

In the "for whatever it might be worth" file, he's in the Yaak Valley and just south of Creston and Grassmere, BC, neither of which have any shortage of grizzly bears whatsoever.

One short hop over east in the Flathead Valley, absolutely close enough that any bear with a modicum of enthusiasm could travel, BC bios have 74 individual grizzly bears tagged.

Since we've stopped the grizzly hunt up here, they've become as much of a pest as the black bears, which we still can shoot, but not always off the back deck so to speak.

Insert obligatory interior grizzly tracks from our part of the world last October chasing whitetail.



Mostly what chaps the hide of many of us who live amongst the bears is the fools in the cities making the idiotic rules all the while chanting, "the bears were here first".

There seems to be a fair bit of evidence that the FN folks and the grizzly wandered down from Siberia together, but they don't want to talk about that.

Best to you today sir.

Dwayne

That’s an ignorant comment. Do you know when GPS technology was invented?

Sometimes you should just let someone else win the “Most useless posts of the day” award.

Dwyane,

That would make me pucker a bit, me thinks.

He is 80 years old. I can see where there might be some truth in the concept that prison becomes less a deterrent the older you get. An $8,000 fine in exchange for free health care, room and board the rest of his life wouldn’t be much different than living in a rest home. He didn’t hurt or injure anybody. Others have done a lot worse. He might have done it to protect his dog. I like dogs.

He won that title a long time ago and his record is untouchable

Rooster7;
Good morning to you sir, I hope winter is behaving out east for you folks and you're all well.

The crazy thing about that day was it was close to -20° with maybe a foot of snow or less in some places up there, but cold as it was we weren't expecting to bump grizzly tracks.

As it turned out we cut the tracks of a single bear and then a pair, which we guessed to be a mother and maybe a cub that'd den with her another winter? Not sure.

We did track them for 5 km on a logging road and lost the tracks at one of the many appropriately named "Bear Lake" which like "Fish Lake" seems to have multiple locations.

But for sure, we didn't want any long chases into the pucker brush after wounded whitetail that day, the theory being that if the bears were still up, they'd be pretty hungry.

It does keep an old guy like me on my toes for sure.

All the best.

Dwayne

Dwayne, good morning.

My comment was not in any way meant to pass judgement on the guys decision to deal with the bear. It was about stashing parts in trees etc.
His decision as to solution I certainly respect. Knowing the glowing love for the precious carnivores a bit more thought should have been used in the aftermath.

With respect.
Osky