Ted Nugent plea deal on illegal Bear killing

Talk about a rebel. A nonconformist. A man who marches to the beat of his own drum.

Ted Nugent, who was in hot water last week with the Secret Service for making alleged threats against President Obama's life, has fessed up to doing naughty things of a different nature: Illegally killing a bear on his TV show.

The Anchorage Daily News in Alaska reports that The Motor City Madman has signed a plea deal with prosecutors in which he admits that in May 2009, he shot and injured one bear and later shot and days later shot and killed a second black bear in Tongass National Forest. He later the footage on his Spirit of the Wild TV show.

Nugent, 63, broke the law because by injuring one bear, then killing another, he exceeded his bag limit for Game Management Unit 2, the Anchorage newspaper reports. The paper explains that killing the bear and then "transporting the illegal second bear off federal property -- in a boat called the El Dorado –  amounted to a misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act, the law that prohibits the sale and transport of illegally harvested wildlife and plants."

Nugent will pay a $10,000 fine and create a 30- to 60-second public service announcement about responsible hunting to run on his show every other week.

The outdoorsman, hunter and survivalist is also banned from hunting or fishing anywhere in Alaska or on  any U.S. Forest Service land nationwide for one year.

Nugent's lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, says Nugent could not find a blood trail for the first bear, and concluded that it had not been injured and decided not to follow it.

Ross also says the federal regulation is a ridiculous infringement on individual rights.

"They've got apparently some crazy law in Southeast that says if you even touch an animal with an arrow, it becomes your animal," Ross tells the Anchorage Daily News. "He looked to see if he had hit it and didn't believe that he'd hit it fatally."

Ross says Nugent, who has been hunting in that area for decades, was unaware of the law which was passed five years ago.

Last week, the Secret Service said they were investigating Nugent after comments he made at an NRA convention which seemed to suggest he might murder Barack Obama if the president was re-elected in November. Nugent called the Obama administration "vile, evil" and "anti-American."

Nugent met with two Secret Service agents on Thursday and amicably settled the matter. He explained he meant no physical harm toward Obama, but felt strongly he does not deserve reelection.

But that did not stop the U.S. Army base at Fort Knox in Kentucky from canceling Nugent's appearance at a June 23 concert on the base.

Note on video: In the attached video, which was posted on Feb. 18, 2002, Nugent discusses hunting for black bear in Quebec.