ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Charlie Vandergaw is crazy about bears.
That's obvious in a documentary made last year by a British filmmaker at Vandergaw's remote Alaska cabin and featured in the recent Animal Planet series "Stranger Among Bears." The videos show him scratching the belly of one black bear as if it was the family dog, feeding a cookie to a large black bear sitting under a tree, and feeding dog kibble to a cub from his outstretched hand.
Vandergaw has been coexisting with bears this way for the last 20 years, and he wants to be left alone.
That is not likely to happen now that the state is using a beefed-up law to prosecute Vandergaw for feeding bears. Game officials consider feeding bears a danger to humans, especially if others duplicate the behavior.
Not everyone thinks the state needs to be going after a 70-year-old retired teacher and wrestling coach.
Even if Vandergaw ends up being killed by the bears he loves, that's the Alaska way, said John Frost, who has been friends with Vandergaw for years. He recalled that when he came to Alaska in 1973 he saw a T-shirt that said "Alaska land of the individual and other endangered species."
"Yet here we are as a state going to crush this kind, gentle little guy," Frost said.
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