Alaska man pleads guilty to illegally selling seal parts
ANCHORAGE, Alaska --A St. Paul Island man who co-signed an agreement to help conserve northern fur seals pleaded guilty Tuesday to illegally selling fur seal parts, specifically seal penises to a Korean gift shop.
Michael Richard Zacharof, 50, former president of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government, was a co-signer with the National Marine Fisheries Service on an agreement in 2000 to help manage northern fur seals. Northern fur seals are a depleted species and are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
A prosecutor said the investigation started in Massachusetts in 2004 and 2005 when bear gall bladders and seal oosiks were discovered in a Boston suburb and traced to a shop in Anchorage.
Zacharof faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $20,000 fine for selling seal parts. Sentencing is expected this fall.
Zacharof pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Anchorage in a change of plea hearing before Judge John W. Sedwick. He participated telephonically in the court proceeding.
A call by The Associated Press to his home on St. Paul Island was not immediately returned.
According to federal prosecutors, Zacharof, an Alaska Native, illegally sold over 100 seal penises two years ago to a Korean gift shop in Anchorage, where they were to be resold for approximately $100 apiece in the traditional Chinese medicine trade.
While Alaska Natives are allowed to harvest fur seals for subsistence, animal parts can't be sold to non-Natives unless they have been converted by an Alaskan Native into an authentic Native handicraft, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Aunnie Steward.
Seal penis bones, also called oosiks, are sought for medicinal purposes because they are believed to have properties similar to Viagra, Steward said.
The word oosik is derived from the Inupiaq Eskimo word meaning penis.
The sales of the animals' parts were traced from Massachusetts back to the Korean gift shop in Anchorage. From there, the parts were traced back to Zacharof, Steward said.
Steward said the gift shop also faces prosecution.
