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The Real Story of the Polar Bear in a UVM Science Hall Starts With Two Montpelier Agents Undercover in the Arctic
A polar bear has been hanging out in a UVM science hall for decades. Subscribe He’s a full-grown male, standing behind glass on an artificial iceberg in the lobby of the University of Vermont’s Marsh Life Science Building in Burlington. Most Vermonters have no idea he’s there. Students who asked about him heard he came from Canada. A poacher killed him, the story went, federal officers seized the hide at the Vermont border, and the government gave him to UVM on “indefinite loan.” A UVM biology professor told it that way in 2012. The university’s own news office repeated it in 2021. That story was wrong. The bear was evidence. In 1972, two federal wildlife officers from Montpelier posed as trophy hunters, bought their way into an illegal hunt run by a poaching ring, and followed it all the way to the frozen Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. One of them shot this bear. Sonia DeYoung, who works with UVM’s natural history collections, pieced the real story together from a half-remembered campus rumor, a case file buried in Anchorage and one stripped claw. She told it Nov. 6 in UVM Magazine. The Undercover Buy Early in 1972, Paul Bagalio and Bruce Parker walked into a Seattle taxidermy shop. Both lived in Montpelier. The case file lists Parker as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent and Bagalio as a deputy game warden for the service. On paper, Bagalio was an unlikely undercover man. Born in Northfield and raised in Montpelier, he served in the Marines after high school, graduated from Norwich University in 1957, taught at Vermont Technical College and worked as an engineer at Rock of Ages, according to his obituary in the Times Argus. He founded Ramchem, a company that made epoxies for the Barre granite industry. He was also a hunter. His obituary passes along his advice: “Don’t ever miss an opportunity to hunt.” And it says he worked undercover for the U.S. Department of the Interior, helping expose what his family calls one of the largest poaching rings in U.S. history. In the Seattle shop, Bagalio and Parker posed as unscrupulous trophy hunters who wanted a polar bear and didn’t care how they got one. They came away with a scribbled note: a phone number and a hefty price. The Seattle Times later reported the number. In a May 1972 story, later reprinted in the Congressional Record, the paper said the two-man hunt cost $6,500, more than $50,000 in today’s money. The Times cited a federal search-warrant affidavit alleging that the ring paid two men who held valid Alaska permits so the hides and skulls could be shipped and processed under their names. Bagalio and Parker traveled to Barrow, on Alaska’s Arctic coast, with guides working with the taxidermist. These were not men to cross. The case file describes a man taking a 12-gauge automatic shotgun from his plane and telling Parker it was “the persuader.” One photo in the file shows a mustached accomplice peering out from beneath a heavy fur hood. On March 8, 1972, on the pack ice about 100 miles north of Point Barrow, the northernmost point in the United States, Bagalio shot a male polar bear. Parker shot a second. Bagalio had no legal permit to kill it, and that was the point. The bears were hard evidence of what the ring was selling. Back in Fairbanks, a Fish and Wildlife agent marked Bagalio’s bear so it could be identified later. He smeared fluorescent dye around its nose and ripped the dark outer sheath off one of its front claws. Bagalio and Parker went on to run several more undercover hunts against poachers in the West. The danger was real. Bagalio later told the Bennington Banner, according to DeYoung’s account, “My guide made it perfectly clear that he would leave me dead in the mountains if he thought I was an investigator.” Subscribe The Faded Rumor The bear came to UVM in 1975. How the government handed him over is still unknown. A rumor came with him. A student named in the UVM Magazine article simply as Carol helped catalog the university’s specimens in those years, and she heard it: an undercover federal agent had killed the bear in Alaska because he feared his cover would be blown and his life was in danger. Over the years the rumor faded. In the 1980s, the bear was put away in storage long enough for mice to chew the fur off his ankles, and several of his front claws went missing. He was later brought back out and set up on his iceberg in the Marsh Life Science lobby, where he has stood for decades since. Somewhere along the way, the Canada story took over. The Case File Decades later, DeYoung met Carol at an open house for UVM’s zoological collections. Carol told DeYoung’s research partner, Dave Moroney, what she remembered. They were delighted, and skeptical. At DeYoung’s request, David Rippeto, a UVM graduate who is now a Fish and Wildlife special agent in Anchorage, went through a mountain of old case files stashed in cardboard boxes and found the right one. It ran more than 80 pages: photographs, letters, permit records and a typewritten account of the case. Carol’s rumor had the core of it right. A federal officer had shot the bear in Alaska while undercover. But the file showed it wasn’t a desperate move to save his own skin. The shooting was part of the plan. The Stripped Claw One question remained. Was the bear in Burlington really Bagalio’s? DeYoung and Moroney shone a black light on the bear’s snout, looking for the dye. Nothing glowed. They already had the answer. The year before, a conservator repairing the mouse damage had found that one of the bear’s supposedly missing front claws was still there, minus its dark outer sheath, just as the agent in Fairbanks had left it in 1972. “Fifty years later, the marker originally meant for law enforcement told us we had our bear,” DeYoung wrote. Paul Bagalio didn’t live to see it. He spent the rest of his life in Vermont, most of it at Horn of the Moon in East Montpelier, and died Dec. 11, 2022, at 90, a few months before DeYoung first opened the case file. His family remembered the bear differently. The obituary says he took a record-class polar bear in Siberia, across the international date line. The federal case file puts the bear in this story about 100 miles north of Point Barrow. The obituary doesn’t say whether it’s the same animal. His bear is still on the iceberg. Go see him: The polar bear stands in the entrance to Benedict Auditorium, between the Marsh Life Science and Hills buildings on UVM’s Burlington campus. Compass Vermont is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
'Now is the time': Bennington business owners push for first-ever downtown business improvement district
Three Bennington business owners are pushing to create the town's first Business Improvement District to reshape and revitalize downtown.
Comedian Ron Bennington Recalls Early Symptoms of Stage 4 Colon Cancer: ‘Sick As I’ve Ever Been’
The radio personality is hosting a new podcast on SiriusXM, “Portcast,” where he interviews fellow comedians while in the hospital for chemotherapy.
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn unpack the band’s ‘bold’ doc ‘Unshatter’
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn tell Entertainment Weekly about the process of creating their new documentary ‘Unshatter,’ which details the band’s reunion after Chester Bennington’s death.
New task force aims to expand employee ownership to Vt. businesses and workers
MONTPELIER — Vermont Treasurer Mike Pieciak will convene a task force ahead of the legislative session to explore ways the state can expand employee ownership to local businesses and their
Hubbard Hall announces Fall 2026 season
CAMBRIDGE, NY — Hubbard Hall, the renowned arts center in Washington County, anchored by its historic 1878 Opera House, announces the Fall 2026 season will open with A.R. Gurney’s Off-Broadway
The Gin Game coming to the Monument Arts & Cultural Center
BENNINGTON — The Monument Arts & Cultural Center (MACC) has announced its upcoming production of The Gin Game, a compelling and often humorous play that explores loneliness, pride, resentment and
Shires 1-Minute Film Fest looking for local filmmakers
BENNINGTON — There’s still time to make a movie - and it only needs to be one minute long.
Peter Gould reads from his new novel, 'Part For The Hole'
NORTH BENNINGTON — At 7 p.m. on September 24, Brattleboro author Peter Gould will read from his new novel “Part For The Hole” at Pangaea Café, in North Bennington. The
$7.9M grant to fund PFAS research at Bennington College, other institutions
Bennington College faculty and students have been at the forefront of PFAS research since the chemicals were found locally.
Garlic Town USA returns for 31st anniversary with expanded entertainment, chef demonstrations and family fun
BENNINGTON — Garlic Town USA, Southern Vermont's signature Labor Day weekend festival, will return to downtown Bennington on Saturday, Sept. 5, celebrating its 31st anniversary with new vendors, expanded programming,
Bennington Health Center to offer immediate care appointments on weekdays
The Bennington Health Center will offer immediate care appointments to treat a variety of health-related concerns such as colds, earaches, abdominal pain and minor cuts and sprains.
Remote Area Medical brings free health clinic to Bennington
Remote Area Medical is holding a free two-day dental and vision clinic at Mount Anthony Union Middle School in Bennington — the organization’s fourth visit to the area.
That's 'Entertainment!': Q and A with Jon King of Gang of Four
Gang of Four stormed out of Leeds, England in 1976, rewiring punk rock with a Molotov cocktail of jagged guitar, danceable rhythms, and intellectual political critique. The group remains one
Bennington police investigate armed robbery of Park Street business
BENNINGTON — On Sunday at about 10:45 a.m., the Bennington Police Department responded to Beshara’s 99 Cents & Up, at 119 Park St., following a report of an armed robbery.
Integrated Crisis Stabilization Services supports individuals experiencing substance use and mental health crises at United Counseling Service’s Battelle House in Bennington, VT
As part of a State of Vermont request, United Counseling Service (UCS) created an Integrated Crisis Stabilization Program (ICSS) this year to expand its services for individuals experiencing mental health and substance use crises in Bennington County. ICSS provides therapeutic groups, skill-building, and a safe place to recover.