Seller of Bear Claw Jewelry Told to Give $1,000 to Zoo

A 37-year-old Canoga Park man was ordered Monday to donate $1,000 to the Los Angeles Zoo for preservation of endangered species after he was convicted of selling Indian jewelry made of bear claws.

Michael S. Crisp said he purchased the claws on an Indian reservation in Arizona and simply got caught doing what many other traders do with impunity.

“There is not a gun show, rock show or jewelry show in the world that doesn’t have bear claws done in jewelry,” the long-haired, bearded Crisp said outside Van Nuys Municipal Court, where he pleaded no contest Monday to one count of offering bear claws for sale, a violation of the state Fish and Game Code.

“I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Sale Is Illegal

Although California law permits hunting of bears under very restricted conditions, the sale of any part of the animal is illegal, even if the bear was killed in another state.

The law is designed to discourage poaching for profit, according to Lt. Don Wilkins of the state Fish and Game Department. Freeze-dried bear gallbladders, he said, are popular in Asian communities as a purported aphrodisiac. A processed 10-ounce gallbladder commands as much as $1,000 on the black market, he said.

“If you legalized it, you’d just have an open market on poaching, and there’s quite a bit of that going on already,” Wilkins said.

Under a plea bargain, Crisp pleaded no contest to the one count in exchange for dismissal of a second charge of offering mountain lion claws for sale.

Commissioner Joseph R. Ruffner sentenced Crisp to three years probation and ordered him to pay a $500 fine and donate $1,000 to the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn.’s breeding program for endangered bear species.

Items Spotted in Shop

Crisp, who owned the Walrus antique store in Canoga Park at the time of the offense, was arrested after an off-duty Fish and Game warden wandered into the shop on March, 1, 1986, and spotted the jewelry for sale, Deputy City. Atty. Nicholas J. Fratianne said.

Crisp, who has since sold the store, had mounted claws priced at $50 and a bear claw pendant selling for $350, Fratianne said. Investigators confiscated eight bear claws and two mountain lion claws.

Wilkins said Fish and Game wardens are cracking down on the illegal sale of bear claws and typically build cases against 8 to 15 traders at every gun show they investigate.

The Fish and Game Department regulates the killing of bears by restricting the number of permits issued during the hunting season, which extends from mid-September through December.