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. The seals are a depleted species and are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

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 by phone in the court proceeding.

A call to his home on St. Paul Island was not immediately returned.

According to federal prosecutors, Zacharof, an Alaska Native, illegally sold more than 100 seal penises two years ago to a Korean gift shop in Anchorage, where they were to be resold for about $100 apiece in the Chinese traditional-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 investigation started in Massachusetts in 2004 and 2005 when bear gall bladders and seal oosiks were discovered in a Boston suburb. The sales were traced back to the Korean gift shop in Anchorage. From there, the parts were traced back to Zacharof, Steward said.
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Steward said the gift shop also faces prosecution.

The parts were obtained from a seal hunt that Zacharof headed, Steward said.

Kevin Heck, assistant special agent in charge of fisheries enforcement for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Anchorage, said the agency was surprised to discover the scope of the market in seal oosiks.

“Going from St. Paul through Anchorage and being shipped back to the East Coast and probably other places is a pretty serious situation and one we wanted to get a hand on right away,” Heck said.

These types of cases are difficult to prosecute for a variety of reasons, Heck said.