Yukon man, company found guilty in 2018 case where bears fed on unsecured cooking grease

A Yukon man and his company have been found guilty of charges related to cooking grease stored outside at two Whitehorse properties that attracted bears and led to three animals being euthanized.

Territorial court judge Karen Ruddy found Dawson City man Michele Palma guilty Wednesday of two counts under the territorial Wildlife Act for failing to comply with a dangerous wildlife protection order. She also found Palma's business, the Dawson Group of Companies, guilty on one count of the same charge.

The case centres around an industrial lot in Whitehorse's McRae subdivision, where, in the summer of 2018, conservation officers began receiving reports of increased and aggressive bear activity.

Upon investigation, conservation officers discovered hundreds of plastic jugs of used cooking oil being stored on the property, which, at a trial last year, they described as a "junkyard" also littered with decrepit vehicles.

A number of the jugs showed evidence of bears having chewed them open.

Conservation officers, while checking on a bear trap they'd set up on the lot, also observed a bear jumping into the back of a pickup truck, picking up a plastic jug with its mouth and then carrying the jug to a nearby forested area, where it punctured the container to drink the grease inside.

The bear didn't react to human presence and conservation officers euthanized it, noting that its body was difficult to pick up because "every inch" of its fur was saturated in oil, suggesting it had been feeding at the lot for some time.

In total, conservation officers euthanized three bears found at the site because they had become food-habituated and posed a public safety concern.

Officers later discovered that jugs of unsecured cooking grease were also being stored in the yard of a nearby home in the Copper subdivision. They issued dangerous wildlife protection orders to Palma for both properties, requiring that he thoroughly clean up both sites; however, follow-up inspections revealed that containers of grease were still present at the McRae lot, and that grease-soaked dirt was still present at both locations.

'Overwhelming' evidence bears were attracted to sites

At a trial last fall, Palma argued that he shouldn't be held responsible because the oil wasn't his instead, it belonged to someone who was renting the McRae lot and was planning to use the oil to make biofuel. He also claimed he'd never been served with the dangerous wildlife protection orders, and that, in the case of the McCrae property, the oil was actually located just outside the property's legal boundaries.

Ruddy, in her decision, pointed to photo evidence clearly showing jugs containing oil within the boundaries of both properties, as well as the testimony of conservation officers who said they'd personally served Palma with the orders during meetings at the environment department's office.

While she accepted that Palma didn't personally place the oil at either location, and in the case of the residential property, didn't know it was there until notified by conservation officers, Ruddy said he was still responsible for complying with the dangerous wildlife protection orders. The Crown, she noted, had proved Palma was the owner of the residential property in the Copper subdivision and, while it hadn't proven ownership, the person in charge of the lot in McRae, meaning he had a duty to ensure the sites were properly cleaned up.

Ruddy also said there was "overwhelming" evidence that bears were attracted to the cooking grease and that the situation posed a public safety concern, particularly because of the presence of other nearby residential properties.

The Crown withdrew a charge against the Dawson Group of Companies related to the Copper subdivision property.

The case will return to court later this month to pick a sentencing date.

Palma, who represented himself during the trial, said he plans to appeal the guilty findings.