Bear hide mystery solved

There is litter -- and then there's a bear hide.

In late January of last year, a bear hide -- just the outside minus the bear meat as well as claws -- was discovered near the New Light Creek bridge on Mangum Dairy Road.

A neighbor alerted state Wildlife Enforcement Officers Wes Barger and Brent Ward.

On Jan. 26, they found a garbage bag with the bear hide inside as well as three sets of latex gloves.

"As we pulled the hide out of the bag, we saw it had green tags on the ears that said State of Maine," Barger said last week. "Well, that piqued my curiosity."

Barger said at first they thought they were dealing with a case involving someone shooting a bear during a closed season. There is no bear season in Wake County, and the season down East had already closed by January.

Barger and Ward had to hurry off to another investigation, but a member of the state Department of Transportation crew that helps them remove dead animals took the hide and kept it in his freezer during what turned out to be a lengthy search. Barger estimated the bear, when alive, would have weighed 150 to 200 pounds.

A state biologist, Mark Jones, called the Maine Fish and Game Department. Jones and the two wildlife officers -- who made a lot of calls to Maine themselves -- learned this had been a problem bear. That was the meaning of the green ear tags.

The bear, after it had been reported and caught three times by the Maine wildlife officers, had been airlifted to a remote part of the state.

But out in the wilderness area, the bear managed to roam within bow shot of a hunter from Lizard Lick. The hunter, who was on a guided hunt, shot the bear in September and wanted a trophy, a full body mount of the bear.

The hide was salted down and sent to North Carolina, where the hunter took it to Bartons Creek Taxidermy in Wake Forest.

Barger and Ward, determining the hunter had nothing to do with the litter, moved on to the taxidermist, Richard Griffin.

Griffin, Barger said, first denied knowing anything about the bear but then admitted he had dumped the hide.

Griffin told Barger and Ward the hide had been damaged by the salting and could not be used. Instead, Barger reported, Griffins said "he was going to try to get another hide" to substitute.

"The only thing we could possibly charge him with was littering," Barger said. That, however, ended up costing Griffin a $500 fine, court costs and 24 hours of community service picking up trash around Falls Lake.

Barger said he did not know the outcome of any confrontation between Griffin and the hunter, who had really wanted to keep the green ear tags on his trophy.

Taxidermists know the rules about disposing of animal bodies and hides, Barger said. He and other wildlife enforcement officers check taxidermists in the state each year, even peering into their freezers. Taxidermists must be licensed by the state and must also have a federal permit if they work on ducks and other federally protected waterfowl.

Griffin said Tuesday the whole incident is being blown out of proportion.

He said the hide was smelly and greasy and was messing up the bed of his new truck, so he decided to get rid of it. He said he was not sure how it got up to the road side. "I rolled it down that ditch bank."

"It wasn't any use to me anymore," he said. "A couple of more weeks and the maggots and nature would have taken care of it."

Griffin added he took the hide to a tanner when he got it from the hunter. The tanner called back and said the hide was rotten and the hair was coming out.

When Griffin told the hunter the news about the hide, he asked Griffin to save the skull for him. The hide got in the back of his truck after he picked it up from the tanners.

According to Barger, bears are moving up into this area. "There is a bear or two around Falls Lake," he said, and he and Ward were called to Clayton when a bear was hit by a car recently.